Kitchen adventures

So it's the beginning of a new month but we are still going with the pantry challenge. We have not bought any groceries except farmer's market produce and items for once a month cooking which I will touch on later. The pantry challenge is proving itself very interesting, especially as items whittle down. However, I am so happy we are doing this because I would have never thought about making items I have due to random ingredients we have left. Yesterday I made coconut shrimp and hand made cole slaw. I have also been very happy with rutabaga au gratin and okre patties.
Today I tried out once a month cooking for the first time. I bought a cookbook at a garage sale that I am following. It is pretty helpful. I did find that I misread two ingredients (I got tomato sauce rather than crushed tomatoes and was short once box of stuffing but otherwise it went pretty well. I got through the all the chicken entrees in about an hour with 1 hour of prep time and 1 hour of clean up. I am going to do the beef and vegetarian dishes tomorrow. All in all I think it will take 5 hours total. I hope to do it with a group in the church basement once a month. I need more large pots if I want to do it at home and not wash dishes between. Just doing a 2 week plan is good for our family of 3. All entrees could feed 5. Besides these frozen meals, we will continue with the pantry challenge until we are down to scooping tablespoons of cornstarch in each others mouth. Just kidding.