Do you want to have a clean house and get rid of extra food in your pantry*? Invite friends to stay for the weekend.
We had Jay and his son, Kaden, over last weekend. Hubby has known Jay a year longer than he has known me, so Jay and Kaden are more like family than friends. Because of this, I told him my home is his home, and he could eat whatever he wanted out of my pantry.
Voila!
He opened a bag of oats, so I sent the whole thing home with him. He expressed a like for black olives, so I gave him my last can of those awful things. His son loved the butterscotch bars** I made that used the can of sweetened condensed milk I’d had in my pantry for years. I made a box of pasta salad for dinner (one box down, two to go.)
We had lunch at the lake, so I brought all the snack-like items that had been hanging out in my pantry too long. Slim Jims, almonds, and beef jerky packages all disappeared!
After they left, it took me five minutes to put the house back together and relax, knowing that my overstuffed pantry has a little breathing room.
Who can I invite over next?
*I love having a pantry with empty shelf space, but Hubby abhors a vacuum and buys more food when he sees empty shelves. Our shelves are really deep and can hold a ton of food. (Food I really don’t want to move to Montana.) I stop this from happening by bringing all the food to the front and filling the back with empty boxes. It looks really full, but it isn’t. Sneaky, but effective. (He doesn’t read this, so don’t tell him.)
**I’m not sharing this recipe because the bars weren’t that good and were so sticky at first that I couldn’t even cut them into squares.