First of all, I pro’lly need to get down to the business of admitting I have a problem.

A condiment problem.

I love them. I love them if they’re artisan. I love them if they’re hot. I love them if they’re salsa, jammy…I have shelves of them both chilled and not.

Did I just make a rhyme? Sigh…Anyway. I also have found myself with a plethora of mustards and hot sauces and syrups among other things and it’s getting pretty ridiculous. I do have 2 refrigerators. Blessedly the 2nd one is just filled with drinks like milk, soda, tonic water, beer. But I recently decided I needed to intervene myself. So I went over to Jen’s Balancing Beauty and Bedlam and she does this Pantry Challenge and she uses up all her ingredients on meals and they don’t shop for anything unless it’s absolutely necessary (think butter, milk, some produce). 

But as you can see I have another problem. A too much stuff problem. Just shelves crammed with all the things. And it started out so neatly (sorry, no photo for proof). But let’s back up a second.

We sold our house with the 2 (yes TWO!!) pantries because I turned a utility closet under my stairs into a pantry just so my crock pot and canisters and baking ingredients could have a place to be. I don’t like so much on my counters. Then there was another “cooking” pantry with spices and pasta, cereal, snacks, etc. Stocked full those two pantries were. Because I like condiments (and anything else the store sells).

Went from two pantries to one measly pantry in the house that we rent while we build THE house with the pantry (YOU SHOULD SEE MY FUTURE PANTRY–it’s sexy). So it’s just spilling over…see? It’s pretty bad over the last few weeks since summer break. That row with the canisters and the ones above it looked like Pinterest, man.

Before

So I decided that it’s time. I hate to waste…not about to throw stuff out unless it’s expired (and sometimes not even then) so I’m asking you to join me in this great pantry raid. Won’t it be fun?  I need you to help me do this, foodies. I need your ideas. I’ll share mine.

To start off last night, I used frozen chicken tenders and used some Texas Pete Buffalo Wing sauce plus some Texas Pete Cha! and BBQ sauce for half of them. The other half got some Trader Joe’s Thai Chili sauce and some soy sauce. Used up some leftover pimento cheese grits and some salad and the last bit of Kitchen Roselli Italian Island dressing. And I must say it did feel good getting rid of the…the chicken and grits. Ugh! See, I still have lots of sauce left as I didn’t use up all the sauce. Not that I worry about sriracha and bbq sauce…they’re kind of staples.

So one of the brave things I want to do is a suggestion Mr. foodie has and that’s do a mystery grab for the marinade or sauce for the proteins. Maybe it’ll be tasty to grab dijon and add it to blueberry preserves. We shall see! I mean, this is what the fridge and freezer looks like and it makes me sad.

Sad because there’s apparent abundance here. And I really dislike cooking in this rental because it’s so small and not what I’m used to. So we do eat out a bit more here. But there are people hungry and we just let food in our pantry just sit there. Like, I don’t eat enough sandwiches for all the mustard. If mr. foodie and I get back into the habit of eating smoked chicken sausages then we’d be cleaning this thing out properly. We really don’t eat enough carbs to enjoy all the pasta and rice. So I think a donation to a food pantry is definitely in order. And I’m not a coupon-er. At all. I guess it could be worse.

Are you with me? Follow me on Instagram /@triadfoodies and Facebook and we’ll do this together. Show me your purge. If you want to cook what’s on your shelves, let’s get to it! Don’t shop unless you absolutely have to. I’m going to try to bake something from those mixes every week, maybe twice a week. What did you do with the frozen rotisserie chicken and black beans? What about your mustards? Share away. Use the tag #pantryraid and tag @triadfoodies and we can eliminate some excess together.

Good luck and a few prayers for guidance would be nice 🙂