Cooking from your pantry......

I mentioned yesterday how I am participating in a challenge where you try not to buy anything food items for the month of January by just using up what you have on hand in the house?  Well I just wanted to clarify something with you.  You tailor this challenge to suit yourself; for example, if you eat lots of fresh veggies and fruits, then you will be buying fresh veggies and fruits each week like normal.  The same with dairy products, I know for example, I will be buying my bag of milk once a week, along with dh's banana's.  I just want to cut down on buying other stuff.  Now that being said if there is a good sale on something, I will be stocking up on it like normal.  I would just like to see how little I can spend this month.

Now to help you out, here are a few sites which can help you find a recipe with what you have on hand.
For example,

canned tuna

canned chick peas

 cream cheese

When you go to Supercook you can pop in what ingredients you have on hand and it will come up with a list of recipes that you can make using these ingredients.

Another great one is Cookin With Google, same thing, just list your ingredient(s) and they will list a whole slew of recipes links for you.

All Recipe Ingredient Search is a interesting site, as you can also exclude ingredients, which in my case would be celery, as you all know I hate that!!!

This is a super site Big Oven has a leftover wizard function where you list what ingredients you have and up pops recipe suggestions.

Cooking By Numbers I find doesn't give you the variety like the other sites do, but its more interactive and fun to use, I like ticking boxes and seeing what pops up...LOL

Mealopedia isn't as good as other sites, but still worth a mention, it doesn't have the same flexibilty as the other sites, but still has some good recipes on it.

I know I average around $300 to $400 a month on my grocery budget, that includes all cleaning stuff, all paper items, and all toiletries.  I would so love to try and spend only $100 for the month of January. 

I hope this sort of explains things more.  Also if you have any good sites that are worth a mention let me know and I'll include them in this post.  Also please feel free to blog about this challenge on your blog, as the more that join in, the more money everyone will save!!

Now off to do an inventory of what I have in my freezer and pantry!!

Tomorrow, I am going to talk about the Daily Savings Plan for 2010.  For those of you who have been around a while its a refresher, and for those newbies, its a simple neat idea on how to save money on a daily basis.........