Cooking from the Pantry: Introduction and Day #1

So, there is a statistic that if you get creative and use a lot of the ingredients that are hiding in your pantry, you could save 25% on your groceries for that month or however long depending on the amount of food stashed away. Obviously you may have to replace certain things like milk or eggs but other than that, you should be good to go.

I've done this one time before but now I've got more interesting staples other than pasta, tomato sauce, frozen chicken, veggies, and a few other regular shelf-space takers!

I just decided tonight to do this so my earlier meals today were a little more simple.
Breakfast: Life cereal
Lunch: leftover pasta in tomato sauce
Dinner: I decided to make something a little more exciting...at least I don't normally cook for myself like this. It included baked buffalo chicken strips, potatoes, some chicken-flavored rice/vermecelli, and crescent rolls.

So this is what I did:

1. Marinaded chicken tenders in buffalo sauce (the longer you marinate, the more flavorful they are) in baking dish (8x8 or 9x13). Covered dish with aluminum foil.

2. Cooked chicken at 350* for about 25 minutes.

3. Washed and cut up potatoes, put on cookie sheet, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkled with italian seasoning and put in oven at *375 for about 20-25 minutes...could have been a little less and still yummy. (I used both our normal oven and our toaster oven so I could cook simultaneously.)

4. I had the rice leftover but I would start cooking it about 15 min before everything else was done.

5. I put the crescent rolls in the oven just after the chicken was done since it finished a little before the potatoes.

5. I put a serving on my plate and sprinkled parmesan cheese on the potatoes and shredded cheese on the chicken tenders.