Challenge: Cook your way through your freezer (part 2)

[Miriravan]

Here is a bad phone picture of my decidedly unfancy but tasty (and challenge compliant!  last night's dinner,)  brought to you courtesy of my disgraceful freezer and the letter 'P':  Pork chop with Penzey's Arizona Dreaming, roasted sweet Potato, and frozen buttered Peas.  

[Anna N]

Today I was able to slowly dig around in the freezer and find a few packages that needed to be binned or flushed.  There is so much good in there that I just want to get to!

 

 

Chicken meatballs wrapped in perilla leaves over rice, broccoli with miso walnut sauce and carrot purée.  All but the sauce came from my freezer.  

[Anna N]

 

 

Kimchi gyoza nabe. @HungryChris would have liked this. Wonder where he is. The gyoza were homemade from the freezer. 

Edited January 13, 2019 by Anna N (log)

[Anna N]

 

Chicken nuggets from the freezer. The rest was quickly pulled together to accompany them. 

 

Last night I found a rather sad and slightly freezer burned hunk of baguette which I toasted, slathered with butter and enjoyed just before bed.  Slow but steady progress.

[BeeZee]

One teriyaki chicken breast (mid-December) and a portion of sliced turkey breast (Thanksgiving) were defrosted and reheated in micro. Served with salad and lentils (cooked with mushroom bullion cube, just the right amt of salt).

[ElsieD]

I cooked up my last bag of shrimp.  Or rather, the last bag I could find.  The freezer is pretty full and until I take inventory, I can't be 100% sure of what's in there.

[Okanagancook]

Gumbo and fresh rice after the football game.😍

[ElsieD]

40 minutes ago, Okanagancook said:

Gumbo and fresh rice after the football game.😍

Mmmmm, gumbo!

[Anna N]

 I am feeling prouder than a peacock. I just emptied both sides of the big drawer of my freezer. I tossed out anything I knew I would never eat and inventoried the rest. Really for me there was not a lot that got tossed so I must be improving somewhat. I am really excited now that I can see what’s in there and make some plans for using it up. 

 

There is still the shallow top drawer but it will have to wait for another day. It is mostly nuts and baking ingredients so it’s not a huge issue for me.

 

 Thanks for the inspiration from everyone. 

 

Edited to add the inventory Because I just love reading others notes and inventories.  

 

 

 

 

Edited January 14, 2019 by Anna N (log)

[ElsieD]

1 hour ago, Anna N said:

 I am feeling prouder than a peacock. I just emptied both sides of the big drawer of my freezer. I tossed out anything I knew I would never eat and inventoried the rest. Really for me there was not a lot that got tossed so I must be improving somewhat. I am really excited now that I can see what’s in there and make some plans for using it up. 

 

There is still the shallow top drawer but it will have to wait for another day. It is mostly nuts and baking ingredients so it’s not a huge issue for me.

 

 Thanks for the inspiration from everyone. 

 

Edited to add the inventory Because I just love reading others notes and inventories.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I do an inventory I usually mark how many of whatever I have where there are more than one.  I got inspired by  @scubadoo97s  post of lamb shanks on the dinner thread and so pulled a pair out for dinner tonight.  I see there are still two pairs left.  These are local shanks i buy directly from the farmer.

Edited January 14, 2019 by ElsieD (log)

[robirdstx]

This topic is what caused me to start inventorying my freezer. I print out the list and keep it on the side of the fridge. I don’t update every time I pull something out or put something in, but I do try to update it at least every few weeks. I am also getting better at labeling! Below is the current list - we used the Rib Eye for dinner last night.

 

[Anna N]

 Lunch was inspired by my freezer cleaned out this morning.

 

 

Small lamb burgers with a Japanese inspired glaze over white rice with broccoli and carrots and tucked in the corner twp pickled tomatoes

 

The lamb, the glaze, the broccoli, the carrots and the rice came from the freezer.  (Somethings don’t show up on the inventory because they are in the shallow upper drawer which I have not yet dealt with.)

[FauxPas]

2 hours ago, Anna N said:

Edited to add the inventory Because I just love reading others notes and inventories.  

 

I especially like "looks like pork tenderloin".   🙂

 

[Anna N]

 

4 minutes ago, FauxPas said:

 

I especially like "looks like pork tenderloin".   🙂

 

Wondered how long it would take somebody to catch that one!

But on the whole my labelling skills have improved remarkably.  

[FauxPas]

6 minutes ago, Anna N said:

 

Wondered how long it would take somebody to catch that one!

But on the whole my labelling skills have improved remarkably.  

 

Pretty sure my freezer would have several packages of "mystery meats" if I filled it up properly. 

[BeeZee]

I'm so happy I started using freezer tape for labeling the pyrex lids, I ate the last "mystery meal" over a couple of days last week, it was a kitchen sink lentil/quinoa "stoup" that I certainly could not identify while it was frozen. I think a written inventory this weekend is in order.

[TicTac]

Someone needs to invent a cheap barcoding scanning system that one can simply barcode as they go in, and scan out to update a list.

 

Take my idea, someone - 7% inventors fee is all I ask in return!

[Okanagancook]

My brother has one of these for his wine cellar.  The difficulty would be getting the labels to stick on well enough that you don’t end up with a pile of labels and a pile of mystery items.

[Anna N]

 I find it so much easier now with my iPhone and OneNote to dictate my inventory as I am going through my freezer.  

 

 But what I really need is for each package in there to scream at me as I lift it out, “Update your damned inventory!”

 

 Of course it would be equally useful for the packages I put in there to scream at me in the same way. 

[Anna N]

 

 Mushroom soup from the freezer and some toasted baguette slices.  

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Some peas fell out of my freezer this evening while I was fetching ice cubes and I noticed there was some meat beneath.  I jammed the peas and meat back in as best I could.

 

[ElsieD]

Tonight's dinner came from the freezer.   Lamb shanks, served over previously frozen potatoes, and a frozen mixture of collards, kale and spinach.

[Miriravan]

Tonight's dinner is kind of tangentially associated with this challenge, in that I am using this bag of ham hocks that say 'use or freeze by 01/13/19' to make bean soup with rather than stuffing them in the freezer!

[heidih]

Pehaps this speaks to the crowd  

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

2 hours ago, ElsieD said:

Tonight's dinner came from the freezer.   Lamb shanks, served over previously frozen potatoes, and a frozen mixture of collards, kale and spinach.

 

Gorgeous!  Not often I vouchsafe a "like" on kale.