Use-It-Up Week

As I was making my lunch last night, I realized that I have lots of open containers of food, half-used items, and generally, just a lot of stuff in my fridge and cupboards. So I'm declaring next week to be Use-It-Up Week.

Normally I do my grocery shopping on Friday, but this week, I'm only going to buy stuff that we're actually out of (or are going to run out of, and we actually use consistently every week, like celery and limes and toothpaste). Nothing new that's for a specific meal. I'm going to try to use what I have already to feed us this week.

We're certainly not going to starve. We have pasta, polenta, plenty of canned goods, our freezer is stuffed, and we've got eggs and cheese. We could, at minimum, eat a different omelet for dinner at least three nights. I'm thinking a spinach and goat cheese omelet sounds tasty. That's not deprivation. But it does use what we have.

Anyone else have cupboards and fridges that are stuffed? Interested in joining in on Use-It-Up Week? If you are, here are some online recipe searches to help you come up with ideas for using what you have. They all allow you to search by ingredient.

• Allrecipes
• iVillage
• BBC
• Cooking.com
• FoodieView

I'll let you know how it goes.