And when she got there, the cupboard was bare

...well, that's the eventual idea, anyway.

This weekend I decided that before I do any grocery shopping, I want to eat as much as possible of the food in my house. Now, this may seem obvious, but I don't just mean the fresh things and whatnot. That includes the random canned goods at the back of the top cabinet shelf, the reused yogurt tubs of random undated leftovers hiding next to the ice cube trays, all the little bits of things that don't actually constitute a meal... you get the idea.

I'm leaving out of this quest things that actually do constitute ingredients (I'm not going to attempt consumption of an entire package of powdered sugar, for instance, nor the bottle of white wine vinegar), condiments, and anything where I really do run out of things to eat with them. (For example, I usually have several boxes of different varieties of pasta in the house, but as I just mixed some up with the last of the sauce-- and I don't really think I have anything else to eat with the remainder, though who knows if I'll uncover something forgotten in this process-- I am not particularly planning on going through an entire box of plain rotini, un-dressed.)

But beyond that? Anything goes. Today was the first day where I really started getting into combinations that are probably approved neither by the culinary experts nor the FDA. Today's dinner: 2 mozzarella sticks (seriously, who leaves just 2 in the bag?), that lemon pudding I bought before my last birthday (at least I think it was my last birthday) in case I wanted to make myself my favorite birthday cake (in case anyone's wondering and wants to take note for my upcoming anniversaire: yellow cake, lemon filling, chocolate frosting) but never got around to (the pudding was mixed up with some vanilla Silk, which was doing nothing in my fridge since I'd finished my last box of cereal), and soon-to-include a can of organic black beans (best by 04/2013, so actually a pretty good option in terms of things to stick on the top shelf and forget about for a while) cooked up with some leftover diced onions from last weekend's  pasta dish, and the last teeny serving of brown rice (by the way, I don't understand my co-workers who seemed bemused yesterday when I mentioned the difficulty of cooking rice in this climate. I'm seriously just going to start the pot at about a 4:1 water ratio from now on).

Lunches are going to be the most interesting to plan, as a duo of frozen mozzarella sticks, lemon pudding and black beans do make for a somewhat odd brown bag. However, thus far I'm optimistic. Tomorrow will involve some of that pasta I just put together (and of course, lemon pudding. That's probably going to last me through the end of this endeavor). Thursday, perhaps I'll make use of a random partly-used Whole Foods gift card loitering in my wallet, to pick up some prepared food for lunch-- after all, the idea is to not have any more food come into my kitchen, not necessarily to not buy any-- but at least it should involve the using up of random gift cards, which is in the same line. Speaking of which, perhaps Friday's lunch will be settled with half a Subway card and an ample supply of Jamba Juice gift-card-age. I don't think I'll make it much past Friday before a trip to the grocery store becomes an actual necessity. In the meantime dinners will be slightly more interesting, but there's some ancient homemade Indian food in the freezer, as well as at least one portion of tater tots.

I don't know why I'm doing this. Part cleaning out the kitchen. Part culinary adventure (you find things you'd forgotten that inspire new creations). Part social experiment (there isn't really "nothing to eat" in my kitchen-- at least not for the moment). Part laziness (who has time to get to the grocery store, seriously?) Part... yeah, I have no coherent way to end this post. I'm out.

;)