Some of us had talked about doing a pantry/freezer clearing challenge in January to help clean stuff out and save a little cash, so I thought I'd create a check-in board to see how things are going and to give some inspiration to those of us trying to use up odds and ends!

We've had a great week on the freezer front. In one freezer I found a small pork shoulder, ground beef, chicken breasts, spicy sausage, and shrimp in the freezer. I also found hamburger buns, a loaf of bread, frozen burritos, and 3 individual portions of Thanksgiving leftovers I had packaged for a rainy day.

I took a gander at what we had in the two areas of the house I keep dry pantry goods and what was hanging out in the crisper and came up with this menu for this week:

- Spicy Jambalaya - used up 1 chicken breast, a handful of shrimp, 2 sausage links, limp celery, an onion, some broken bay leaves, most of our remaining basmati rice, and a can of tomato sauce. Only fresh purchase was a bell pepper.

- Japanese curry with pork - used some pork, some baby carrots, brown rice, and a box of curry mix. Just bought 1 potato for this.

- Indian chicken curry - This will use up the remaining chicken breast, the last of the basmati rice, 1 can of kidney beans, an open bag of frozen peas, a can of coconut milk, and a packet of Indian curry paste.

- Moco Loco - 1 pound of ground beef, 1 packet of brown gravy mix, eggs, and brown rice. Will serve up with some frozen corn on the side.

- Crockpot carnitas - Pork shoulder, a can of salsa, an avocado, bay leaves, and Worchestershire sauce. Just need to buy a package of tortillas for this meal.

- BBQ pulled pork sandwiches - Will remix the carnitas by mixing in some BBQ sauce and serve with pickles and hamburger burns with salad on the side.

- Spicy sausage and shrimp pasta - Remaining 2 hot links and frozen shrimp, open box of pasta, tomato sauce, and the limp kale in the fridge.

For lunch we had dinner leftovers and the Thanksgiving leftovers. I also finished up some leftover soup in the fridge and took some frozen burritos to keep at work in case I get hangry.

For breakfast, we finished up some cereal (down to 2 open boxes!) and are plowing through an older bag of rolled oats for oatmeal. The oatmeal helped clear out an open bag of raisins, a bag of nut topping, some candied walnuts, and currently a bag of dried cherries. DS has been eating silver dollar pancakes and turkey sausage out of the freezer for breakfast.

For snacks, we've been eating up open packages of cookies, pretzels, baby carrots and hummus, and random Christmas sweets leftover.

Today I'm going to dig through my fridge and throw out any expired condiments and old leftovers to clear out more space. I dug through another freezer last night and found some more meat and bacon, so I'll post next week's menu when I get a chance to sit and think it through!

On the grocery shopping front, I had to buy a bunch of extra stuff for DH and DS because they have been sick, but in terms of our actual menu plan, I only needed:

- Carrots
- Potatoes
- Bell pepper
- Tortillas
- Milk
- Fresh fruit