Stop wasting food - Still eat healthy

I've got cupboards full of things I don't eat

• Sometimes, I buy food without thinking about it and then realise I'd already got things at home.
• Sometimes I don't fancy what I've bought, so will eat something else.
• Sometimes I end up going out to a restaurant with a friend on a whim, meaning the food at home goes uneaten.

No matter what the reason - I've got a lot of things I could use up in my cupboards and I don't think I make the most of what I have. 

The excuse I usually use is 'It's not healthy, so I won't eat it', but actually, when I look at what I have in my cupboards - Dried pasta, spaghetti, rice, sushi rice, combined with the things in my freezer... it's not unhealthy per se, it just depends on what I use the ingredients with.. e.g. healthy curry vs massive lardy curry, or pasta with a tomato sauce and vegetables Vs pasta with a cheese sauce, topped with bacon. It's rather a cop out and I'm being quite lazy, not to mention, throwing away money that I could use in other ways (saving for a house, for example!).

Looking at what I've got now, I've got a whole 1Kg bag of dried pasta to use up, a whole packet of wholewheat pasta, a whole packet of egg noodles.. low fat coconut milk, an unopened jar of korma sauce, some tomato puree and chopped tomatoes, some breadcrumbs, Japanese noodles, a tin of sardines and an unopened jar of mango chutney... 

I also had half a packet of risotto rice, an unopened jar of chutney and some flaked almonds in my cupboards, however they were out of date, so I binned them.

I want to use these things up, firstly.. as I'd like to stop being so wasteful and secondly, if I do buy a house with my Boyfriend, even in 9-12 months time, it would be good to have relatively clean cupboards, not cupboards filled with out of date food that's gone to waste as I've not planned things properly.

Looking at the ingredients, what could I make that will be healthy? 

Well, I've wanted to make my own lunches for a while, so I think I'll try pasta salads. In regards to the wholewheat pasta, tomato puree, chopped tomatoes and breadcrumbs, I'm sure I could add a couple more ingredients in and make low fat meatballs with a tomato sauce and pasta. For the low fat coconut milk, korma paste and mango chutney - it has to be a low fat curry :-) 

There's other things I can make as well, but that's a pretty good start, I think. I'm not doing as much next week in the evenings, so I can certainly make a good start on using things up, starting with the pasta salads! 

I want to stick to my goal of eating less processed food, so have opted for these salads:

1. Salmon and spinach pasta salad
2. Vegetable pasta salad with goats cheese (but will modify the recipe as I hate olives!)

I'm also going to do make some meatballs with tomato sauce, however will be modifying the recipe a little bit and using some breadcrumbs in the mince (only a few) to use them up.

I don't think I'll use these things up overnight, but I'd like to think I can actually use them in healthy recipes and not be forced to throw them out before they go out of date.

Have you looked in your cupboards recently?