Freezer Challenge Week 4 | On to the compartments!
Last Week's Basket
I started with all of this stuff, which looks like a rather unappetizing pile of food.
But amazingly enough, it turned into some pretty delicious eats.
There's something very satisfying about turning odds and ends into a good meal...it kind of reminds me of the feeling you get when you paint an ugly piece of furniture.
Quinoa
I had two packets of pre-cooked quinoa (they were given to me by a friend who was moving and needed to clean out her freezer!).
I used it as a base for four skillet meals (all pictured here), and I'm now inspired to keep some cooked quinoa in my freezer for just such a purpose in the future.
The quinoa was a little icy from being in the freezer for a while, but I just stir-fried it in the pan to evaporate the excess moisture and all was well.
Burger
It was hiding under other stuff in the photo, but there was a lone uncooked burger in the basket as well. Joshua cooked that up one night and topped it with bacon, feta cheese, a fried egg, and lettuce.
Almond Flour
A reader kindly suggested these energy bites from Iowa Girl, so I made a batch. They only used ½ cup of flour, so I'll have to make another batch or two to finish up my bag.
But at least now I have a good plan for using up the last cup or so.
Honey Mustard Sauce
I used this to make a batch of Aussie chicken.
Chicken Broth
This went into our sausage and orzo dinner. It was the perfect amount!
Butternut Squash Soup
I didn't do anything fancy with this...I just thawed it, heated it up, and ate it.
Flank Steak
Joshua marinated one of these to make something kind of resembling bulgogi. He ate some of his homemade kimchi with it, plus he cooked sushi rice.
And the fourth bowl has some kind of dipping sauce but I don't know what's in it.
What's left
I have a flank steak, a small container of frosting, a jar of cardamom, and a jar of powdered coffee creamer.
I'll use the flank steak in a future meal, Sonia will use the frosting next time she makes her fancy cupcakes, the cardamom can stay in there indefinitely, and I'll just leave the coffee creamer in there until hot chocolate season rolls around.
(The hot chocolate mix recipe I use calls for creamer.)
So, I'd say last week's efforts were pretty darn successful!
This week's section
I'm done with the baskets now, so I'm on to the compartments. This one's not too full, but the others may take me more than a week apiece.
Here we have:
- two jars of applesauce (easy to just eat with dinner)
- a partial loaf of homemade whole wheat bread (a good base for avocado toast)
- a bag of raw walnuts (boy, I'm not sure! That's a LOT of walnuts.)
- a bag of pineapple (easy: smoothies)
- a bag of kale (smoothies. But this might be a lot for one week....)
- a big pork butt roast (pulled pork!)
- a partial package of sub rolls (these aren't the best rolls in the world, so I'm thinking maybe croutons or overnight French toast to disguise the inferiority)
- Italian sausage (we just had a sausage meal last week, so I may skip these for now.)
If you've got good walnut usage suggestions (especially if they're kind of healthy), I'm all ears.
And if you've been freezer-challenging along with me, I'd love to hear how it's going for you.
Try the California Walnut Council, Kristen. They offer a number of recipes on their web site - http://www.walnuts.org.
Recipe ideas for walnuts:
-This recipe makes good cookies: https://cnz.to/recipes/cookies-small-cakes/chocolate-walnut-cookies-recipe/
-I've also made walnut pesto for pasta before (google till you find one you like)
-Walnut and goats cheese salad (any kind of lettuce leaves work with this) with a honey and balsamic vinegar dressing is lovely
-You could also put walnuts into your next batch of energy bites.
I've been reading your website for a long time but have never commented before. Thanks for doing what you do. Most enjoyable!
Oh, I'm so glad you de-lurked! Yay! I love to hear from readers.
I also use walnuts for pesto, and they work great. I cannot eat pine nuts, and walnuts are much more economical. My favorite recipe is from this website: https://www.onceuponachef.com/recipes/basil-walnut-pesto.html
There's also a recipe for a big sour cream coffee cake on the same site. It's delicious!
I love all the tips on your site. Thanks for sharing them.
Coffee and walnut cake
Muffins with walnuts
Carrot cake
None of those are healthy though!
You can also toast them in oven or skillet and add them to salad. The 2seasons blog has a recipe for peach, mozzarella and toasted walnuts with olive oil, balsamic and torn basil (don’t really need a recipe, just chuck those things in a bowl until it looks yummy ) I also added torn mint which is lovely with the peach. Except I use nectarines as peach skin gives me the heeby geebys
Chop walnuts rather fine and add to salad, oatmeal, stir fry, any cookie or brownie or cake, bean burgers. Take the larger pieces and toss with spicy seasonings then lightly toast for a great snack. Eat an ounce of day of raw walnuts for heart health.
Use the sub rolls, cut down, to make garlic toast to accompany a pasta meal, a salad. Make croutons, make bread crumbs
I’d just put the walnuts in a bowl in the counter for snacking. They shouldn’t last long!
I’ve been working on my freezer as well. We went on vacation last week and drove to a condo in the mountains. I tossed a whole bunch of frozen meat in the cooler to take along (chicken, burgers, sausage, fish, fish cakes..) we grilled up the whole mess and ate all week. We even had some leftovers to bring home for our first day back !
You make granola in the summer, yes? Definitely walnuts there. Also, I use walnuts in place of pine nuts when I make pesto, if you have enough basil yet. And of course, if you roast them with salt and honey they'll just get eaten out of hand as a snack. At least, they would at my house.
I add a handful of walnuts to my smoothies - easier and less expensive than nut butters.
And I agree that walnuts are also super delicious in granola!
For the walnuts- granola! The granola recipe I use calls for 1cup of nuts. Working on my own mini freezer clean out this month- thanks for the inspiration!
We are finishing up stuff in our freezer too, and I'm super happy about it!
We did our first real grocery trip after three weeks of mainly eating from the fridge and freezer. It felt so good. Our grocery budget for June plummeted big time!!
These are like yummy no bake brownies and they use lots of walnuts...
http://eatyournuts.com/2015/12/chocolate-walnut-date-balls-raw-vegan-paleo/
You inspired me to get digging in my freezer, Kristen! I was a little concerned about the colour of my own butternut squash soup but it turned out to be mislabelled broccoli soup - delicious
Everyone has already made great suggestions for your walnuts, so here is one for your almond flour:
https://www.mybakingaddiction.com/gluten-free-mini-cheesecakes/
My daughter recently made these when we were invited to dinner with friends and one of them eats gluten-free. I expected the crust to taste like cardboard but it was actually quite good; I think the lemon zest upped the flavor. We served with fresh berries and whipped cream and they were delicious!
That is a lot of walnuts. 50% of people I know hates them, including me. The best thing is if you can put them in the food processor and grind until fine to trick them into people's months. Or give it to the birds as bird litter?!
I noticed you don't seem to do anything special with your bread. I seem to always get freezer burn and awful taste when I freeze bread/rolls. Any secrets to preserving it?
Nope, I just put it in an air tight plastic bag and freeze it. My chest freezer is not the self-defrosting type, though, so things there are much less likely to get that freezer burnt taste. I have to be much more careful with how long I store things in the freezer that's attached to my kitchen fridge, as that one self-defrosts.
I've found it helps to squeeze out as much air as possible from the bag--but not so much that you squish the bread into a weird shape. Not that I've ever done that!
walnuts + kale = pesto
walnuts are also good toasted with various coatings... we had a soy sauce version the other week which was a nice change from the standard sugary coatings
Ooh, and you know, I have a LOT of kale right now. Any particular kale pesto recipe you love?
TBH, we just improvise whenever we have too much of a green herb (or kale) with a regular basil pesto recipe (always using walnuts instead of pinenuts because pinenuts are expensive!).
People seem to really like the NYTimes version, which looks like it adds lemon to the standard recipe. https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1012888-pasta-with-kale-pesto-and-roasted-butternut-squash (If you don't have a nytimes account, it looks like there's a copy available on pinterest.) I imagine that would produce a much brighter pesto than what we usually make, which is more earthy. I think that could work.
I love muhammara for walnuts. It’s a red pepper dip, so yummy. It calls for pomegranate molasses so that may be a little tricky to find but it’s worth it. You can google a recipe 🙂
Maybe you could also add to the zucchini bread as we come into the surplus season (though personally I’m a purist in my quick breads).
And if they don’t go too quickly as a raw snack, you could always turn them into spiced or candied nuts!
You can make Pomegranate molasses by cooking down pomegranate juice until it's thick and syrupy. Fyi.
I use walnuts to make kale pesto. It’s yummy and good for you. Since my garden always has tons of kale I make huge batches and we freeze them in jam jars for winter use (on pasta, mixed into minestrone soup, mixed with goat cheese etc).
It won’t take up many of them but make pesto with walnuts instead of pinenuts. Crush up the walnuts and use as a breading for chicken.
I use walnuts in all kinds of salads -- in fruit salad and on green salad. They're good on oatmeal, too.
I have been making some progress cleaning out my freezers, but yesterday I discovered three bags of frozen fruit that had best by dates from over two years ago. I'm not generally too worried about those dates, but that was a bit much so I sadly tossed them 🙁
On the plus side, I used up all my jars of chicken broth making chicken noodle soup (my son's request despite the hot weather) and pre-making rice for later this week. I also used up close to half a dozen bananas making pancakes and banana bread. The soup also used up some of the frozen chicken taking up too much space in the basement freezer. I had a bag of frozen kale that I am about halfway through after tossing it into the kids lunches (noodles, ground turkey, olive oil and garlic salt, plus kale). Lastly, I used up a bag of frozen green beans, also just tossing that into the kids' lunches. This week, I need to dive a little further into the big chest freezer in the basement, but my garden is also starting to burst with veggies, so those will be my priority!
My favorite breakfast of all time uses walnuts: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/baked-oatmeal-365069
I reduce the maple syrup to about 1/4 c and skip the butter entirely to make it slightly healthier.
Make Bar Nuts a la Union Square Cafe from "The Perfect Recipe for Losing Weight and Eating Great" by Pam Anderson, former Executive Editor of Cook's Illustrated.
The nuts are fantastic 🙂
Walnuts are almost always cheaper than pecans and I've found that they sub great for pretty much everything. I don't think I'd try them in pecan pie though, haha. Other than that I'd say go for it 🙂 .
I have a delicious recipe for Walnut Cherry Delight bars from my husband's grandma. Not exactly healthy, sorry, but really yummy. (Excuse the old and ugly photo in the post!)
https://aliensintheapple.com/2011/01/26/cherry-delight-on-the-menu-tonight/
Oh man, I totally feel you on the photo! I have the same thought when I link to some of my older recipes. Ha.
That does look like a delicious recipe despite the photo, though. 🙂
I made cardamom cookie thins a while back and they were really good! It was sugar cookies with a touch of cardamom added for flavor. You have to be into those floral flavors to really enjoy it, though.
I love how you're using up so much freezer stock! We finally went through and organized our freezer last week. I meal planned for July around what we had on hand, so hopefully we can save a little moolah this month. 🙂
“... to disguise the inferiority” love quote!!
Joshua is developing into a creative cook with an international repertoire of dishes in addition to his coffee skills!
I have my own walnut stash I’m trying to work through.. I’m
not the biggest walnut lover
My favourite way to use walnuts is to make raw walnut brownie bites.
I made a post about the recipe I use here: https://lazyfrugal.com/lazyfrugal-tuesday-no-vanilla-no-problem/
If you like chocolate without the sugar (this recipe uses dates) these are such a treat!!
Walnuts are great added to your smoothie, Kristen! I also add them to banana-oatmeal pancakes (mix batter in the Vitamix - very smooth) and sprinkle ground or chopped walnuts over my oatmeal. Also add to salads. Yum-yum!
Let's just say that I would not say that that bag you have constitutes a lot of walnuts, haha! It would be gone in short order around here. I really like nuts in general - the edible kind, of course! 😉
Another suggestion for using up the walnuts: try Taste of Home's sweet onion muffins. Delicious and even my kids like them -- must be the sugar!
You did really well with the freezer challenge. The only suggestion I have for walnuts is making banana bread with them - even though I personally don't like walnuts in it. I suppose you could also put them in granola bars or even granola cereal. We are also trying to use up what we have in our freezer, so it's good to see what others make for inspiration for future meals.
I feel the same way about banana bread with nuts! It's all good except for the nut part. Ha.
Here’s one of my favorite ways to use up walnuts: http://detoxinista.com/2013/09/date-energy-balls-vegan-paleo/
walnuts+frozen bananas+milk=best smoothie EVER!!
Really? I have such a hard time imagining that tasting good. Do you have to really love walnuts for that to work? Or does it mostly taste like bananas?
For the walnuts: Modern Mrs. Darcy’s Spiced Nuts! https://modernmrsdarcy.com/spiced-nuts/
They are THE BEST. I typically use a blend of nuts, but they would be fantastic all-walnut. Good for an easy protein snack while out and about, or chopping up for a salad.
it is a little added sugar but this recipe makes really delicious roasted walnuts for snacking:
https://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/brown-sugar-rosemary-walnuts-recipe.html
ive made them with and without the sesame seeds, and they do add extra crunch and flavor, but its really all about the crispy coating of brown sugar, salt and rosemary (fresh or dried is good) so don't go out and buy sesame seeds if don't have them.
also, second vote hear for pesto with walnuts instead of pinenuts
1. Sausage Overnight French Toast.
2. Grind the nuts to add to bread flour. King Arthur Flour has recipes using ground nuts
3. Lots of sweet breads (but not sweetbreads!) and desserts use nuts: danishes, sticky rolls, ice cream topping, middle eastern desserts, brownies, cookies. Some of these can be given away as gifts or thank yous. If there's Pecan Pie, is there Walnut Pie?
4. Granola, granola bars, energy bites, etc.
5. Sugared, with or without cinnamon.
Great going on the freezer challenge!
I like walnuts, although pecans are my favorites. I sometimes make "crispy nuts" in which they are soaked in salt water and then dried in the dehydrator to make slightly salty, crispy nuts to eat by themselves. It also removes that powdery coating that nuts seem to have sometimes. I also like any kind of nut except peanuts in homemade trail mix. I know, peanuts are a legume, but you know what I mean.
My freezer is packed with the pork I just bought, and my husband is agitating for a bigger freezer. We'll see if that happens. I don't buy this much meat but rarely, so I'm thinking we don't really need a bigger one.
I've always added walnuts to my chicken salad.
That's what I was thinking!
rhubarb almond coffee cake is my favorite way to use both rhubarb (which grows like crazy in Fairbanks) and almond flour. My recipe calls for some almonds but I use chopped nuts, and more than is asked for in the recipe. Also uses sour cream.
Kingarthurflour.com has tons of almond flour recipes
I roast walnuts and then refreeze them. They stay nice for some time, and I add the roasted walnuts to oatmeal, cookies, banana bread (LOVE this) and salads. Or just eat them as a snack (few ounces with a string cheese in a lunch is AWESOME).
Rosemary Walnut Chicken is a delicious way to use up Walnuts. I food process the walnuts and rosemary together until it is pretty fine, coat the chicken with an egg wash or a thin layer of mayo, then press it in the walnuts and rosemary. Bake at 400 til done... I usually try 15-20 min if I pound the chicken flat which I usually do. I do fresh rosemary, careful not to overdo it, but dried is ok too. I usually get a poultry fresh herbs mix and plan another dinner that needs fresh herbs that week.
I think there are proper recipes online. I just throw things together for this one I have made it so much!
The breading is very delicate though, so be careful when transferring it to plates!
Hey there! You could make a big batch of walnut pesto. It is great in a cold pasta salad, slathered on meat like a chimichurri marinade or with... pasta!
I recently made some shortbread cookies with blended walnuts and they were very good.
Good luck, that is A LOT of walnuts.
https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/238199/walnut-pesto/
I make pesto sauce with walnuts..
My husband loves walnuts and they are very healthy for him. Everyday at lunch, he has a side salad made of cucumbers, tomatoes and oranges. I sprinkle a few chopped walnuts for crunch.
Every afternoon, he has some sort of fruit as a snack - sliced up apple, watermelon, etc... - I add a walnuts to the bowl.
I believe my #1 favorite cookies are made with walnuts, Russian teacakes/Mexican wedding cookies.
Easy peasy to make and eat.
I love this recipe for walnuts - interesting and tasty: https://pinchofyum.com/cauliflower-walnut-vegetarian-taco-meat
I've also used walnuts for this: https://deborahharkness.com/realtimereadingadow-bonus-recipe-ems-famous-vanilla-walnuts/
Good luck! 🙂
Candy the walnuts to add to salads and I was going to say pesto, but that seems to be a top comment. I like walnuts in brownies, chocolate chip cookies and banana bread too.
I add walnuts to my oatmeal. I also love this Blueberry walnut sorbet recipe:
1.25 c almond milk (can use any type of milk)
2 c frozen blueberries
1 frozen banana
1/2 c walnuts
Blend in blender until soft serve consistency
I would just eat the walnuts straight up.