A little longer then planned...

Yes, the hiatus was longer then I had originally planned but I've been extremely busy lately. I know that isn't an excuse but its the one I'm using. There has been so much going on that I haven't felt like posting even when I'm sure I had the time. Sadly, no pictures today either. Anyways, today is another edition of "Ways in Which I Use Stuff Up Before it Spoils".

Yesterday I spent a portion of my day finally cleaning out our pantry. I had been meaning to do it for some time as I was sick of cramming and having random packages fall out when I opened the doors. As it is, the pantry is extremely small, a shelving unit we got from Walmart. And I, being the crazy cook that I am, love to buy groceries.

I was shocked at the amount of canned goods I pulled from the shelves. 5 cans of cream of chicken soup, who needs 5 cans? Along with all the canned goods there were tons of noodles, something else that is cheap that I buy and never use. I am such a food pack rat. If there is such a thing. Even after cleaning out the pantry and throwing away various stale items, it still was a tight fit. I made my husband swear not to let me buy another can of cream of chicken soup, well, until I use up what I have!

Amongst all these cans and bags there was lots and lots of old candy. Husband and I get candy from my mom for various holidays and we never seem to finish! I know some of you are shocked but I'm really not a candy person. I'll eat it from time to time but I can only take so much. I separated the candy and put it in new ziplocs. I had husband help me decide what wasn't worth saving and threw out the rest. Which was surprisingly not a lot, candy has a scary shelve life I tell you. All the candy that was saved I will use for baking which I happened to start yesterday as well.

I had found an old package of sugar cookie mix which I made up and threw in the various M&M's I had in one ziploc. There were kissables, peanut M&M's, peanut butter M&M's, and regular M&M's. All got dumped in to the cookie dough. Then I just plopped them on the cookie sheet and baked. I ended up having to extend the cooking time by a couple of minutes but otherwise they came out perfect. They are really tasty and I used up two things! Old cookie mix and old M&M's.

Later it was time to make dinner. I had a couple of things I needed to use up, some tasty chicken leftover from the chicken barbecue we went to on Saturday and some stale tortilla chips. I knew I could make some kind of mexican casserole from these two items so I went to trusty google. Here is the recipe I found. This recipe was great because it not only used up the chips and chicken, it used up some canned goods as well (one being the dreaded cream of chicken soup).

This was so easy. I cut up the chicken, completely cleaning it off the bones. (Dog got the skin and pieces I didn't want to use, she was pleased) I put all the canned ingredients in a pot to mix and heat up. They ask for tomatoes with green chilies which I did not have so I used diced tomatoes and a small can of green chilies I had. I just drained the juice from the chilies to cut back on the spice. I was so pleased this recipe also called for taco sauce because I had exactly 1/2 cup in my fridge that had been there forever and surprisingly was not expired!

The end result was very tasty, with lots of flavor. Husband loved it and mixed it with the mock rice and beans I made (I used the rest of the chicken broth with the water, rice, pinto beans rinsed and drained, some garlic salt and I stuck in the chicken bones for more flavor. This produced a really good rice and beans without the fuss!).

Two things that kind of bothered me about the recipe. One, it came out very runny. I don't know if I would mess with that if I make it again. It didn't seem to matter, especially if mixing it with the rice. Two, the recipe says to place the crushed chips in the bottom of the pan. This produced a mushy mess of chips at the bottom of the casserole. It tasted fine but you wouldn't even have known I used chips! I don't think husband even realized it! If I make this again I will just sprinkle the chips on top of the cheese. This will allow them to get crunchy which is what I prefer.