Somehow we're only about two months out from our move really taking control of everything. I decided it's probably a good time to approach the problem of utilizing our excess so as not to waste anything too devastating on our way out.
My pantry is horrible. It's just an oversized cabinet and I've always had a larger, walk-in style food storage area in the past. This has been a tricky adjustment for me. I tend to get caught up cooking and make a total disaster out of the thing because I can't ever find what I need. And then because it's a disaster, I just can't find anything at all. So I buy more than I need to - at one point I had four bottles of soy sauce and two jars of mayonnaise. Excessive. I still have issues like this from time to time. Today I went through it for what seems like the millionth time and got rid of everything expiring in the next month, everything that had been opened for longer than 3 days (I'm a bug-o-phobe and living in a high-rise tower where your neighbors and their filth are all always within arms reach... uhh, well, it just freaks me out.), and organized and itemized the rest. Yes. I made a list of the contents of my pantry. I am THAT weird. I have two and a half pages worth of pantry items to use up in the next two months. I had thought originally that I'd share the list and see if maybe anybody would have suggestions on good recipes that would utilize these things, but really, it's a VERY long list. Like, obnoxious. I'm a little bit embarrassed.
And then there's my freezer. Which I discovered today has entirely too much junk in it, too. Aside from my faithful tub of vanilla ice cream (we have a love/hate relationship - love having it around, hate how much space it takes up in my pathetic freezer), I have three packages of pork chops, two pounds of ground turkey, a pound of ground beef, and at least three bags of frozen chicken (breasts and thighs). Oh, and then I have some frozen tilapia, salmon, and shrimp. And a pound of sweet Italian sausage. What the heck is my problem?? I can't ever come up with a decent plan for dinner, but how is that possible with all this food staring me down each time I open up any of the doors in my kitchen??
So, I'm resolving that this food has got to GO. I refuse to make an international move and leave behind THAT much stuff. It just seems so wrong. Plus, how is it possible that I keep complaining about being broke when I really could probably manage to get by without groceries for a month?! There really must be something wrong with me!
I got rid of a whole garbage bag full of pantry items, repackaged a bunch of baking supplies (mostly baking chips and nuts), and I've got my faithful list glaring at me accusingly. I'm ready. Bring it on! When we moved to Okinawa we only had about 30 days advanced notice, so we wound up wasting a LOT of household goods. This time around I at least feel like I should be able to avoid that.
That's what I've been up to.
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