If you are military, you move. And if you move, you have to clean out your fridge, freezer, and hopefully pantry before you go. Sometimes this results in some pretty interesting meals! Just the other night, I had a tube/chub/roll* of sausage that required cooking. I had no idea what to make and honestly, one thingie of sausage means it needs to be only a small part of the recipe. Without any specific plan, I crumbled and fried it, then started opening cans and dumping them in. It was awesome! I wish had written it down, but it was basically sausage, black beans and navy beans, diced tomato, basil and a little chicken broth. We ate it over rice but I think it would be good over anything.
As my family sits at three weeks until packout, I am furiously inventorying foodstuffs and making creative menus. No more brown rice or anything that requires cayenne pepper here - I'm not buying it! Though apparently, there will be lots of baked goods as we have pumpkin and flour and baking chocolate galore. I do know a few tricks for using some items, like soups and stews, or jambalaya. I'm pretty sure you can put almost anything in jambalaya. However, the thought of living on soups, during June, in southern Italy, doesn't really appeal to me.
Anyway, I was wondering if any of you have great ideas for using up leftovers or odd ingredients that you don't want to throw away. Also, if you have any great ways to plan so that you run out of food at the same time you run out of days, I'm sure that lots of readers would like to hear your wisdom.
I just run off to eat my tomato paste and graham cracker sandwich. (Joke! Yuck.)
