Inventory Check

One of the hardest things to do as a stockpile shopper is to determine how much you really need. How much will your family use before it will go bad, what things are extra that could be donated to a needy family, local food bank, or church, etc. I do try to rotate my inventory as I buy my stock. Move the old things to the front and store the new items behind the old. However, I am really bad about checking expiration dates sometimes. After throwing out some Kraft salad dressing the other week, I was determined to do better. I checked all of my dates on crackers and decided which ones had to go in lunch boxes ASAP. Then, I went to my refrigerator. Now, some say I went overboard on the Kraft Shredded Cheese when we were getting it for FREE at Meijer. I don't know, is 52 bags too many? Since I only paid for the first 10 bags ($10), I couldn't pass up the deal and decided to stock up. Yes, we do eat a lot of cheese at my house, and most of the bags did not expire for at least another 3 months or more. I knew that what we didn't use could be placed in the freezer before the expiration date. However, I didn't realize how much cream cheese I had bought. We typically go through the cream cheese as well, but for some reason, we did not this time. I found 6 bars of cream cheese that need to be used in the next 2 days. What do I do? I went to allrecipes.com and kraftfoods.com and checked out recipes that used cream cheese. I found 2 recipes that I can make tonight, and it will use up 2 bars of cream cheese. I packed the kids salami and cream cheese rolls for lunch, so I will use 1 more bar today, making me half way there. What am I cooking for dinner?

Cheesy Creamed Corn

Creamy Chicken, Bacon, and Tomato Pasta

I will be altering these recipes slightly so that I can use more of my stockpile that I have on hand. I will let you know how it turns out.

So, I want to hear form you. How do you keep up with your inventory? Do you still have cheese left over?