Spring Cleaning the Freezers - 52 days on £70

Mrs_Cheshire

Cherryfudge wrote: »

What is it with cold weather and cake?! I have been baking: Honeysucklelou's date bars and macaroons. I've since been demolishing the evidence. DD is also home for a few days so she is helping.

Other than that, rice, oats and stuff like that are gradually getting used but I had lost track of which flours I had replaced and so I now have two bags of SR and two bags of plain. DH misunderstood a text about pasta so we have about three bags of linguine as well as various oddments of spaghetti and pasta shapes. If they would only fold flat they wouldn't have such an impact on available storage!

XSpender, how did you manage to list all your food stores? It must have taken ages! Mine will just have to be whittled down as inspiration occurs because it would take such a lot of effort to catalogue them. I also need to develop a sudden love for stir fry because there are lots of sachets of sauce that DD brought back from Uni a few years ago and which no one is eating!

I also had a look at the box of packets: DS has enough fajita mixes to open a restaurant and DH has custard galore. I'm not sure who bought all the jellies but I made one up for tea tonight.

The trouble with using things up seems to be a) the need to get other things to make the original ones usable and b) making myself plan creative cooking is too much fun.

I'm going to give the date bars a go myself, as I bought a pack at Christmas and have yet to use them up!

Save_Dosh wrote: »

Just caught up with this - you are doing so amazing. I myself am doing a £7 pw grocery/store cupboard challenge this month - it's just me though and a few days ago did a fridge/freezer inventory. I haven't done the cupboards or pantry, but seeing your list, I think its the way to go. Someone mentioned further up a recipe for houmous with 'roasted jar pepper' - I do a very similar version and it's really tasty, as good as the shops, in my opinion.
1 can chickpeas
1 roasted (jar) pepper
some minced garlic
tpsp of peanut butter (or less) - blitz

I normally add a shake of something like paprika. Not sure if it is SW friendly, but tastes really nice.

I notice you don't have any embarrassing stores - I've noticed a couple of tins of 'brussel sprouts' lurking at the back of my cupboard - did I just say that out loud - what was I thinking. Might be ok thrown in2 a stew !!!!! Anyway, best of luck.

Will try the hummous recipe, sounds lovely and will use a little of the open jar of peanut butter that no-one is eating!

purpleivy wrote: »

Frustration! I"m trying to work my way through the freezer of things that we don't have in the regular rotation, so trying to get them used. Parents here for a visit. I think 'oh, got some bags of diced mutton, will make a suet pudding, they like it and Mum wouldn't do it just for the two of them'. So I get out the mutton and make the pudding. On to cook. Then later I went to my freezer list and I couldn't cross the mutton off, cos it wasn't on! Now the leftovers have gone in and there was too much filling, so there will be a second box with the stew in it. So the freezer is fuller than it was! Still, another couple of meals I shan't have to cook.

Since defrosting my freezer and having a use up week or two my freezer is much better and doing monthly meal planning helps as I tend to only buy what I'm planning on eating that month. I'm also getting better at bulk cooking and freezing so I have enough for another quick meal later in the month.

purpleybat

Save_Dosh wrote: »

I notice you don't have any embarrassing stores - I've noticed a couple of tins of 'brussel sprouts' lurking at the back of my cupboard - did I just say that out loud - what was I thinking. Might be ok thrown in2 a stew !!!!! Anyway, best of luck.

tinned brussels??????? I never knew such a thing existed, and thinking about it i'm pretty sure they should NEVER have existed wherever did you find them to buy?

purpleivy

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Daucy-Brussel-Sprouts-400-Pack/dp/B005I451B6

Cherryfudge

Suffolk_lass wrote: »

All this talk about secret stashes of food stores we all forget about made me think of the forum member with so many toilet rolls she had used them to insulate her loft.... be very afraid of hoarding - or paying the supermarkets to store their stock, as I try to think of it

Funnily, I was thinking almost the opposite and your post has made me think twice! The cold weather and things running low in the shops made me consider having enough tins in to last a couple of weeks (I don't know why that long) in case of emergency. I live in town and can usually get to the shops easily enough but if I sprained my ankle or something I suppose a food mountain would make me less dependent on others, and if there were a fuel shortage or floods and the shops got a bit bare, we could still have a more or less balanced diet.

Now I'm thinking: that's quite sensible in limited quantities but it would have to be stuff we could also use up and replace, and two weeks' worth of tins for 3 adults is an awful lot of storage. And I do already have an excess to use up! (I then googled emergency food and found someone has it down to a fine art and you can spend thousands on a load of ready-selected foods: I don't know whether it includes a tin opener. Not going down that road!)

Today I'm going to make some of that hummous - there are already chickpeas defrosting and carrots and cucumber to use as a dip. I have a few days off so I may make the sausage plait tomorrow if the sausagemeat from the freezer still looks okay. I'm eating out twice which isn't very good for using up stocks.

[Deleted User]

Suffolk Lass - I remember the toilet roll thing - was that MSE??

I've become very minimal of late, gotten rid of so many of my possessions, so I notice my chaotic pantry more, but it really isn't too much, anymore. Kind of the tale end of what was riddiculous. It's my room of doom, as I'm storing my boys possessions in there and it needs organizing - I will have some time Friday, so maybe bite the bullet n do it - take it off my bleedin signature. For me, lesson learned, less is so much more for me these days, in every sense of the word, though a well stocked (not crazy) pantry is good as long as you make sure it gets rotated/used.

Purplybat Yes, they are the ones, 'Daucy'. THEY WILL GET USED. I'm thinking, maybe, some bubble n squeek type potato cake thingy - oohhh - feeling inspired.

Mrs Cheshire - I hope that is the proper 'houmous' recipe - Im thinking something is missing. I played around with it for ages to get it right, so it was low calorie, MSE, n tasty. I haven't made it for ages, as I haven't bought the peppers, due to using up other stores, n have been making bean dips. You might need to add your own touch to it.

OMG is that the birds I hear - I'm so awake.

XSpender

30 days into the challenge and the freezers and cupboards are emptying but not as quick as I would have hoped. This last week I have had a low appetite having accidently glutened myself at work and DH has started his diet plan. He has already lost half a stone!:T

I have added to the freezers with some frozen fish for DH and some of the GF potato products from morrisons new range. I haven't had a curly fry in about 6 years and were good value at £1.

I don't need to make anymore bread until the weekend as I still have 4 slices of the last loaf in the freezer. I am more confident that the funny flours will get used up now I have discovered this recipe.

DS and I will keep slowly working through the freezer and cupboards and DH will be contributing by eating certain frozen veg, rice, seeds and the chicken and new fish.

My meal plan for the rest of this week is:

SW veggie burger, curly fries and salad bits
Seasoned grilled chicken, rice and frozen veg
HM cheese and veg pastie made in a GF wrap with mushy peas (and maybe a handful of oven chips)
Chicken and chorizo Spanish rice
Cheese and bacon omelette, beans, GF min hash browns

Suffolk_lass

Save_Dosh wrote: »

Suffolk Lass - I remember the toilet roll thing - was that MSE??

Not sure I remember who, but it was definitely when Agbo were offering the Price match thing, and there was a whole thread of hacks to maximise it. Then there were pictures of all the spare rooms that had been turned into larders with proper racking and everything. I wonder if all those stores got used...

Mrs_Cheshire

Thanks reading this reminded me to buy a tin of chickpeas tomorrow, asI have everything else for the houmous in.

Cherryfudge

I tried the chickpea / hummus recipe and it's really nice but very thick. I added some of the liquid from the jar of peppers which helped but I wondered whether I should have used water from tinned chickpeas? (Mine weren't from a tin).

Also - can hummus be frozen? ETA - apparently so! That saves a very small amount of fridge space.

purpleivy

I'm not clearing stuff out as fast as I'd hoped. Fortunately today's offerings didn't have leftovers to go in. We had veal and pork escalopes made into Wiener Schnitzel. Parents staying and Dad loves it. MIL gave me a load of leftovers from last night, so that was pud sorted along with a 'spare' Christmas pud a friend was throwing out!.

Tomorrow I'm not creating leftovers either. Chicken winglets with HM coleslaw and potato wedges and the next day sausage, bacon and egg, so nothing going back in the freezer there either!