Pantry Challenge

One of my favorite food blogs, The Nourished Kitchen, is hosting a Pantry Challenge for the month of December and I'm going to participate. Our pantry, freezer, and refrigerator are all well-stocked now and copy of the out-of-print Fancy Pantry arrived in the mail yesterday. I am set!

To prepare for the challenge, I need do a more complete inventory than the one I did for a recent post, then I'll need to store up on few things before the end of November. Off the top of head, I know I need to stock up on

• fresh cranberries, apples, pears, pomegranates, chestnuts, russet and fingerling potatoes
  
• Rapadura and organic cane sugar, organic milk powder, chocolate chips, Celtic sea salt
  
• white whole wheat flour, whole wheat pastry flour, white bread flour, maybe white pastry flour
  

Also off the top of my head, my clean out goals for the month include

• make applesauce with half bushel of apples on the front stoop
  
• making desserts, sauce, chutneys, or jams with fruit that is in the freezer
• use up frozen soups and stocks
• render frozen leaf lard
• make beef stock with frozen bones
• make hot cocoa mix with cocoa in freezer

The difficulties I foresee are keeping our food budget to $30 per week given that we spend $40 per month just on raw milk. With our chickens on a laying holiday, I'm also spending about $28 per month on eggs--maybe less. That leaves about $13 per week for fresh vegetables, but do think we can manage on that as most of what we buy this time of year, kale, chard, cabbage, cauliflower, and broccoli, are relatively inexpensive.

So, we're on for the challenge. How about you?