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

Viking_mfw

Feeling very smug-and-yet-slightly-shamefaced about using half of a jar of pears I mulled from the garden of our last house 5 and a half _years_ ago to make pear and blue cheese muffins with some leftover xmas cheese. They are very good. 

Floss

Viking_mfw said:

Feeling very smug-and-yet-slightly-shamefaced about using half of a jar of pears I mulled from the garden of our last house 5 and a half _years_ ago to make pear and blue cheese muffins with some leftover xmas cheese. They are very good. 

You've reminded me that I have 2 jars of bottled pears tucked away... think they are 2017 but maybe older - I also have some vanilla ice cream to use up so that's desserts for me next weekend!

joedenise

Lunch and dinner from the freezer today:  vegetable and lentil soup for lunch and sausage cassoulet for dinner.

carebabe

Lovely big jar of jam made from some plums in the freezer. Will use on toast in mornings as a change from marmalade.

Floozie

I am trying to have a "detox" of my freezer and cupboards and use up everything that was not used at Christmas in the hope that my January food bill will be a lot lower than my December bill! Some carrots, potatoes and onions that were not used over Christmas are now going to be shoved into a carrot and coriander soup, might use a garlic flatbread that has been lurking in the freezer for a while which should go nicely with the soup.  I have a brisket of beef in the freezer which has been lurking for a while and on Saturday morning on James Martin's show I saw a perfect recipe for it - cottage pie which looked lush!

carinjo

In: 2 portions cooked chicken, 4 portions frying steak.
Out: porridge, handfulls of frozen peas and sweetcorn, wholewheat pasta. 

Ellie79

Hi all, I've had a real slump in terms of being creative and slightly more frugal. I work silly hours and whilst my OH is good at picking up the meal slack he certainly would agree cooking with huge imagination is less his thing. So, 2022 is the year I curb my food hoarding tendencies without having an exit strategy. I've two turkeys in the freezer, so they will have to make good their space taken and I'll be taking the smaller out to defrost on Friday for Sunday. My chest freezer is packed to the edges and I have a stash of lentils, rice etc and a new ninja that can do some of the hard work for me. I desperately want to eat more healthily and to reduce our spends on meat. 

Tomorrow is some sort of meat from the freezer (I am recovering from covid, food has not been a priority!). We have plenty veg in so I will whip something up, perhaps a Thai Green curry as I have a jar of sauce and some ageing naan bread to use. Here we go!

carinjo

@carebabe that reminds me i got a jar of plum chutney i made from a L1dl £1.50 box and it should be ready to use now!
@Ellie79 i swear by my slow cooker after this last week of night shifts. Hope you get a chance to do an inventory of everything so cam gradually reduce. pear and blue cheese muffins @Viking_mfw ? That sounds very yum.
Got a few days off, so want to take stock of the freezers. Most notably what veg got left over from allotment from last year. Need to start planning the planting for this year and want to see what worked and what didn't. It was my first full season of planting, so a lot of lessons learned.
Out: yesterday a small handful of frozen sweetcorn mixed with the last of the roast chicken for sandwiches for work, a mystery bag of sauce/soup/stew? Simmered it down and last of the fusilli for dinner. frozen marrow rings and beef mince to make baked marrow and mince today.
In: 0

joedenise

Cooked a massive amount of sausage cassoulet yesterday so we'll be having some for dinner tonight the rest will be bagged up and frozen.

Have taken out some smoked haddock for breakfast tomorrow (kedgeree) and some ham (either with salad or in a sandwich) for lunch.

Defrosted some salmon overnight and going to make salmon & parsley fishcakes for lunch.  Will have with some fried up LO tinned potatoes and pan fried tomatoes.

purpleivy

Well the January game of 'Use it Up' hasn't worked entirely, having had a couple of online shops.  Ocado had 6kg of marmalade oranges on it and Amazon fresh bags and bags of sugar for marmalade, plus the lemons. 

In my defence, I took lemons out of the freezer for the same, that were left over from Son and DIL wedding party.  I also took out a 1.5kg of gammon at the weekend, had for sunday dinner, cooked carrots, onions etc in with it. Then straight after the met came out and before dinner I added split green peas, so the soup was completely coooked.  

Just run it through the blender and kept some for my lunch and the rest is in the freezer. 

Marmalade (4 x 1600g oranges) is under way, plan is to get them cooked in the IP and then mince the peels/strain the seeds/pulp.  Might have a late night and get it boiled up this evening. It might not sound as if I am lazy, but putting 4 lots through one after another means one clear up!  I took on my Mum's marmalade making a couple of years ago as she now has dementia and can't do it.  They use a jar a week. That's a lot of marmalade to make!  Fortunately not quite as much this time round as they were buying during lockdown.  

Plans for getting out of the freezer....got some goat, bone in, which I hope to make into Caribbean style curry goat. Yumm.  Of course this things take up space in the freezer when you put the finished dish back, but at least it's usable meals!