Livin off frig finds...

sorry if this post bores you, but I'm proud of myself here and wanted to toot my own horn.

While we were at BIL's house in Michigan most of our meals were provided by the rest of the family.  They have this agreement that BIL provides MIL's care and they (both SIL's and their families) stop by with meals to take care of him.  It works out really well, but there were a few nights where I did have to come up with something for dinner.  And it seemed that on those nights the family stopped by too (they were figuring on having to go back to get something and surprised that I had already made something).  So this is kind of where my "livin off frig finds" story begins.

When we got there I noticed that my one SIL doesn't really keep track of what foods are already at BIL's house.  She just comes up with a menu and brings over the items she needs to make it.  That means that BIL's pantry is pretty well overstocked with some foods that won't get eaten.

So the first night I found a package of chicken in the frig and baked it up with some rice and veggies.  SIL came over that night and was surprised that it tasted so good for being so simple.  I guess they're into really doing up chicken.  Oh well, everyone liked it.

A few nights later I decided after finding 4 boxes of Taco shells in the pantry to make some tacos.  So before heading to the store I dug deeper into the pantry and found taco seasoning and in the frig/freezer I found ground beef, cheese and sour cream.  All I needed from the store was lettuce and tomatoe (I bought some more salsa cuz we like the medium kind.)  I found out that two of the boxes of taco shells had been left open and were brought over from MIL's house...blech!  those went into the trash.  But that still left two boxes that were fine.  I made up some more rice to go with and we all had a great dinner again.

Once we got back home the frig was pretty empty.  That was on purpose so that I didn't come home to a frig full of mold.  I didn't want to go to the grocery store on the weekend because it's a mad house and I don't like shopping with all that stress (I get annoyed by all the folks blocking my way.)  So I had to see what we had here to eat...
For our first dinner I pulled out some spaghetti w/ sauce that I had made a large batch of and froze half of it.  That fed us for two nights.  YAY!  Then I decided that an inventory of what was in the freezer would be a good idea before hitting the grocery store.  In there I found three zip lock bags filled with ham from our Christmas dinner.  In the pantry we still had some potatoes and in the frig was a brick of cheddar cheese.  Ah another dinner!

I peeled and sliced the potatoes, cooked them in salted water and added about a cup & a half of diced ham to heat it through and hopefully give some hammy flavor to the potatoes.  Then I made a white sauce and added cheese to it until it tasted yummy.  I poured the cheese sauce over the potatoes and ham.  Then cooked veggies on the side.  Another two nights worth of dinner and I still don't have to go to the grocery store.

However, I will go to the store today because tomorrow we're going a play and I won't have time.