This January I decided to do a little experiment.

I had recently reorganized our three freezers (yes, three – one in our kitchen side-by-side fridge/freezer, one small top freezer in our garage fridge/freezer, and a chest freezer in the garage). I put all the frozen veggies, fruit, and sauces in our kitchen freezer, the meats in the small garage freezer, and all the other stuff (frozen potatoes, breads, and desserts) into the chest freezer. And guess what? Every. Freezer. Was. Full.

I decided to impose a challenge upon myself. For the entire month of January, I would cook meals using only what we had on hand. No grocery shopping. I would not only save us some money, but would clean out our overstuffed freezers in the process. But could it be done?

Turns out, it can be done. I got the freezers much emptier and saved a bunch of hard-earned cash. And I discovered one more perk of this experiment: it forced me to get creative in my meal planning. Nothing like using what ya got and boosting your creativity quotient in the process!

Yesterday, it being February 1st, I was delighted to go grocery shopping again! I spent a good hour in the grocery store, and found that during my leave of absence (haha) they’d moved a few things around. I used to know that store like the back of my hand! I guess a lot can change in a month!

Long story short (or short story long?) I ended up with a full cart of grocery goodness. Observe the deliciousness:

The January Challenge was a success! Now time to cook up something yummy.