The all new using what you have from your Freezer, Cupboard or Shed (Barn)

Cairnpapple

I'm going to try slow cooker risotto today,  wish me luck

Steady flow of boxed curry/ casserole out of the freezer this week. Spouse is housesitting and catsitting in our friend's house for a few days and is only coming here to work and to pick up frozen dinner! Also finished the frozen cherries and making inroads into the frozen bakery bread.

Cairnpapple

Well I really hope this risotto works. It was so easy that I could do it myself today when I'm doing a bit better than usual with fatigue/pain but certainly couldn't stand or concentrate for long enough to do a real risotto. Soggy celery whizzed in the chopper with shallot, garlic and carrot, cook quickly in butter and oil, add the rice for 1 min, then you mix in stock and pesto in the slow cooker without even heating the stock. Now to see whether the cooking time is accurate. 

Cherryfudge

I hope it all works out @Cairnpapple, it sounds flavoursome.

London_1

Cainpapple I snaffled a 400 gm box of mushrooms for `Tesco's yesterday as the chap was reducing them to 42p I brought them home peeled, and cut up and froze them then bagged them up, and soon as I have some room I shall dig out the beef skirts and add tomatoes and mushrooms and a few herbs and a dollop of sweet chilli sauce to liven it up and chuck it all into the slow cooker and see how it fairs . what can go wrong beef tomatoes and lots of odds and end thrown in will be interesting I know its very lean as I remember buying it at a rather nice farm shop well before Christmas and thinking hmm it was on off so a good buy at the time and I'd completely forgotten it was in the freezer . Must have been my lucky day yesterday as he was reducing boxes of  raspberries as well to 63p so I had some of those and had some after dinner with some yogurt and they were rather nice I wallet the rest today as I'm not sure how well they would freeze, plus there is enough for just one portion anyway  

No more shopping needed as I did manage to get everything I needed yesterday, plus a couple of reduced bargains as well so this month with only 15/17 NSDs and having spent only a total of  £31.29  I am more than pleased with how using up my existing stuff in the freezer and cupboards has been going this month.

 Onwards and upwards chums

  JackieO xx 

C_J

In the spirit of trying to see daylight in my freezer I have defrosted two Tesco packs x 5 cooked chicken drumsticks. We don't really like drumsticks (Mister CJ is annoyingly fussy about anything which is served with bones still in!) but these were free from the community larder recently (they had a truck load to give away after Christmas). I am currently poaching them with some extra odds and ends of veg trimmings and will then strip the meat to make some Chinese chicken in black bean sauce. If there isn't enough meat, I'll pad it out with some sliced mushrooms as I have plenty of those.  The chicken bones will go back in the original pan and get simmered into stock for soups later in the week.

Cherryfudge

@London_1, what a bargain those mushrooms were!

There's little to beat a fresh raspberry but we have raspberry canes so I do freeze quite a lot. Not as good as fresh, but they will freeze.

Cairnpapple

@London_1 and @C_J, it sounds like you have tasty plans there!

My risotto was fine. It took longer than the recipe and it was slightly bland. But I think I'm comparing it to a normal stovetop risotto where I would use a LOT more butter and cheese. I might put in some sundried tomato next time,  and some extra stock and herbs. Anyway it used about 1/3 of the ancient arborio rice and has enough leftovers for tomorrow, that's not bad. 

Frugalistamama

Used up some more red lentils as I made more Dahl for my lunch for the rest of the week, popped in some wrinkly carrot and half a leftover courgette so hopefully it will be fine.

Also made a jambalaya for dinner tonight. This used up some of the rice mountain, an old pack of jambalaya seasoning, some chicken from the freezer and some salami I bought back from Spain . I also chucked in a jar of tomatoes and peppers that I didn't know what to do with in the place of a fresh bell pepper and tin of tomatoes. It was polished off by my family so I think it was ok. I have another packet of seasoning so I think the dish will make another appearance in about 2 weeks.

Hubby is complaining that there is no food in the fridge which is obviously not true...it just requires cooking! 

Cherryfudge

I managed quite a bit of using up today: about a quarter of the remaining pizzas and some of the salad things became lunch. The celery sticks are chopped up and frozen for a stew.

For dinner we had toad in the hole with roast veg and some salad - there are still plenty of the vegetable things left but I've finished up a packet of sausages and a box of eggs.

Nothing left out tonight, so real progress has been made, and it was too cold to be tempted to go to the shops.

RHemmings

Sorry, I've been away for a bit due to 'things to do'. Maybe this should go in my 24 for 24 thread post, but I'm trying to make new things this year that could possibly become things I cook regularly. This is some vegan garlic and herb mayonnaise. I was surprised how easy it was to get the texture, but the flavour  .... isn't wonderful. I'm going to have to refine it. 

It does just fit into this thread as I opened one of those small bottles of lemon juice that has been in the cupboard for a long time. But, I bought new soya milk to help make it. So ... one step forward, one step back. 



In context:



EDIT: I don't know why my knife and fork look filthy in the photo. They don't in real life.