Empty The Freezer Challenge {Day 1}

Day 1 started out with much less of a bang than I had hoped.

Instead of inventorying my freezer, cooking, and generally getting off to a good start, my internet was down for a good portion of the day, the kiddo and I were both sick, and we really didn’t make it very far off the couch, so no much cooking at all was involved.

Before I tell you how the day went down, you should probably know what it is that I’m doing:

The “Empty The Freezer Challenge”

What is it? The Empty The Freezer Challenge is my way of encouraging you to not only slow down this season, but save money and get creative! I would guess that most of you are like us: you have tons of food in your freezer which may or may not be edible, that you’ve either forgotten or aren’t super motivated to eat.

They  may require some creative meal preparation or presentation, but they’re still good to eat!

Starting December 1st, I’ll by on a mission to use up everything in my freezer – that is still safe to eat.  I don’t want to buy anything from the grocery store except for milk.  We get eggs from friends who have chickens, so don’t think we’re avoiding using eggs – we’re not.

We may or may not get through all of the food in our THREE freezers, but we’re going to try! Then, on December 25th when we have family over I’ll finally be able to cook with new food from the grocery store!

What Will The Challenge Accomplish?

The Empty The Freezer Challenge have several purposes:

• It will encourage you to spend very little/no money on groceries during most of the month of December – a no-spend month of sorts, but without calling it that.

 

• It will get tons of food our of your freezer!

 

 

• And it will give you a blank slate for the new year – at least as far as your fridge/freezer are concerned

 

 

• As a bonus, your family will probably complain a lot less in 2016 when you make a creative or inexpensive meal!

 

 

      Your goals for completing the Empty The Freezer Challenge may be different, but this should give you some motivation to at least consider it! I took my “do not get off the coach” mentality so much to heart that this is what our meals looks like yesterday: Breakfast: Protein Shake, Coffee, and Tea for me, Instant Oatmeal for the hubs, and Frozen Waffle sticks and syrup for the kiddo.  All were things we had on hand, so that was good. Lunch: I did not eat lunch, but instead had some tea with honey and another protein shake.  I didn’t pack the hubs a lunch, but one of his co-workers owed him lunch so he got lunch out for free…kind of.  And the kiddo had frozen chicken fries and milk.  Nothing glamorous, but I still wasn’t feeling well. Dinner: The tea at lunch must have helped because at about 5:30 I managed to crawl out from underneath my blanket and make some simple leftover turkey sandwiches which I warmed in the oven to make them seem a little more glamorous than they were.  They consisted of leftover rolls, a bit of cheese, and sliced turkey breast, all of which was left over from Thanksgiving.  Because I do Trim Healthy Mama and couldn’t have cheese and bread at the same time, I dug out the last little bit of cranberry sauce and dipped my plain turkey sandwich in it.  It was actually really good! All of that time on the coach did yield something cool for ya’ll though….I realized that I needed a freezer/pantry inventory sheet, so I created one, and you can download it here for free! Hopefully tomorrow we’ll all be feeling much better and I’ll actually get to delve into the freezer, pantry, and actually do some creative cooking!

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Gretchen