Reverse Meal Planning

rtandon27

EH - I'd give it a boil first and then bake it, as ambient Gnocchi remains quite solid unless there is a lot of sauce for it to soak up!  We bought the spinach variety, but are going to use it for our usual leek & mushroom pan-fried gnocchi at some point down the line.

zafiro1984

I'm starting to see space in the fridge especially in the vegetable trays, I've still got some carrots, parsnips, a cabbage and beetroot in the fridge with a squash, onions and potatoes in the pantry so I'll be ok for a few more days before I have to rely on frozen veg. There's still plenty of yogurt and fromage frais with expiry dates towards the end of the month. so that's ok and fortunately I froze some milk. The drive is progressing well, they've concreted past the house and are down as far as the bend.

Lunch was pate made a couple of weeks ago and frozen in portions. We came in quite late tonight so tea was simple, chicken thighs, chips, peas, pudding was LO frozen orange/sultana muffins defrosted and heated in the microwave with custard. 

joedenise

Have had to completely rewrite the menu plan for the weekend since we decided to get away for a couple of days in the motorhome as we haven't managed any time away yet in it!  DH had to replace the water pump so that we could actually go!

Today is egg sarnie for breakfast.  All meals over the weekend will be from the fridge, freezer or pantry.  Will leave out some frozen chicken thighs and I'll make something with them when we come home on Sunday.

2Scratters

@EssexHebridean - I laughed at your OOD items I am definitely with you on that one. A work colleague saved me a jar of pickle 6 years OOD knowing we would use it. Yoghurts OOD 6 months OOD is my best. Not that I should be bragging about that  I remember years ago(as does my son) I actually fed him a jelly that was older than he was at the time (about 8 years old) I only did that as I obviously found it and tried to see if it would actually work. Clearly it did, and us too still here to tell the story. 

Primrose

Fretting about out of date stuff is obviously a sign of a too prosperous society. Of course nibody bothered abiut this kind of stuff in the Victorian age when none of these protocols existed.  Ad long as something wasn't covered in green mould you probably still ate it, especially if yiu were poor.  And wasn,t that how penicillin was discovered?  So it proergaps did you more benefit than harm anyway.

i can,t ever recall being unwell as a result of eating out of date stuff.  In well stocked cupboards and people living busy lives  out of date stuff is probably inevitable sooner or later.

rtandon27

The unsatisfactory Kimchi I used the other day was well out of date according to the unopened jar, but I've had homemade stuff that was older than that.  It was only unsatisfactory because of the spice combination, not for any other reason.  Once cooked in rice it was delicious, as we added extra flavourings.  Not sure that properly preserved food goes out of date easily, that's why it was preserved for the lean times!

I can remember years after my Grandmother passed, my Grandfather relishing the last of her jams/jellies/pickles as the store bought stuff just wasn't the same.  not one of them had a best before date!  He lived another 10 years after her, to the ripe old age of 92, one of the healthiest & most active people I've ever met!

Mrs_Cheshire

Suffolk_lass said:

Hello @Mrs_Cheshire, I keep seeing you on boards I frequent - do please update us on your recipes and solutions to stored "stuff". And welcome!

One suggestion from me is to use half the condensed milk to make fudge, and make a caramel sauce with the other half to have with ice-cream or stirred through a semifreddo vanilla ice cream (with flake salt) to make salted caramel icecream

I've got a small amount of caramel in the fridge, so will stir that through the cream to go with the meringues for tonight's pudding. Thanks for the reminder. Will try the ice cream tip when I have some ice cream as we've got more tins to get through. 

gele

Good morning lovely people.
I have been lurking on this thread on and off for a while and its amazing what you people can produce from the bottoms of your fridges and freezers! I've decided today to finally ask for help. I'm quite good at finding yellow sticker bargains, I buy them and then I don't know what to do with them. In my fridge at the moment I have, amongst many other things, too many green beans, too many sprouts, and leeks that need using.  Unless something says 'freezable' on the label I'm never quite sure what will freeze well and how best to prepare them for freezing. Can anyone advise what's the best thing to do with these. I'd like to prepare more meals for freezer too so I'm not having to cook every evening, I am making a chicken roast dinner tonight so will use some but not all.
Thanks for reading my ramblings. I expect there might be more. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

zafiro1984

Interesting comments about OOD things which I liked but I've quite a few opened but now OOD things which I've moved away from like artificial low calorie sugar, flavoured vinegar, gravy browning  and a 1cal fat spray to mention just a few. I think I'll have a 'spring clean' in a couple of cupboards plus the spice/herb drawer and a reorganise as my baking - flour, sugar, dried fruit ,yeast etc shelf is bulging. 

I can't remember what lunch was yesterday so it can't have been memorable. However, for tea I had to use some mince from the fridge which had been there a couple of days. Shepherds pie for DH, stir fry for me. Out of interest does anyone else defrost things from the freezer in the fridge as it keeps the temperature of the fridge down so uses less electric, a tip instilled in me from my mother. Pudding was ordinary - I needed to use up some pears so made a pastry/yogurt thing. 

joedenise

@gele - I would just prep your green beans and then either open freeze and then bag up or can just prep and freeze in meal sized portions.  Same with the sprouts.  I tend to try and use them within 2-3 months as won’t keep as well as commercially frozen ones.

For the leeks the best way to freeze is to make leek and potato soup and then freeze in portions.  They don’t freeze well whole as too much water in them.