Pantry crockpot chili and fried polenta

Still eating out of the pantry and freezer around here. Tonight, dinner was crockpot chili and fried polenta. Before weight watchers I always served chili with a side of cornbread and have been looking for a good substitution. I made a quick polenta (3 cups water, 1 cup corn meal) and put it in a springform pan. After 45 minutes or so in the freezer, I cut it in to wedges and crisped it on the griddle. It was an ok cornbread substitution, but not nearly as good as plain old, hot, buttered cornbread. *sigh*

Tomorrow we have something to do during the day, so today I pulled some chicken thighs from the freezer. I will probably just roast or BBQ them and serve with corn on the cob and green beans.

Thursday, I will mix the leftover chili with cooked brown rice, maybe a can of diced tomatoes, some frozen corn and whatever else sounds good at the time, bake it and call it dinner.

You may be wondering why we are eating out of the pantry/freezer so much lately. Honestly, it is because we were getting to relaxed about food. It is sad when you have a freezer and pantry full of food and people complain that there is nothing to eat - or worse, you run to the store because there is "nothing to eat." I was dropping the ball about leftovers, too. There is not much that pisses me off more than throwing food away, and it was happening way too often for my liking. In my house, if leftovers are in the refrigerator for more than a day or two, they get pushed to the back and forgotten about until you are searching for the source of that funky smell, or run out of room.

Deciding what to make for dinner based on the leftovers you have is freeing, in a way. It gets you out of the meat and 2 veg rut, for one thing. When we are at the top of our leftover game, it is not uncommon to see 2 kinds of meat and 4 vegetables on the table.

If we are lucky enough to get a cow, the earliest it will be available is late spring, and eating from the pantry and freezer means that eventually you run out of food. We are getting pretty low, so I think maybe this weekend I do some shopping. Maybe...

Tomorrow we are heading to the park with picnic lunch in hand. Instead of running to the store, I made my friend Dana's Tuna Pasta Salad. You really can't get much cheaper than canned tuna and pasta - even gluten free pasta! We will have some apples and maybe some air popped popcorn as well.