I’m in serious clean out the pantry mode right now.  The same way that I’m sure I’m going to challenge myself to a serious closet sifting process once I do end up moving (which may not be in the too distant future — I made an offer on a house yesterday!), just the thought of packing up my house and transporting it is making me want to completely evacuate my freezer and pantry.  Which, if you’ll recall, is no small feat.

So I’m challenging myself with this weird game of taking one item each week out of both the freezer and pantry, and playing my own little version of Iron Chef with it.

This week yielded a yogurt container full of corn that I froze from last summer, and a can of pineapple.

What could possibly marry these two items?  Black beans, FTW.

Luckily this thought occurred to me early enough in the day to get these puppies soaking for a few hours, so that all I had to do when I got home from a crazy day of errands and appointments and house-hunting was boil them up and toss them around with a few other ingredients.

Understandably, the eight-month-old corn was looking a little sad, so I sauteed it in my new skillet until it was a little caramelized, and then supplemented it with some fresh kernels off of an early summer ear of corn that I incidentally had drifting around in my veggie drawer.

This salad really can’t get much simpler.  I cooked up a cup of elbow macaroni, opened the can of pineapple, and tossed this all together with some olive oil, red wine vinegar, nutritional yeast, salt, pepper, and the last little bit of jalapeno that I saved from some chili vodka I’ve been infusing this week for a fancy-pants cocktail party my friend Kate is throwing on Saturday.

Oh, and then threw in a handful of soy Bacos at the end for a little bit of a smokey flavor.

A quick dinner before biking back down to the Southeast for an evening campfire at a friend’s house, plus lunches for the rest of the week!

This Week’s Groceries

New Seasons 5/28 (on June’s grocery bill)

• Jalapeno kettle chips: $2.00
• Mango juice: $3.99
• 2 dozen eggs: $5.78 — I’m in charge of the breakfast casseroles for Kate’s cocktail/sleepover party this weekend
• Hazelnut half & half: $2.99
• Cottage cheese: $2.69
• Kale: $2.49
• Carrots: $2.06
• Red cabbage: $4.87
• Green cabbage: $1.96
• Red onion: $1.04
• Free range roaster chicken: $15.33
• Yellow onions: $1.99
• Jalapenos: $2.50 — All of the following were destined infusing chili vodka for spicy mango-cucumber martinis on Saturday!
• Red chiles: $1.90
• Habanero chiles: $0.90
• Horseradish root: $0.45

TOTAL: $52.94

REMAINING FOR THE MONTH: $97.06