The Monthly Project: Pantry Purge!

We’re BAAA-ACK! Do you remember The Monday Project? We’ll, we’re mixing it up all up in here as the MONTHLY Project instead. On the first of each month, we’re going to have a new project, something fun for you to work on each month that will help you become well-rounded in your fitnesses.

A while back we had these projects on each Monday. We made walls of motivations, we wrote letters to ourselves, we did some mental spring cleanings, etc etc. Now, we’ll keep doing all these fun things but on a monthly basis instead!

And I’m excited about this month’s project!

This month we’re calling “PANTRY RAID!” (You thought I said “Panty Raid!” didn’t you? Potty mind.) We’re doing a big ol’ fashioned Pantry Purge (or Pantry Raid, whatever you wanna call it.) And this is how.

We challenge you to get rid of any crap food. Then, we challenge you to get creative with what you have left. And DOCUMENT IT! Now, what I mean is, you know all those bags of frozen broccoli that have been sitting there trying to get freezer burn on you? USE THEM! And actually TRY to cook with what you have without buying a whole lot other than what you have already. Go for as long as you can and literally try to use everything you have and work your way into a clean pantry and fridge. You know how you buy all those fruits and veggies and bags of salad with the best of intentions and then you end up throwing away all those fruits and veggies and bags of salad because they’re all wilted and moldy at the bottom of your cripser because you failed to eat them? WELL DON’T DO THAT NO MORE! This is your month to NOT do that! (Oh wait, that’s just me? This is going to be a great month for me! I am the Queen of Wasting Food!)

Oh, and you know how you have 1/2 boxes of Cheerios left in the pantry so you buy another whole nother box (or two if they’re on BOGO) because you think you’ve got none left, and then you end up with 2 (or three) half-empty boxes of Cheerios? And then you know how you buy all those canned veggies but they sit in the back of the pantry as you buy more canned veggies and hide the other ones? (This is all just me, isn’t it. Hope not.)

My pantry and fridge is full of stuff I can use but don’t! I keep buying other stuff and not using the stuff I have! I don’t want to do that anymore! I am wasting money, wasting food, and cluttering it all up. And I want a clean house! So this is a great two-fer project.

How do you take part, you ask? This could get really superfun. You can take pictures of the big crap-food purge and the garbage bags full of Oreos! You can take pictures of you cleaning your pantry, fridge and cupboards. Blog about it! Blog about the recipes you’ve created by using what you have! Take a before picture of your full pantry and then at the end of the month, take an after picture of your clean pantry! This can be an opportunity for you to clean house as well as find new ways to incorporate the healthy stuff you’ve got sitting right there in front of you. Make kid snacks, make dinners, make wraps with all those goodies. Maybe you’ll pick up a couple of healthy habits along the way!

Here’s a nice little tidbit too! Did you know that Weight Watchers has a nifty little section called “Use What’s In the Fridge,” where you can plug in some ingredients and it will pull up some recipes for you? That’s pretty cool! So if you’re a member of Weight Watchers, that’s pretty useful, especially for this challenge!

And we have created a forum for this project at the ‘Hood, so you can share all your findings on the ‘Hood too! In fact, we’ll have a forum for each project from here on out so you can keep track of everything we’re doing.

So won’t you join us? We’ll check in with you weekly to see what you’ve been up to and you can leave your link to any posts so we can all check it out and learn from your brilliance! Can’t wait to see what you’ve done!! Happy Pantry Raiding!

Tags: featured, Monthly Project, pantry purge

Category: Announcement, Christie O., MIND IT, The Monday Project