Downsizing...

I am a total couponer. Not so much now, but in the past I have collected quite a “hoard”. When the topic of moving came up, my first thought was…oh my gosh, we’re going to have to move everything…including the hoard. While our pantry/linen closets house nowhere near the amount of backup supplies that you see on “Extreme couponing”, we still have a decent supply. While it’s somewhat comforting to know that if we moved everything, we wouldn’t have to worry about grocery shopping for a while, the moving part is pretty daunting. So I had to make a decision…we had to downsize. Over the next few weeks, I’m committing myself to using as much of our pantry backstock as I possibly can. I’m going to research, get a little creative, and be quite adventurous in order to use up food that we otherwise would probably never eat (let’s be honest here).

I had to admit, this is a double winner…not only will we be decreasing the amount of crap we have to move…but we’ll be saving money by not going out to eat. Hooray! Right now, every dollar counts.

So tonight I began this mission with chicken quesadillas. I had a package of tortillas that were teetering on the edge of stale…and tons of frozen Costco chicken. I found hundreds of recipes online…but when I ventured into the pantry, I discovered we were totally out of black beans…I hate it when that happens. Solution?? Progresso’s southwestern chicken soup. I’ll be honest, I hated this soup as a soup. It was thin and blah…but it served its purpose tonight.

First, I threw 4 frozen chicken tenderloins (if you haven’t tried costco’s frozen chicken tenderloins…run to Costco, like right now, and get a bag… they are worth every drime) in a skillet and sprinkled them with fajita seasoning. Once they were browned on both sides, I poured the soup over top and simmered it, stirring almost constantly, until there was very little liquid left. The southwestern chicken soup worked great for quesadillas because it’s literally every ingredient you would need…chicken, rice, black beans…you get the picture. I guess if you were out of chicken, you could use just the soup. We like our quesadillas packed pretty full…so I opted to add more chicken. Once the liquid was gone from the soup, I laid 4 of the tortillas on a baking sheet with half of the tortilla hanging off. I divided/spooned the mixture equally into the four tortillas, sprinkled with cheese, folded and threw them in the oven on 350 for 5-6 minutes. Every recipe I found recommended quartering the tortillas once they come out of the oven, but that wasn’t going to work this time. I instead opted for cutting them normally and serving with a dollop of sour cream. Not exactly gourmet cuisine but hey, it was decent and it was free!

I can’t wait to share with you my next creations in my pantry downsizing mission!