In an effort to use up the rest of my box of Royal Riviera pears, I made pearsauce. That's like applesauce, but with pears--plus a little cinnamon, nutmeg and almond extract. Then I ate the remaining two pears with some dried cranberries and crumbled gorgonzola. Yum.

All of this got me to thinking about how much stuff there is in the fridge (okay, mostly the freezer) that we need to eat. Beyond that, we have a pantry full of food that could probably sustain us for 8 months--easy. Now, I'm all in favor of having provisions on hand, but to look at our stash, you'd think we were hoarding to outfit a bomb shelter. Plus, I've run out of shelf space again.

Therefore, I have a singular goal this year (at least until I expand my list): Pare down the pantry. I plan to accomplish this by purchasing only the grocery items necessary to assist in depleting our supply. I'll chart my progress by keeping track of it here in my journal--until I get tired of it, anyway.

So far this year, our grocery purchases have consisted of:

1/2 gallon milk
3 lbs. chicken breasts
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$10.58

Jar of tomato sauce
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$4.53

Our meals have consisted of:

- Tandoor Indian restaurant
- Pita Delite Greek cafe
- Spinach & feta ravioli with tomato alfredo sauce
- Wheat Thins with jalapeno hummus
- Peaches & cream oatmeal
- Moravian Cranberry Orange and Ginger Spice cookies
- Benne wafers
- Pear, cranberry & gorgonzola salad
- Bing chocolate cherries
- Pear cider, Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper and lots of tea

This is going to be fun.