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

Cherryfudge

LotsOfTea said:

@Cherryfudge I fully understand why you might need emergency meringues. What if you suddenly had to make Eton mess in a hurry? 😂

Happens more often than I like to admit.  

Watty1

To answer the question the dates were just sticky enough to bind and hold together but I made then quite small as well.   I took 4 out of the freezer and they defrosted while we ate dinner (fish with pasta - stir fry a pack of fish pie mix with garlic and chilli and serve with pasta yum).    Stopped me wanting chocolate too this evening so win! 

LotsOfTea

I did a much needed review of the fresh veg in the fridge yesterday and used up everything that was teetering on in the edge of needing to be chucked out. So I made a sort of sag paneer with cabbage, spring greens and spinach included; a veggie and bean chilli which used up some bendy carrots and a couple of dented courgettes and finally I used the squishy bananas from the fruit bowl to make two banana and chocolate loaf cakes. In this hot weather bananas go off so quickly! I've frozen 1 and a half of the cakes for future use and DS is getting the other half in his lunchbox this week. 

The freezer is full again so I need to do a bit more clearing out. Maybe I'll start with the ice lollies! 

Cherryfudge

I need to make inroads into the freezer again - yesterday I put in half a packet of fish fingers and took out the remains of a bag of frozen berries which DH can have.  My tea was fishfinger sandwiches with pepperoni - worth a try! We seem to have a lot of both cheese and mushrooms in our freezer - mushroom soup for me, possibly. We are both limited in how much cheese we can have, so that will just have to stay there till needed: there's enough in the fridge for now.

I finished the Stilton and I've run out of blueberries... alas. There's one portion of the sweet potato stew left which I'll have on Thursday. I was going out for chips with friends tonight but that's fallen through so perhaps it's time to make plans that involve using things up...

Watty1

Finally used up the apricots from the cupboard.  Well most, the rest can eek out dried fruit in a cake or something.

Found a recipe for oat apricot brazil nut bars in a cookery book which I'd clearly made before as I had written way to sweet, chopped up to make tiny "sweets" rather than the bar so used the apricots up with some nuts, oats, chia seeds and a bit of protein powder, froze in a block then chopped up into one cm chunks and back in the freezer. There are now quite of a lot of "sweets" as treats.  

Also made some tiny energy balls to act as chocolates using some of the (many) dates in the cupboard.

So sweet treats for a couple of weeks.  I really want to move away from buying chocolate.   Hope these help with that.   Finding a replacement for wine in the evening has really helped me cut right back (only had two glasses this month and two bottles of beer!)

Watty1

I still have  A LOT of frozen peaches in my freezer and looking for inspiration I found this

https://www.riverford.co.uk/recipes/apricot-cheesecake-pots?srsltid=AfmBOopXpGfyvF3x0uIYamXr9n_3PA8SKvYDLfRrAmI_dGFCW-BSEMYl

Dear cooking pals - would this work without the icing sugar?  

Cherryfudge

That looks delicious, @Watty1. I think it would be worth a try without the icing sugar as the apricots are cooked with honey so there is already added sweetness. Perhaps worth a try without as you could still add some in if it doesn't quite taste right.

Watty1

themsthebreaks said:

Watty1 said:

…used the apricots up with some nuts, oats, chia seeds and a bit of protein powder, froze in a block then chopped up into one cm chunks and back in the freezer.

Would you mind letting me know how you made these please @Watty1

From the Functional Medicine Cookbook - a book I would never recommend as it has way to many specialised ingredients in each recipe.     I just substitute and leave out stuff - anyway the original -

200 gm brazil nuts and 60 gm oats whizzed in a food processor until fine. Then add 30 gm chia seeds, 250 gm ready to eat apricots chopped, 3 heaped tsb protein powder, zest of 1 orange and a pinch of salt and then pulse until it comes together to form a firm dough.  Press that into a 8 inch square pan lined with parchment and freeze for at least one hour then cut into 12 bars to make a raw protein bar.

Watty notes:  for goodness stuff who has all this stuff in the cupboard - uh oh - I actually do - however the mix did not come together to form a firm dough so i added the juice of the orange i had zested and then a bit of water - this might have been to do with the fact my apricots were old - or maybe dried apricots are not what they mean by ready to eat? I've no idea.   Anyway the resultant mess was very sticky and sweet and there was no way I'd eat that much sweet sticky but as little squares with a coffee they are delicious.   It would easily work without the protein powder and chia seeds and i didn't have enough brazil nuts so made the weight up with other nuts.

Cherryfudge

Apologies for my rather long silence: I accidentally built myself into the emergency store cupboard and had to eat my way out through all the meringues, cappuccinos, packets of crackers, jars of pasta sauce and bags of tealights.

Not really, but I might as well have done, for all the inroads I've made into freezer stocks.

We have been eating piecemeal: when I'm working we eat separately which means DH buys something from the supermarket for himself and I eat too many lunch-type meals without ever really impacting the amount I need to use up. There must be a shopping fairy filling it up at least as fast as I eat it, and it ain't DH.

In short, I need to eat up more than I buy. The other day I suddenly wanted cottage pie, which is totally unlike me but led to me searching the freezer today. I didn't find the vegan mince that I know is in there somewhere, but there was a bag of green lentils, ready-cooked. I ended up throwing this together with spices, mushrooms, spinach, some tomatoes that needed to be used, onions... not sure what went in it now, but it made a filling dhal, and there's one portion for me to finish up tomorrow. Today I've finished one of two pots of hummus. The cheese remains frozen.

I'll try to come back here more often and report on any scraps of progress. I probably ought to confess to things I buy and don't immediately need, as well.

Cherryfudge

We are inundated with greengages at the moment: one batch of jam is made but has to be stored in the fridge (as it's fridge jam with less sugar) so storage may soon become a problem. There's no freezer space - as usual. I've given away quite a lot of greengages but can't keep up with the rate the tree is producing them!

Apples are already coming available locally: DH found the first roadside one the other day and I've seen quite a lot since but need to be careful not to get as many as last year when we had more than we could cope with and two bags went off in the shed. Then there are blackberries...

We've had a guest to stay a week ago so there is once again too much cheese in the fridge, and lots of melon as well as sundry veg. We finished the carrots this lunchtime - at last - I've been making coleslaw and there is still cabbage so what's left of it is sitting in a pot of water to keep crispy.

I also made a couple of bottles of lemonade which are getting used but also taking up space. There is fish to finish up tomorrow, probably with cous cous and whatever vegetables are to hand, and some ham which isn't all that tasty but is for me to finish as DH doesn't like it.

I think I need to keep away from the shops, but I'm not sure how long that will last.