Summer Cooking

My goal this summer is to use up all the food in all my various cabinets, as well as all frozen food in both freezers, and have cleansed cabinets, freezers, fridge, and digestive systems by September.

The problem is that the people who live here are less than thrilled by my clever dieting/frugal tactics.

DIP is thin, and loves carbs. Preferably the white type.
YBS-NOT is too busy being active outdoors to notice no food. Until ten p.m. when he eats anything with salsa. And leftovers from plates left out on the counter. There is always a lot of noise when he returns to the kitchen after his sporting, swimming, and disappearing activities. The ball game is on at full blast, the microwave is beeping, fridge banging open and closed, and occasionally something falls and breaks. Usually a jar that has briny smelly liquid in it. Or I smell a sickly sweet scent, and I see him roasting marshmallows over the open flame.

So far suppers this week have been BBQ hot dogs, BBQ hot dogs and chicken, BBQ chicken. Tonight was Main Course Leftovers From The Wedding, round 1. This past shabbos dessert was Leftovers From The Main Course round 3. (a LOT of runny chip cakes to get rid of). YBS already took four trays of Leftovers From The Shmorg back to yeshiva, and I foolishly thought it would last him a few weeks. He put all four trays out on the table one night and the starving bored chulent eaters polished it all off.
Tomorrow will probably be Contents of Mysterious Zip Lock Bags, round 1. The problem is I am going to have to wait until they all defrost to figure out what they are. I have some categories already to reduce the intrigue of what we will be eating:

bony things
reddish things
possible soupy things (those take up the whole bag, and are usually ridged on the bottom of the bag, indicating a liquid that froze over the bars of the freezer shelf)
whitish things: This one is a real challenge, and quite exciting and high up on the Unknown Mystery Food scale. white can be fish fillets, cream cheese frosting, old whipped whip cream, or partially cooked chicken cutlets. They become partially cooked when I take them out of the freezer 8 minutes before I need to serve them, (because I took out a different whitish bagged thing which turned out to be devil dog filling) and dump them into very hot water. quite untasty.

Of course, on occasion, any item in a zip lock bag can look whitish, because if the bag wasn't sealed properly it develops a crusty almost glacial beauty. Kind of like the Cave of Crystals in Mexico or wherever.

Next I will move on to my cabinets. Baked ziti can really be any pasta at all. So all the mostly empty lasagna noodle boxes will be removed from the cabinet, and I will break up all those pieces into macaroni sized portions. How elegant.
Every rice type item gets boiled altogether. If they look too different, I will throw them all under some bony thing from a zip lock bag, cover it with the combined contents of the half empty salsa/tomato sauce/pasta sauce/mustard containers and jars and cans.

I may even serve a savory concoction of herbs and spices. no more bland food around here!!

lastly, an ambrosial soup cooked with all the canned fruits and bumped objects in the fruit drawer of the fridge.

you're all invited, I will reach my goal much quicker