Love food hate Waste Part two for 2018 :)

YorksLass

All going to plan on using up freezer stock this week and tomorrow I'll be planning next week's meals from there too. The thought of having some space to squirrel away some luxury items for Xmas is keeping me on track. JackieO: Yours must be nearly empty now, it seems a long time in coming!

Last bit of broccoli used up today by cutting it into small florets and cooking it with some orzo pasta/draining/adding a teaspooon each of green pesto and cream cheese, and it's gone on tonight's salad.

The frozen blackberries from the freezer have been made into jam (also used up the contents of an opened bag of jam sugar mixed with regular sugar) and we now have x5 jars of jam in the pantry to go with the jars of crab apple jelly that I made the other week. We had a sample of the blackberry last night on sweet waffles with a dollop of cream for pudding and it was very good.

Next week I'll be doing marmalade with a tin of Ma-Made that seems to have been in the cupboard for ages. I'll have to do it in two batches though as my pan isn't big enough to do it all at once. But that means I can do half with grated ginger and the other half with a good slug of whisky (will snaffle 1, maybe 2, of DH's miniatures that he seems to get every Xmas ). I think a basket of hm preserves might be winging their way to DS and DD.

Just one small shop today at the local Co-op for 4 pts of milk and an iceberg lettuce (essentials), a tub of beef spread for next week (long-dated) and a large RTC jar of sweet pickle (stores). Well, who can resist a bargain? Not me, that's for sure! :rotfl:

[Deleted User]

Yorkslass I am down to at least one shelf empty and the other two I have a bit of wriggle room now .Trouble is at most I am only in for dinner for about 4 days a week and at least one of those days I eat veggie so with quite a bit of meat in there it's taking me longer than usual.

JackieO xx

ScarletRibbons

I defrosted the freezer yeserday, and tidied it up a bit.

It's not jammed full, but there's plenty of stuff, think I'll use some mince today.

I keep a sort of chart of what's in the freezer, which I find handy, I know others do the same. Saves duplicating stuff, and convenient for meal planning.

Yesterday I took out a litre of chicken stock and made some minestrone soup, we'll have some for lunch, and three bags of it went back into freezer. Gave DD a box of it when she called in,

I'm going to make salmon fishcakes, I like to have them in, already made a batch of white fishcakes.

YorksLass

JackieO wrote: »

Yorkslass I am down to at least one shelf empty and the other two I have a bit of wriggle room now .Trouble is at most I am only in for dinner for about 4 days a week and at least one of those days I eat veggie so with quite a bit of meat in there it's taking me longer than usual.JackieO xx

Ah, I see your problem now. I wonder, could you perhaps put stuff in a cool bag/box while the freezer defrosts? I used to do this before I got a frost-free F/F and it kept everything frozen just fine. Just a thought.

Chicken jambalaya for dinner tonight so that's another chicken breast gone, plus odds and ends (onion, red pepper, a bit of shredded ham, peas and mushrooms), as well as another half packet of sauce mix used up. Not sure about pudding yet but there's plenty to choose from if it's wanted/needed.

A large head of broccoli and a punnet of mushrooms bought today, both ys, so they've been crossed off tomorrow's list which is looking quite sparse but is long enough to warrant a shopping trip. All fresh stuff that [STRIKE]will[/STRIKE] should be used up next week.

joedenise

I use a cool box and cool bag plus a cardboard box and cover with a duvet to help keep it really cool.

It only takes me abut 30-40 minutes to get everything out, defrost my chest freezer using a steamer and get everything back in. Inside freezer doesn't freeze up anywhere near as much - it's supposedly frost free but it still frosts up a bit so doesn't need doing very often, maybe once a year.

Denise

Gem-gem

Jackie O, I love making rice pudding in the slow cooker. I always ask hubby to look out for ys whole or semi-skimmed milk for this. I like adding vanilla and nutmeg.

Was up at 5am to help DB move house today. He offered to buy us dinner but we declined as we wanted to get home. (Journey time home was 2.5 x longer than journey time to my DB - wanted to get home before it got too late). Had a simple meal of homemade burgers and oven chips with salad. Homemade ice-cream for pudding ( finished the tub off - yum, yum!)

Gem-gem

Had a fried breakfast this morning courtesy of hubby. Tonight had hm tomato and basil soup with a cheese roll followed up with hm apple and raspberry crumble and custard.

Brought the whole lamb home today. Portioned up the the meat and offal and froze it. Managed to get 880g of meat of half the breast. Rendered down the fat and froze the ribs ready to make a lamb soup another day. The other half of Breast I left whole. Has anyone ever had lamb ribs?

Have the heart to my neighbours, neither of us like heart.

pamsdish

Gem-gem wrote: »

The other half of Breast I left whole. Has anyone ever had lamb ribs

My favourite way to eat it, cut down between the ribs then roasted, or depending on your butchery skills cut the bones out, bit fiddly, then lay your "sheet" of lamb breast flat spread stuffing over, roll up and tie, roast .

Living_proof

(Also posted in gardening thread)

I went to my allotment at lunchtime to try and tidy it up a bit - it is knee-high in weeds because I've had a bad back and the heavy rain we had recently brought on every weed seed at express speed. The last time I went I brought back as many of the tomato plants as I could and hung them in the greenhouse to ripen, and most of them have.

What amazed me today was that the three plants I abandoned due to lack of space were still growing strongly and there were literally hundreds of ripe yellow plum tomatoes and I have picked several pounds which I'll have to dehydrate due to lack of freezer space. Some suggestions for their use are to grind into a powder to add to soups, etc. or I could slice, dry and subsequently re-hydrate but am unsure what I could use them for. I was not prepared for such a glut, and heaven knows, I already have tons of red ones frozen and dried.

Do any of you have any good ideas please?

DundeeDoll

my friend who caters in return for lodging has gone off to London for the week. i have a glorious week of imaginative left-overs. Today was risotto using last of lo rice frozen into portions after a party, 3 spears asparagus, end of the broccoli and lo chicken. in the slow-cooker is pork and beetroot stew and i think for breakfasts it'll have to be ripe avocado on toast!