The Great Freezer Cleanout: 2011

[Emily_R]

For the bag of sesame seeds -- benne seed wafers?

Ok, what I need help with is the insane amount of frozen strawberries and raspberries I have in the freezer. My garden produces upwards of 75 pounds of strawberries and 50+ pounds of raspberries a year... I probably have about 25 pounds of strawberries and 20 pounds of raspberries in the freezer right now. The problem is that neither my husband nor I like smoothies :-(

Other than making tons and tons of strawberry or raspberry coulis, (or frozen strawberry margaritas, which is the primary thing I use the frozen strawberries for) what should I do with them?

Emily

[weinoo]

Ice creams and sorbets.

[Chris Amirault]

Raspberry vinegars or shrubs.

[Darienne]

Ice creams and sorbets.

Mitch got there just before I did. To have enough raspberries to make a really luscious ice cream would be wonderful.

[vice]

David Lebovitz's strawberry ice cream is truly phenomenal. If your berries are top notch, you can even cut back on the quantity by a third to a half, which further improves the texture.

[natasha1270]

Jealous of your strawberry and raspberry stash! Maybe jam or fruit leather? Just found this strawberry bbq sauce recipe that sounds interesting: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Strawberry-BBQ-Sauce-358990

[ElsieD]

Darienne, where did Ed buy those pails? They are a great idea.

[Darienne]

Darienne, where did Ed buy those pails? They are a great idea.

Ed got them at a local convenience/lunch bar/ etc place, named Charlotte Pantry. I suspect you could get them at a bulk food place or a small Mom & Pop breakfast type restaurant. I know that our local bulk food store has round pails which they sell for a few pence.

I just checked three of the pails. They're all labeled Tasty Batters and all contained muffin batters.

That square shape is the best!

[Paul Bacino]

If you have access to anyone who has cat litter, that is the size of the buckets/pails ,litter comes in, at least what we use.

Edited March 15, 2011 by Paul Bacino (log)

[Peter the eater]

If you have access to anyone who has cat litter, that is the size of the buckets/pails ,litter comes in, at least what we use.

I buy 15kg pails for $8 and use them for just about everything once the litter is gone. There must be 2 dozen in the wood shop and a bunch in the kitchen -- organics disposal, paper recycle, blue bin recycle, trash, dirty laundry, etc. I have a couple of sterile pales for defrosting/brining big birds.

[Kerry Beal]

Seriously, I think I have like ten gallons of the stuff.

Cook it down and make demi - takes up much less room.

Oops - realize if I'd read the whole thread before posting that I'm not the only person who had this idea!

Edited March 16, 2011 by Kerry Beal (log)

[AnneN]

I'm trying to really make this freezer clean out work. Yesterdaym, I cleaned out one freezer and today I will organize the other. Tonight for dinner we will have Chicken Vesuvio using frozen chicken and artichokes. I found some frozen shrimp that have a use by date of Feb 2010; I think I should toss those! I'm going to use other frozen shrimp for lunch perhaps with chickpeas in a salad. Tings are looking better already!

[sparrowgrass]

Naguere, I AM lucky, but I am NOT a guy!! :laugh

I tease the producer of the beef--I tell him that I ate some of his 'stringy Mexican beef' for dinner! Last night it was stuffed peppers, using the last of the green peppers and some of that tomato sauce I canned. Delish!!

[rebecca]

and a random huge bag of sesame seeds. Any recomendations for that one?

tahini, honey sesame bars, honey sesame chicken

Those sound awesome! I had never thought to make my own tahini! I guess that means it is time for a recipe finding mission... Thanks!

[Chris Amirault]

Sorry -- got waylaid by a couple of cooking projects, so I'm a bit behind. What are the rest of you up to?

[Darienne]

Yesterday DH and I did the impossible dog freezer. Yes, our dogs have that much frozen meat and stuff. Took all of five minutes. And it had been put off about 3 weeks as DH obsessed was busy with his latest reno project.

[OliverB]

yeah, that happens to me too :-)

Last night I made a prime beef steak I found in the freezer, along with pan fried baby garlic and a huge amount of fresh kale, chard, etc that I sauteed down with lots of garlic, an onion and some wood ears I had in the freezer. Some self pickled mini onions (made from frozen pearl onions). So a good load of frozen stuff was used, though a 2nd steak would have been nice.

I realized that I have less meat than I though, still have to dig through the chest freezer, I know there's frozen ground beef and pork in there from when I bought parts of those animals (and got way too much ground meat). Also have some chicken thighs. Some fish, and some odd things - beef liver and heart, a goat liver, an octopus, frog legs, not sure how much of that my family is willing to touch, but I'll make something with it nonetheless.

[Corinna]

I made the venison & ale pie for St. Paddy's Day and we just finished it last night. I am diligently collecting recipes for lamb, and am finding myself especially drawn to grilled preparations. The rest of the menu plans are still in place. It will take a little time to execute them all since most of my ideas are a little ambitious for the time I have available. I will enjoy it when I get the chance though!

[Dakki]

I have a 2 kilo box of frozen squid I'd somehow forgotten about. That's a lot of calamari for a single dude.

In other news, I've gotten this far without buying anything but imbibables (is that even a word?), bread, and tortillas, none of which I think should count, because I go through a lot of drinks in a week and bread and tortillas pretty much have to be fresh. However, I ate the last bit of non-blue cheese in the house today so I might have to cheat a little and get some.

[Chris Amirault]

All righty then: I've cleaned out three loaves of challah, a massive batch of beef stew, some gumbo, a package of beef marrow, some lardons, and a couple of pounds of dent corn that I limed, ground, and made into tortillas. Still thinking about what to do with that stock.

How about y'all?

[janeer]

Latest of a long drawdown: 2 lb of frozen strawberries and raspberries, from which I made coulis, some of which went to garnishing the angel cake with bitter chocolate glaze made from 1 2/3 cup frozen egg whites and odds and ends of frozen chocolate.

[helenjp]

With a smaller freezer, even small items can waste space: "one left over" grilled salt salmon steak, 1 chicken fillet, etc. I rarely cook for one, so when it's use-up time, making them into some kind of topping for rice is about as far as it gets.

[Corinna]

In the past week, I've prepared venison tenderloin with a couple different, uninspiring sauces. It was kinda disappointing, but at least they aren't in the freezer anymore.

Yesterday, porcupine meatballs (see the Dinner! thread) made with the last package of ground venison. Delicious!

Cubed a couple lamb shoulder chops and put them in a yogurt marinade for Ina's grilled lamb kebabs recipe. I'm going to grill this weekend-- regardless of what the weather decided to do. It's April, for pete's sake!

Edited April 1, 2011 by Corinna (log)

[Kerry Beal]

Need to do something with the turkey that's languishing and taking up all the space in my upright. And the 3 litres of high brix ice wine juice that's in there. I should probably either thaw and package in smaller, more manageable containers, or perhaps boil down to concentrate and make a syrup.

[mkayahara]

Need to do something with the turkey that's languishing and taking up all the space in my upright. And the 3 litres of high brix ice wine juice that's in there. I should probably either thaw and package in smaller, more manageable containers, or perhaps boil down to concentrate and make a syrup.

That sounds like ice wine vinegar waiting to happen...