Nothing in the house to eat...

Please tell me I'm not alone in this confession!

In an effort to spend less and use up what I do already have I dragged all my foodstuffs kicking and screaming into the daylight and a photo session. Thanks to Karen for showing me how to create mosaics otherwise this blog post would have been full of about thirty pictures of groups of food. I even made a list of the items to alert myself that I DO have plenty to eat in the house without necessarily trotting off to the shops.  I am determined to use some of this collection up and save myself some cash. I’ve already started by making the slightly dry ciabatta bread into garlic bread rather than binning the bread because it has become inedible in a day or two. Last night I cooked the tomato sausages and ate some of them cold for supper. Today I will make myself sandwiches  for dinner rather than buying lunch at work. Well, that’s a start anyway.

Here’s the list from my own kitchen. I was actually quite shocked at what I had in already and have never used. A lot of things I will have bought on a whim during a shopping trip.

The List.

Short crust pastry mix. Aromatic black bean sauce. Colman’s sausage casserole mix. Puy lentils. Bonne Maman blackberry jam. Marmalade from my neighbour, Jo. Sharwood’s Mango Chutney.
Hot horseradish sauce. French mustard. Tomato sauce. HP brown sauce. Ground nutmeg. Hot chilli powder. Dried oregano. Cinnamon. More nutmeg. Fennel seeds. Olive oil. Soy sauce. Light soy sauce. Balsamic vinegar. Fish sauce. Bonne Maman apricot conserve. Creamed horseradish sauce. Jalfrezi paste. Merchant sun dried tomatoes. Gherkins. Sweet pickled red cabbage.Runny honey.

Tomato soup. Marrow fat processed peas. Mushroom soup. Butter beans. Ratatouille. Chopped tomatoes.Fresh tomatoes and mushrooms. Dried sausages and tomato sausages. Brown and white sugar.Eggs, rice and pasta. Teas and coffee. Lots of herbs and spices. Chocolate buttons and mint chocolate.

In the fridge there is also milk, two bottles of beer, olive spread, a slab of slightly past its eat by date Ardennes  pâte, a bag of parmesan cheese, butter and loose new potatoes. In the freezer I found two bags of sweet corn, a new bag of petites pois (wonder why I bought them?), two containers of courgette tian, a chicken curry, some trays of chilli con carne and a tray of vegetables. At the back of the freezer I found a lonely mackerel that entered the frozen depths in October 2010 as well as a single pork chop and a beef burger and some scraps of vegetables  all of which would surely come in useful one day.

That’s not forgetting the items that didn’t get photographed like bread sticks, a bag of Mediterranean lentils, Co-op sardines in tomato sauce, Dr Oetker  baking powder and corn flower ,  Co-op flour for making cakes and almond oil.

It’s a shame I’ve nothing in the cupboards to eat then!?