10-Day Pantry Challenge for Coronavirus Quarantine
Disclaimer: this is not a sponsored post. It’s just one mom’s attempt to stay sane while stuck at home with 7 kids & a pantry full of ingredients that needed to be used anyway. This post contains affiliate links.
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10-Day Pantry Challenge
As of the start of writing this blog post it’s March 16, 2020 and Week 1, Day 1 of the coronavirus quarantine.
We live north of San Diego in Poway, CA & have 7 kids age 5 and under (…a kindergartener Molly, 4-year old quadruplets Charlie, Claire, Henry & Dillon and 2-year old twins Gus & Hannah).
Molly is home from kindergarten, the quads are home from preschool and we are doing our best to practice social distancing without killing each other 😁
While there “is plenty of food in the country” (…at least according to the New York Times yesterday) - I certainly have plenty of food in my house I can use…and need to use.
So, for the next 10 days, we’re doing a 10-Day Pantry Challenge. No going to the store. No buying anything new. Just use what food we have in the house to cook for 9 people for the next 10 days.
My “Rules” for This Pantry Challenge…
There are lots of ways you can do a pantry challenge. Budget bloggers & New Year’s resolutioners all have their own opinions.
Since this whole coronavirus pandemic thing is unchartered territory, I figured I could make up my own 10-Day Pantry Rules, and here’s what I’m aiming to do:
No going to the store for 10 days
I know there are people who NEED to go grocery shopping, but I am not one of them, so I am staying home.
Only use food I already have in my house to cook for the next 10 days
I went to organize my pantry & found 10 things I’ve been meaning to use, but haven’t, so I’m going to work these into the 10-Day Pantry Challenge too
Make 1 new recipe per day from 1 of the 10 sad, old pantry items I identified that need to go!
A lot of you said you’re interested in doing the same…so if you’re doing this challenge or something similar & you’re on Instagram, click on my IG post here & share in comments what your “rules” are:
10 Old Pantry Ingredients I AM Going to Use!!
In case you’re curious, here are the 10 pantry items I found in my pantry preparing for this challenge that I need to use over the next 10 days:
Chia seeds
Panko breadcrumbs
Flaxseed meal
Dried black beans
Tahini
Frozen corn
Sweet potatoes
Coconut aminos
Bulgur
Canned black olives
My goal is to make 1 recipe per day using 1 of these 10 ingredients. Hopefully they’ll be gone by the end of the 10-Day Pantry Challenge…and hopefully this quarantine will end sometime in the near future too! 🙏
Blow-by-Blow of All 10 Days:
I’m writing this blog post in real-time, updating it day-by-day. Below are highlights (…and lowlights I’m sure :) from all 10 days of the 10-Day Pantry Challenge.
If you’re following on Instagram, I’m tracking this challenge on my main page @fourtifiedfam & not my Baby-Led Weaning Page (@babyledweanteam - which is the IG account linked here on my blog, just in case you were getting confused :)
For those of you looking for baby-friendly recipes to do in a similar challenge, I’ll be adapting my main family challenge recipes & updating them here throughout the week, so be sure to check back 😘.
Day 1 - Coconut Aminos
It’s Monday March 16 & day 1 of being at home with our 7 kids. I only had 2.5 gallons of milk in the refrigerator, so I’m trying to conserve & wanted an alternative to cereal for breakfast (…we’ll get to cereal I’m sure, just not on Day 1 :)
Breakfast
Cornbread is one of our go-to bake-ahead breakfast breads & we’re having cornbread for breakfast today. I use Martha Stewart’s Whole Grain Skillet Cornbread recipe - it calls for buttermilk, which I have a fair amount of & want to use up, which is why we’re starting with cornbread.
For this particular cornbread recipe, I modify it by doubling the batch, using half whole wheat & half white flour & then swapping agave syrup for honey.
If you’re cooking for babies, this recipe originally calls for honey. Babies age 1 and under can’t have honey because of the potential for botulism risk.
(…and, if you’re interested in learning more about getting a SAFE start to solid foods using baby-led weaning, check out my FREE online workshop called “BABY-LED WEANING FOR BEGINNERS: How to get your baby to try 100 foods before turning 1 without you having to spoon-feed purees or buy pouches!)
Henry helped me make the cornbread this morning & we opted for muffins vs. two skillets (…I double the batch but I only have 1 cast iron skillet + the kids love anything made individually in a muffin tin :) - so since Henry was up first & that’s what he wanted to help make, the early bird gets the worm!
Lunch
For lunch on Day 1 we are working on using up leftovers.
My husband & I were traveling this weekend & my father-in-law - who is vegan - stayed with the kids. We don’t normally eat vegan, but if you’re watching my kids for a weekend I will make you anything you want!
Here’s a link to the 5 Vegan Freezer Meals IG story & the full blog post with recipes is coming soon, so hang tight!
Dinner
For Day 1 of this 10-Day Pantry Challenge my first ingredient of the 10 to use up was the Coconut Aminos.
I originally bought these coconut aminos for a baby-led weaning project since they’re a little lower in sodium than traditional soy sauce…but to be real, for non-baby cooking I haven’t really been motivated to use in place of soy sauce 🤷♀️…
So I decided to use the coconut aminos to make a stir fry sauce that could also double as a dipping sauce. I found a block of firm tofu in my refrigerator & a package of egg roll wrappers, plus some shredded carrots, romaine lettuce (we didn’t have cabbage) and a little bit of cilantro - so we put it all together and made egg rolls with coconut amino dipping sauce for dinner tonight.
I modified this Coconut Amino Stir Fry Sauce from a Sam the Cooking Guy recipe (original recipe). This recipe is appropriate to use for baby-led weaning as a sauce you might stir-fry tofu or another protein in.
The basic changes to the recipe include substituting coconut aminos for soy sauce, no added salt chicken broth in place of chicken broth, cutting back a little on the sriracha to avoid overly-spicy food for babies and subbing agave syrup in place of refined sugar.
While this sauce is ok for BLW, I would not recommend serving the egg rolls to earlier eaters (6-7 months) as the shredded carrots might not be soft enough and lettuce is not appropriate yet for this age.
Coconut Aminos Stir Fry Sauce Recipe
Ingredients
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tbsp minced ginger
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1/4 cup rice vinegar
1/2 cup coconut aminos
1/2 cup no added salt chicken broth
1 tablespoon sriracha
1/4 cup agave syrup
2 tablespoons cornstarch
Instructions
Add all ingredients in a medium-sized bowl. Use a whisk to combine.
Use the sauce to stir-fry protein; you can also use remaining sauce as a dipping sauce (but ensure sauce has not touched raw meat or poultry beforehand)
Day 2 - St. Patrick’s Day Irish Soda Bread
Day 2 is St. Patrick’s Day and usually my favorite day of the year. A little more tame this year being stuck inside.
Breakfast
We made Irish soda bread for breakfast today. I use Sally’s Baking Addiction’s Grandma’s Irish Soda Bread recipe .
Lunch
Still working through leftovers so lunch was leftover egg rolls from the night before and cut-up cantaloupe
Dinner
My sister had us over for St. Patrick’s Day dinner of corned beef and cabbage. I took her an extra soda bread & the kids had their own St. Patrick’s Day parade, which was less lively than the one we are used to attending every year here in San Diego 😢
Day 3 - Tahini
Breakfast
We go through about 50-60 bananas a week at our house. They usually all get eaten but I had 3 really ripe bananas that I worked into banana pancakes 👍 This is the dry pancake + waffle batter mix I use & a link to my blog post about why I don’t buy commercial pancake mix anymore:
Lunch
We made sandwiches for lunch with some deli meat I had leftover from a work project last week. Oranges from the tree and using up the last gallon of milk we had when we started this pantry challenge.
Dinner
For Day 4 dinner we decided to fry a turkey. My neighbor had given it to us a few weeks ago when she was cleaning out her freezer, so I defrosted it a few days ago to use one night this week.
The pantry item I was using up today is tahini. I use tahini as a low sodium way to introduce babies to sesame. Even though sesame is not one of the “Big 8” allergenic foods (the 8 foods that account for 90% of food allergy…) sesame allergy is on the rise.
We made a white bean hummus with tahini and coriander (this recipe from NYT cooking). I wouldn’t include the miso and salt if making for babies, but it was a pretty good recipe & a double batch used up one half cup of tahini from the pantry 🙌
Day 4 - Frozen Corn
Kind of losing track of the days here, just know that we are running low on produce. This was the day that our California governor Gavin Newsom issued his stay-at-home order to all Californians.
We are already staying at home, but it did add a little more gravity to the situation to realize this is now an “order” 😬
I got a few days behind in posting so I can’t recall what we had for breakfast or lunch; but I assure you, it was nothing exotic.
Dinner
For dinner today the 10 Day Pantry Challenge item I used up was a massive 5 pound bag of frozen corn.
I made Mark Bittman’s Basic Corn Chowder Recipe from NYT Cooking. It was nothing to write home about, exactly what the recipe says - BASIC - but still an easy recipe for a weeknight dinner & one that the kids enjoyed helping to prepare.
Then I threw them all in the bath & poured myself a massive glass of wine to get through to bedtime!
Day 5 - Bulgur, Panko & Chia Seeds
Friday is usually my favorite day of the week because I don’t work and spend the day with my kids.
This particular Friday I did have to work preparing for and hosting a livestream with Dr. Ron Sunog to talk about Safe Baby-Feeding Strategies During COVID-19 (livestream post & episode link).
Breakfast
My aunt did run me over 2 gallons of milk (…at the outset of the challenge I said I wouldn’t go to the grocery store or buy any food, but I did grant myself some grace to restock on important beverages, you know, like milk, wine & diet Coke 😇)
We had oatmeal for breakfast. No fresh fruit but the kids all had raisins and cinnamon which are their favorite additions to otherwise kind of boring oatmeal.
Lunch
I took everyone to a nearby park for some fresh air and to run around at least 6 feet away from other people. There weren’t many people out but it was a beautiful day and we got some much needed time out of the house.
For lunch I had 1 loaf of bread going into this 10-day challenge, so I defrosted that and made grilled cheese sandwiches. Paired that with more orange slices from our tree and salvaged some dried chickpea snacks from the pantry to go along with the meal.
Dinner
Spent Friday night cleaning out more of the pantry on my poor children 😁
The pantry item I was using up was a big bag of bulgur. I had a wilting bunch of Swiss chard in the fridge too, so I put together some bulgur-chard fritters that I fried on the stovetop.
I made the bulgur in the InstantPot under low pressure (only because I had no clean pots to do it on the stovetop).
For fritters I usually use 1-2 eggs + dried grain + chopped vegetable. The mixture was a little too moist so I added extra panko - another pantry item to dry things out before frying.
We had the bulgur/chard fritters paired with some more of that frozen corn and cut-up slices of bratwurst my husband had grilled earlier in the week.
I also made half of the fritter batch vegan by subbing out egg for a combination of chia seed + water.
For every 1 egg you would you use you can substitute 3 tablespoons of water + 1 tablespoon of chia seed. Mix the water and chia seed and let sit for 15 minutes. They were pretty good and you couldn’t tell the difference tastes or texture-wise much between the 2 batches.
Day 6 - Mac & Cheese Meltdown
Day 6 was Saturday and was a bit of a sh*tshow. I had fallen behind in my helping my kindergartener with her schoolwork, so we skipped Friday and had to catch up on Saturday.
My aunt came to watch a few of the other kids so we could do school-work. They went on a bike ride, had an accident, got a little bruised up & so we cancelled making anything remotely healthy for lunch & ate mac & cheese out of a box instead.
There are a few “emergency foods” I always have on hand. I absolutely LOVE boxed mac & cheese - but I save it for emergencies, and today was definitely one of those days!
Rounded it out by going for a walk (not another bike ride :) and can’t even remember what we ate for dinner that night.
Day 7 - We Just Ordered Pizza…
Sunday March 22, 2020 and we are on Day 7 of no going grocery shopping.
Breakfast
My husband was kind enough to let me sleep in and he made the kids chocolate-chip pancakes. Big Charlie is always more generous than me regarding the chocolate chip to pancake ratio, but in these unusual times I’m picking my battles and they’re NOT about chocolate chips!
Lunch
My sister and her husband and kids came over for lunch after a hike. We are sharing child-care and homeschool responsibilities during the quarantine, but we also commiserate on the weekend since there’s nobody else to hang out with.
We made a big batch of spaghetti with meat sauce for everyone for lunch…which - not surprisingly - I paired with more corn…and maybe adult beverages all around for the bigger people 🥂
Dinner
Had 1 too many adult beverages and lost all motivation to cook dinner.
To celebrate 7 days of being stuck with 7 kids, I made the executive decision to order pizza for everyone.
I’m sure in some people’s pantry challenge, this would be considered cheating 😉 …but to me it was an excellent way to round out the weekend.
My husband finished the night off by promising the kids they could roast marshmallows but then not being able to fix the fire pit. So he took the year old marshmallows from the pantry and cooked them on a fork over the stovetop inside 🤷♂️
Day 8 - Sweet Potatoes
Heading into the homestretch & second week of the 10-day pantry challenge here.
Breakfast
Nothing fancy, just cereal with the very small amount of milk we have left over!
Lunch
Found some spinach & mushrooms to put in quesadillas for the kids
Dinner
Today’s pantry item we are using up are some really old sweet potatoes. One of our family’s favorite weeknight meals is Sweet Potato Chickpea Curry. This is the recipe we use & like all good vegan meals, it uses a TON of coconut milk but is so delicious & really easy to make!
Day 9 - Flaxseed Meal
It’s Day 9 of not going to the store & there are a few pantry items left to use up. Today’s challenge was a big bag of flaxseed meal, which I can’t even remember what I bought it for now - it’s been in my pantry for so long!
I get a lot of my baking flours & ingredients from Bob’s Red Mill - and their website is also a really great recipe resource for what to make with all of these unusual ingredients.
Breakfast
For the flaxseed meal we made the Bob’s Red Mill Bran Flax Muffin recipe . I didn’t have oat bran, but did find wheat bran in my pantry so I substituted that. This recipe has 1 cup of brown sugar - which is certainly a lot, but I feel like the flaxseed meal & wheat bran balanced it out 😁
…also after 9 days of not going to the store or buying any new food items, I was pretty impressed we still had almost all of the ingredients in this recipe (which by the way were a big hit because they basically taste like carrot cake!)
For lunch we had sandwiches on the final package of Hawaiian rolls from the freezer with some overly ripe banana slices.
And for dinner we accepted an invite to my sister’s house. That was probably also technically cheating, but she offered & we were dying to get out of the house! I had nothing left to contribute except a head of cabbage, which we made into a coleslaw to go along with burgers she had prepared ahead of time.
Day 10 - Dried Black Beans
It’s the last day of the 10-day challenge! The hardest part is having no fresh fruit & vegetables and then also running out of milk.
Breakfast
But we have some eggs left so for breakfast we had egg quesadillas (I added a lot of salsa to hopefully approximate a serving of vegetables!)
Lunch
For lunch today we’re working down some leftovers and let the kids pick which leftover dinner from the last few days they wanted for their lunch.
Dinner
The pantry item to use up today is a 2-pound bag of dried black beans. We eat a lot of chili in our house, but not too much black bean chili, which is what I went for tonight.
I made the black beans in the pressure cooker & then once they were cooked worked them into a Black Bean soup recipe.
This Black Bean soup recipe from Food Network is usually one of my favorites. But it calls for a pound of bacon (which I don’t have any of 10 days into no shopping) and ketchup - which we ran out of this week - so it could have been better, but it did the trick.
We had the black bean soup served over some leftover rice, bulgur or quinoa (I let the kids pick which one they wanted :)
Would I Do a 10-Day Pantry Challenge Again?
Oh my gosh, that was a long 10 days!
It was quite a challenge NOT going to the grocery store & I can say the hardest part was running out of produce and milk.
It did feel good to whittle down some of the pantry stash - and I actually found myself LIKING the challenge of looking for recipes based on ingredients I already had.
I realized we go through a LOT of buttermilk (waffles, pancakes, cornbread)…but that cooking from your pantry stash can be pretty affordable.
We’re lucky to have a deep freeze in our garage & I stock up on protein when it’s on sale.
Ironically, now that the 10-day pantry challenge is over, I don’t even want to go to the grocery store because we’re in the midst of the coronavirus quarantine, and there’s very little food there anyway!
Yes, I would do a 10-day pantry challenge again. But I’m also ready for things to get back to normal & to resume my regular weekly online grocery delivery full of fresh produce, bread & dairy products!
