2023 Vegan Storecupboard Challenge

leftatthetrafficlights

Welcome to the 2023 Vegan Storecupboard Challenge! 

The idea of this challenge is to make a list of the contents of your food storecupbards and freezer and to  minimise your grocery expenditure by using up as much of your stores as possible throughout the year. 

Although this goal has been pretty tenuously observed in the previous challenges by me, this year its probably more important than ever to reduce food costs, food waste and the expense of travelling to buy food! 

Hopefully we will also inspire each other to try new meals, use up leftovers in a creative way and rejoice in all things vegan! 😁

Links to previous 'challenges' are below: 

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6321992/2022-vegan-storecupboard-challenge/p1

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3571159/vegan-store-cupboard-challenge


I'm looking forward to seeing you all in the new frugal vegan year!! 🙌

leftatthetrafficlights

Inventory completed - it's huge!! 🤦‍♀️ I'm not going to list everything as it will take several pages (and hours to write!) so I'll leave put the stocks/herbs & cooking additives and the sauces/pickles and chutneys! Suffice to say - they are numerous! 😳😂 

Pulses and Grains 
28kg Dark speckled lentils
27kg buckwheat 
10kg red lentils 
3kg cannellini beans 
3kg aduki beans
2kg marrowfat peas
2kg black turtle beans 
2kg yellow moong dhal
1kg green lentils 
1 box scarlett runner beans
10kg short grain brown rice 
5kg sushi rice
3kg quinoa 
2kg basmati rice
1kg wild rice
500g brown basmati rice
500g fusilli lunghi
3kg macaroni 
1/2 pk white spaghetti 
1 pk soba noodles
1 box hm pasta

Flours etc
3kg vital wheat gluten
2kg teff flour
1kg polenta
1kg gram flour
3 1/2 kg bread flour
1kg gluten free flour 
250g plain flour 
250g sr flour
1/4 pk psyllium husk
1 tub egg replacer
1 tub bicarbonate of soda

Nuts, Seeds & Dried Fruit
300g pumpkin seeds
300g sunflower seeds
250g chia seeds
150g almonds
300g cashew nuts
2 pks chestnuts 
1 pk whole cranberries 
1/2 pk apricots 
1 pk golden raisins
500g medjool dates
1/4 pk flax seeds 

Tins & Jars
1 kidney beans 
10 chickpeas 
1 jar chickpeas 
7 capers
2 olives with lemon
1 apple puree
1 roasted peppers 
1 tikka masala paste
1 vine leaves
1 sundried tomatoes 
1 pitted green olives
1 green olives with chilli
1 dehydrated mixed veg
1 dried baby tomatoes 
1 porcini mushrooms 
6 sweetcorn 
6 artichokes 
5 tomatoes 
1 cherry tomatoes 
5 jackfruit 
9 banana blossom 
6 pineapple 
1 peeled potatoes 
1 mushy peas

Sundries 
1 cashew & cranberry roast
2 pate
1 custard 
1 cream
2 boxes dried apples
1/2 kg museli mix
1/2 kg oats
1 fajita kit
2 inari 
4 nori

Freezer
1/2 pk chips
1/2 pk skinny fries
1 cannellini beans with sage
1 frozen peas
1 pk 'fish' fingers
1 rhubarb 
1 chickpeas 
3 casserole 
2 bags hm haggis minibites
4 butternut squash soup
1 tomato and courgette soup base
1 smoked tofu
2 watermelon juice
1 sweetcorn cob
2 'duck'
10 pks Chinese pancakes
3 smokey courgette and tomato 
2 calabrese 
2 calabrese stalks
1 pk falafel
1 pk sausages 
1 pk mixed berries 
1 stewed apple 
1 chickpeas 
6 pizza base dough balls
1 leek and potato soup
3 freezer surprise 

jokono

Hello! Happy Christmas to all celebrating it! 🎄

I saw you mentioning this thread while I was lurking over in the debt free diaries 😅

My cupboards really need sorting, I was going to do that next week and write it all down. I'll do the freezers too, they're getting ridiculously full. We should start the new year with a full list of what we have in and use as much as we can. I'm sure there'll be bits that need using asap.

Mr JKN wants to try eating vegan during January, he doesn't eat any pulses so we'll see how it goes. The children can be fussy, but will eat pasta any day of the week. Potatoes and rice will do as well, but each child likes one but not the other. 🙄 None of them are keen on sauces so we need to come up with dry options for them.

Looking forward to the see what everyone else will be cooking! I had a quick look at the previous threads and there's so much inspiration, I'll keep the tabs open and try and read both in full.

Dry pulses and grains

1.75 kg toor dal

500g black beans

500g pinto beans

250g chickpeas

250 red lentils

1kg split green peas

500g rosecoco beans

500g giant white corn

1kg millet

750g black rice

1kg pearl barley

1kg oat groats

500g oat bran

5pk chocolate porridge oats

500g basmati

1kg short grain rice

250g buckwheat penne

5kg ww fusilli

500g ww spaghetti

4pk lasagne sheets

Tins

6 baked beans large

2 baked beans small

2 red kidney beans

5 chickpeas (2 bb jan 23)

3 green lentils (1 bb feb 23)

9 tomatoes

1 bean sprouts

5 tomato soup (1 bb mar 23, not vegan)

1 veg and 3 bean soup

1 chilli con quinoa (bb feb 23)

1 prunes in grape juice

Jars

1 tom & herbs sauce

2 quinoa bolognese (bb feb 23)

1 ragu/tom sauce

1 sundried tom in oil

1 green pesto (not vegan)

1 beetroot pesto

1 passata

Flour

1.5kg strong white

6kg rustic bread

3kg ww einkorn

Others

1kg raw cacao

1kg nutritional yeast flakes

1kg chia seeds

250g poppy seeds

12pk tofu

2pk teriyaki sauce (feb 23)

leftatthetrafficlights

Welcome @jokono! 😁 

Hopefully there will be plenty of inspiration for you on this and the other threads 😉 

Tomorrow I will be doing my food inventory- I cooked bubble and squeak with leftover veg today along with some cabbage and rice so that will feed us tomorrow. I also have some pasta sauce with caperberries and black olives left over so it will be an interesting meal! 😂

I have a cauliflower, red cabbage, white cabbage, onions, broccoli, carrots, spaghetti squash, butternut squash, apples and a courgette to use up along with some salad leaves so the rest of the week will probably involve: 

Tagine with broccoli and a courgette and tarragon salad

Cauliflower steaks with lemon caper lentils and harissa hommous

Veg and black bean casserole with baked red cabbage and apple. 

I'll see what is left after these dishes have been cooked and eaten before I choose anything else! I'll post what I use and how I make the dishes as I make them. 

KajiKita

Bookmarked this latest challenge as I really want to start using what I’ve got in stock before it goes out of date 🙄 and save some grocery spend this year (or at least minimise the impact of the increases that will inevitably be coming ….). 

First job will be to check, list and organise the stocks I have. Having it all in one place would be a big help, but I’m not sure if that will be possible. I will ask hubby about improving the lighting in the cellar again and at least get all the non-damp-affected stuff down there. (I have no pantry.)

KK

Gettingmyshiztogether

Hello there everyone, please may I join you also?

We have a ridiculous amount of food in the house right now that will be eaten throughout January. I need to do an inventory of food we have ready to meal plan! 

leftatthetrafficlights

Welcome @KajiKita and @Gettingmyshiztogether! 😁

Doing your inventory list is a really important step with this challenge- I tend to do one every few months as I frequently freeze leftovers then forget what I have in there! 🤦‍♀️ I also buy things in bulk when they are on offer (things like coffee, tinned tomatoes etc) so my stock levels do fluctuate. This year I'm going to try a 'running' inventory on a spreadsheet for a lot of things but will need to still do a physical inventory of my dried pulses/grains and freezer items every few months as these things are more difficult to keep track of. 

Today is inventory day for me and for the first time I'm also going to list my herbs and spices - I have a lot of them and when I was sorting the cupboard reasonably recently I realised that because it was so chaotic in there I had ended up with a number of duplicates. While it's not a problem, it is a waste of space and money so I want to avoid it in the future. 

I have spoken to dh about properly tackling the mountain of stocks we currently have this year and he is on board with the plan - he's happy to eat the same thing a couple of days running so it makes it easier to cook once and eat twice which reduces the cooking energy costs. I also do a lot of re-purposing of leftovers so it doesn't get too repetitive. 

Once we have gone through the fresh veg we currently have, I really want to run down the freezers so that we can defrost them - they are in dire need of a clean out so I imagine that much of January will be eating from the freezer - from memory I have a lot of hm haggis in there so I can see a number of 'loafs' being made and eaten! I will jazz them up with a variety of things to make sure every one of them has a different flavour. 

I've never done a Challenger list or given people numbers on this before but am happy to do so if that will make it easier - let me know your thoughts! 😁

KajiKita

Thanks for the welcome @leftatthetrafficlights 😊 much appreciated!

Yes, keeping track of what I have in the house will make a huge difference and will allow me to plan my batch cooking at the weekends for my work lunches as well, I am hoping. I have an additional complication in that my husband is still very much an Omnivore and likes fairly conventional pairings of foods so I have to adapt what I eat to what he eats. It gets quite frustrating but I’m hoping that following the ideas on here will help as I get so bored of what I can already cook and other diaries, threads, ideas sources on MSE tend to be omni based. I find most recipes online are very American oriented and recipe books use obscure, to my palate often inedible ingredients, so I end up with lots of wasted ‘stuff’ sitting around unused. Seeing what ‘real’ vegans eat (iykwim) I think will help a lot! 🤤😊

KK

PurpleJay

Hi, can I join you please for 2023?

I have been vegan since 2018 and my 16 yo since 2019.

I am trying to spend less on groceries going forward and using up some of my stores seems like a good way forward. You had a huge food store at the start of 2022 @leftatthetrafficlights and I am looking forward to seeing what you managed to use up during the year (I have just read the 2022 thread). 

I have a bit of a battle with myself between wanting to make sure I have food in for emergencies and wanting to use up my stocks. I started a couple of Brexit cupboards which became covid cupboards but tbh when my son and I got covid in Sept 22, I just ordered ready meals from Amazon Prime (Morrisons) as I couldn't face cooking. It has made me question whether I need so much and I have been running things down a bit in the run up to Christmas. However I am still spending far too much on groceries.  

I will do my inventories in the coming days. 

leftatthetrafficlights

Welcome @PurpleJay 😁 it's nice to have you along! 

I've just updated my inventory list (post no.2) and as you can see, I still have a mountain of stock! 🤦‍♀️😂 Some is remaining from the last challenge and some I have acquired through 2022! 

As my opening post stated - I really need to do the challenge properly this year, in all honesty I could eat for the entirety of 2023 by just topping up with fresh fruit and vegetables weekly! I am really hoping that I will do that as much as possible! 

I understand that it's difficult to let go of a food stock (hence my ridiculous amounts) but I am looking at it that I spent all this money and I need to benefit from that! 

@KajiKita - my dh is also an omnivore but he loves vegan food and is adventurous so is relatively simple to feed; he tends to have his corpse fix at lunchtime at work 😉 he has a drawer in the freezer for this purpose! I know how hard it can be though, I was once the only vegan in a household of 5 so spent a number of years cooking lots of different things everyday! 🙈

leftatthetrafficlights

Just an additional- I've just made red lentil pancakes stuffed with leftover pasta sauce and it was lovely! 

Red lentil pancakes- makes up to 6 depending on preferred thickness:
soak 1 cup red lentils in 2 cups water for 3-4 hours. Blend the lentils and soakwater until smooth(I have a high powered blender but as long as you give it a bit of time a normal blender will be fine) then cook as normal pancakes. 

Pasta sauce was made from onions, garlic, courgettes, tomatoes and basil cooked then blitzed to which I added caperberries and chopped black olives.  

Lay a pancake on a plate, spoon the pasta sauce on one third of the pancake then roll.

Pancakes are absolutely dirt cheap to make and you could fill with anything really - chilli, bolognese etc - and if you really want to you could sprinkle some vegan cheese over the top and grill until melted. 😁