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

Cherryfudge

DH made us another vat of chickpea tikka so that's us fed for a few days and nothing gone from the freezer. We are half way through the Panettone and DH is onto the second jar of h/m marmalade. There's a tiny bit of freezer space but nothing dramatic.

I can't remember if I mentioned that I found a packet of oatcakes that had gone well past their date? I turned those into bird food fat balls, but they are a bit softer than commercial ones so they are in the fridge. The birds seem to have accepted the one I put out so I hope they won't be there for months.

LotsOfTea

I feel like I'm making some progress with the stores at the moment as there's actually quite a bit of space in the freezer. The last couple of days I've defrosted soup for our lunches and last night's tea used up some cupboard stuff as I made a big pan of veggie chilli with tinned kidney beans and black beans added in and served with the last of a packet of bulgur wheat. I'm especially keen to use up what we've already got at the moment as DH is going through redundancy and we need to be a bit more careful as you never know how long it'll take to find something new.

I'm planning on using some of the really old risotto rice I found in the cupboards to make a smoky tomato risotto for tea tonight as I've got plenty of chopped tomatoes and smoked paprika and chilli.

I think I shall have to bite the bullet and do a proper inventory of the stores at some point soon so I can plan how to use things.

Cherryfudge

Confession time: L1dl was selling off smoked haddock fishcakes yesterday, half price. There are now four in the freezer, two in me and two in the fridge. DH won't have them so those are for my lunches. Nice with cheese melted over, which is helping reduce the big piece of vegan cheese that DH tried and hated.

I've had to compost most of the celery, but the bit that's okay is chopped and frozen to add to soup. There's fresh spinach slowly reducing, but the rest is much as it was. Today's dinner was tuna pasta - we needed something quick and easy, and this used up a pepper.

I also bought ingredients for a biscuit recipe but can't make it till I can get ground almonds. L1dl had run out yesterday.

greent

Risotto made with the stock from last week's chicken and all of the chicken scraps feom there too, diced spinach cubes from the freezer and a load of mushrooms.

SSoup made with the mushroom stalks, broccoli stalks and leaves (broc served with risotto), a couple of shallots feom a 5p bag, a going over bag of salad leaves, 2 sprouts, a chunk of Iceberg lettuce and the end of the cucumber. Stirred in a spoon of garlic philly and it was gorgeous 😊

EEaten from freezer in last couple of days- 2 x kyiv, lump of mash frozen last month, 2 x bargain ready high protein meals bought for pence, 3 pieces chicken used for fajitas.

added to the freezer - veggie scraps for future soup, some bargain beef meatballs, pack of puff pastry gone ood in fridge, handful of squishy tomatoes which I will roast and make soup with when there's enough

LotsOfTea

My risotto didn't happen yesterday because DH decided he fancied pies and we had two that needed using up in the freezer. DS had breaded fish and we all had broccoli and carrots as veg.

Today's lunch was mushrooms and leek fried in a bit of garlic oil on toast with some cheese grated on top. Absolutely delicious and made good use of the punnet of mushrooms that was just on the edge of slimy.

I expect we'll be back to soup for lunch tomorrow so I'll check out what veg needs using up next. I have got some broad beans in the freezer that have been there a very long time ago maybe it's time to look for any soup recipes that include them.

Cherryfudge

The mushrooms, leek on toast sounds interesting. Do you cook it right down, or a bit crisp?

I've put broad beans in hummus before, but so long ago that I can't remember what it tasted like.

As for me, I found some space in the freezer and put half a leg of lamb in. Ice1and had them in the sales freezer for £7, which is £1.50 cheaper than Mr T, though I've not compared the weight. We do love lamb, but it's rather expensive so I grabbed one of the grounds they were a bargain.

LotsOfTea

I cooked the leeks and mushrooms right down so the leeks went a bit caramelised @Cherryfudge . It was really good.

Today will be a parsnip soup day as we have loads of parsnips. I'm going to add some curry spices and a handful of red lentils and then top it off with some crispy spicy Indian cornflake snack things that a friend brought round over Christmas. It's a bit like Bombay mix but with slightly different ingredients. Anyway I think it'll be nice to add a bit of crunch when it's served.

I started an ancient tin of apricots today for breakfast with yoghurt, oats and seeds and am getting near the end of the OOD tins of fruit in the stores. I think I've got just a big one of rhubarb left but I'll need to check later. My favourite was definitely the tinned prunes, they were absolutely delicious. Least favourite was fruit cocktail which was pretty tasteless and not at all how I remembered it from childhood.

oceandreamer

I've been making soups for lunches too. Last week it was butternut squash and red pepper to use up one of the butternut squash I grew last summer and this week leek, potato and broccoli using what needed using up.

Freezer-wise have used a couple of rashers of bacon I found in a sauce with broccoli, garlic and mushrooms (used some cream cheese that I'd forgotten about) and stirred in gnocci. Also used a couple of fry steaks and some frozen peppers to make a stir fry. Keep plodding on but still not much space in the freezer. I was thinking of just taking the biggest thing out but it's a cheap leg of lamb and I know that it will just mean leftovers going back in and they seem to take up more space! It's a constant battle and the freezer seems to be winning at the moment!

rtandon27

We've done well in January clearing out one drawer of our freezer. the aim was to make room for all things Asian in the lunar new year sales. So we now have restocked soup dumplings, gyoza, mandu, wonton wrappers, gyoza skins & ready to steam stuffed bao buns - these are our Saturday mainstay. Hopefully by the time we work through these it will feel more spring-like and we can stock up on frozen dim sum - sui mai and har gow being our favorites. It's sad that the chinese brunch experience is now so expensive that the only affordable way to do it is at home but this way it means we have it more often so a fair enough trade off. Next on our list of things to eat through is the meat and fish drawer - we've been into sunday roast and it's leftovers for the past little while so portioned out meat/fish stock has not turned over. Spring challenge will be to get to the bottom of the drawer and restock with what we will cook regularly.

Cherryfudge

You put me to shame with your knowledge of Oriental food, @rtandon27 ! I don't think I've ever even had a bao bun.

I've eaten my way through half the smoked haddock fishcakes for lunches and on-the-hoof teas, and the rest are in the freezer till I've had a break from them.

The panettone has just been finished. It was lovely while it lasted. There's still some stilton left of the Christmas food, and I need to check the rest of the 5p veg which are stored in the shed. It's interesting to see elsewhere on the forum that people are still finishing theirs up. I think I have three or four cabbages, half a swede, a packet of shallots and a later addition of some carrots. There are a few potatoes too, but we are getting through those.

I remember I had a good cabbage recipe but of course I can't find it now!

ETA: after a fair amount of searching the forum for 'cabbage', and finding lots of interesting red cabbage Christmassy recipes which I've saved, I finally found what I was looking for.

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