Cooking from the Pantry

It's so frustrating to look in the refrigerator, stare at a jar of pickles and an almost empty milk carton and think, "what is for dinner!?"

Are you up to a pantry challenge?    How creative can you get with what's in your pantry and your freezer?
A website I recently found to help with cooking from the pantry is http://www.recipematcher.com/ 

You can even sign up for free and  have your own "e-pantry" which is great for loading staples you usually have on hand. 

I just loaded my ingredients on hand in my E-pantry, then did a "Search by Ingredients" and clicked the "Use My E-Pantry" tab.

RecipeMatcher asked for my main ingredient (optional).  I chose "Ground Beef" and clicked the search button.

My matches were:

Grilled Hamburgers (100% Match)
Super Easy Meatloaf (87% Match)  For this, I didn't have breadcrumbs on hand, but that's an easy substitute.
Beef Barbecue (85% Match)  - No onions (again, easy substitute, I have onion powder on hand)
Taco Pasta Salad (85% Match) - No Rotini on hand, but I'd substitute other pasta.

 

I'd love to hear what your experience is with using this site.  If you know of any others, please comment.