How long can you live on what food you have at home?

If you had to live on what you have in your pantry, fridge and freezer starting right now, how long do you think you could last without having to go shopping? To clarify, "shopping" means heading off to Woolies, Coles, Aldi or your local IGA, grabbing a trolley and going from aisle to aisle and filling the bugger up to the top. My aim, now that I have stocked my pantry and freezer over the last couple of months is to see how long I can manage to feed two adults and 2 dogs with what I have right now plus $21.00 to take care of the essentials.

I belong to a fabulous group called Simple Savings www.simplesavings.com.au which is where I got the $21 challenge idea from. Go and have a look at it for yourself. You will be surprised.

This is one experiment I am going to start this week. The only concessions I will make to this venture is (1) to buy some bread and eggs from the post office. Yes, I know that sounds odd but in this little village where I live the post office has a tiny general store component to it and the post mistress has her own chooks. Fresh bread comes in on a Friday and is available frozen most of the time if you get caught short and (2) some fresh fruit and veg when I go to town on Wednesday to have my tax return done. Otherwise I have worked out that I can mix and match the contents of the fridge, freezer and pantry to create about 50 meals.

So, if I can avoid going "shopping" for the next 28 days, I will be able to save about $1,000.00. Impossible I hear you say but not so. You would be surprised what is lurking in the pantry and what you can do with it to create something delicious. I have a number of things that are getting close to their "best before" dates so they are on the top of the list to be used first.

Given my penchant for Chinese cuisine, for the first time in my life I am going to make sweet and sour pork at some stage this week. I have all the ingredients to make it from scratch including the sauce. It won't be that bright red colour though but it will taste great. Nothing like a little confidence in your own abilities eh?

The only difficulty I can forsee is possibly that the dogs will need something apart from a tin of meat and some dry food, once the 6 bones that are in the freezer have gone. However I am sure that I can use some of the $21 to overcome this.

So that is my plan. Starting now. In fact, I think it is time for another cup of coffee and to decide what, from the vast array of yummy items I have accumulated, I will make for our main meal today. Hmmmm.... I think it will have to be spinach and ricotta canelloni made with mountain bread. Delish!