I think my odds and ends are all gone!
I've been doing a freezer challenge for the last few weeks, mainly inspired by wanting to stay out of the grocery stores as much as possible. And what better way to do that than to eat the food I already have?
Here's what I started with last week.
I used ¾ bags of bread to make Pioneer Woman's French toast casserole.
I made a smaller dish for Sonia, subbing coconut milk for the regular milk, and that worked out pretty well.
Coconut milk is a decidedly terrible substitute for dairy milk sometimes, but this was not one of those times. Yay!
I thawed the applesauce and we ate it with dinner one night.
(Here's how I make my applesauce, usually from boxes of bruised apples.)
I ate the butternut squash soup for lunch one day with some sour cream stirred in.
(Here's the recipe I use for butternut squash soup.)
I made rice pudding with the rice in the green container.
And the cookies in that tin are almost gone now.
So! All that's left is this bag of bread ends.
And at this point, I think even my chest freezer has almost nothing but main ingredients for meals.
(aside from this bag of bread ends, obviously.)
So, I'm not going to give myself a new set of freezer candidates for now. But as I work on making meals from my freezer, I might discover enough odds and ends for another freezer challenge in a month or so.
And of course, I'm going to do my best to use up this last bag of bread. Maybe I'll make a bunch of croutons.
Things I’ve used up from my freezer:
1. Three small vegan hotdogs became corn dog nuggets to go with chili dinner.
2. A bag of cooked shallots and garlic became the base for a creamy garlic pasta.
3. Three partial bags of artichoke hearts topped some pizzas.
4. The leftover half of a sourdough bread round became garlic bread.
Oh, you did a great job of making those odds and ends into a bunch of delicious things.
Great job on using up the odds and ends without waste!
By the way, Kristen, you have a Vitamix, don't you? You can make your own coconut milk if you can get unsweetened shredded coconut. I can't remember the ratios, exactly, but there are recipes online, of course. Something like 3 cups of hot water to a cup of coconut, then squeeze it out through cheesecloth, muslin, a nutmilk bag, etc. Unless your coconut is expensive, it's less expensive to make your own milk and you don't have half a can left, wondering how to use it before it goes bad. You can make "cream", too, by using less water.
I've been filling, not emptying my freezer, so my challenge has been to find things on sale, then get some sale stuff into my freezer. Finding the sales has sure been a challenge. Twice, I've found that the advertised sales aren't in the store. I'm using the local farms more, and their prices are higher, but goodness, sometimes just finding ground beef in a store is impossible.
I do have one! I hadn't thought about making my own coconut milk, but you are right, it would be so much handier to make small quantities, since Sonia is the only one who needs it.
Thanks for the idea!
JD where do you live? I live in MN and I personally haven't had any issues finding any foods here. I was actually at the grocery store this afternoon and it was actually pretty empty. People seem to have stopped stockpiling (which is good for the food chain ... it isnt built to handle that mass stockpiling that people were doing). Also, we even have aisles full of paper towel and toilet paper again! <3
North Florida. I can find many foods, but some popular items can be hard to find. Cheeses, yogurts, ground meats of all sorts, lunch meats and hotdogs, canned meats like tuna, chickens, and oh my gosh, frozen vegetables are the worst. We still have stockpiling going on here, for some reason. I haven't seen toilet paper or bleach on the shelves in over a month.
Wow ... that's pretty sad! Hopefully the stockpiling stops soon for you guys. I think I will probably keep some extra paper products on hand for the next year or so and of course not let myself get too low on my favorite food either! 😉
p.s. Do you think that the reason that the folks are stockpiling there is because of fear of COVID and pre-existing conditions?? Also any news on the lifting of stay at home orders in Florida??
Good job! I've been whittling away at freezer odds and ends for a few weeks now. I have about 3/4 of a cup of rhubarb ... why??? Thinking about putting it in muffins. I also have lots of baking chocolate which isn't a freezer food but it isn't something I typically use
Last week I made quadruple chocolate cookies and chopped up some of my chocolate to go into them. I felt good about using it and I am enjoying the medicinal aspect of the cookies!
The odds and ends are so hard! Partial packages, partial pounds of meat or produce...so much more challenging!
rhubarb grows like crazy where I live. I like to chop it up and cook it down, sweeten a bit and add to applesauce. It stretches the applesauce and also gives a nice change in taste. I also make rhubarb syrup for pancakes--YUM!
I wish rhubarb grew like that for me! It isn't the using of it that's a problem--it would be good in many kinds of fruit sauces--I'm wondering what I was thinking, to have left such a tiny amount in my freezer.
I had some frozen rhubarb and leftover cranberries. I cooked them down with some remnants of black raspberry jam and sugar. I've been swirling it in my morning yogurt and it is delicious!
We've been using freezer foods as well. Thawing out items and using what we have. The youngest asked me," Can we eat something else besides, chicken, ham or turkey?" If that's any indication of what's been going on here.....
My freezer doesn't really have any odds and ends in it, last I checked. I tend to bake in batches and have lots of stuff for meals. I also have 50lb of flour in it that I need to start emptying into buckets, though.
I do have a bag of bread cubes for croutons, though but that's always in there.
I had half a pound of frozen Italian sausage, half a 10oz pkg of frozen chopped spinach, leftover drippings from a pot roast, a rind of Parmesan cheese, homemade broth and canned veggies- Italian sausage vegetable soup. I prefer thicker soups not brothy and this works. It's chock full and tastes good.
I usually make bread crumbs from the ends!
Costco accidentally included in my order a 50 lb bag of white rice. I tried to call (the recording said there was a 105 min wait!) and I emailed but heard nothing back. So I guess it belongs to me now. (They did bill me for it too though.) I'm learning to roll with the punches in this pandemic. So my question is....would you know how I should go about storing this rice? I'm tempted to just put it under one our guest bed...but then we will forget it's there. Do you recommend any kind of long storage buckets or containers? And do I treat the rice so it won't acquire bugs along the way? I figure if anyone would know it'd be the Frugal Girl or one of her readers. Love your blog by the way...I've read it for years!
I bought a big bag years ago. We are still using that rice! Here’s how I stored it. First I put the bag in the freezer for a few weeks to kill and bugs that may be lingering. Meanwhile I had saved two liter soda bottles, which I washed out and let dry thoroughly. Then I let the rice get to room temp for a few days to make sure there wasn’t any moisture from freezing and thawing. Then I used a funnel to put into the bottles, and capped them tightly. Now I just pour out what I need. I imagine any other washed food or drink containers would work (other than milk jugs, which I’ve heard should not be reused).
White rice is pretty good for long term storage. I store mine in a food grade plastic bucket inning my pantry. Brown rice does not store well unless it is kept in the freezer.
Try oat milk as a sub for regular milk. I’ve only had it in coffee and ice cream but the barista said it was the most similar tasting to regular milk. I too am dairy free so I know the pain of finding food to eat! Luckily I can still eat foods baked with regular milk.
I really need to get out and organize my freezer. It’s pretty full right now as I just got 50 lbs of ground beef and we are still working on the half a pig I bought last fall. Not much in the odds and ends in the “outside” freezer, but I should check my refrigerator freezer. So easy to lose track when people just keep piling stuff in. One of the downsides of the chest freezer.
I would use the bread to make homemade stuffing one night as a side dish. Great job on your challenge. I seem to be stuck in a bean rut. I did make a curry pasta salad no meat sub chick peas. Leftover chicken and celery and onion if you have it and carrots would be great. I used greek yogurt mostly with a little mayo and curry spice mix. That worked for a couple of days.
I never met a CROUTON I didn’t like!!
It's hard to go wrong with bread/butter/seasonings. 🙂
I've been sucking at emptying the freezers lately! I was on track, then this pandemic happened and I started buying too much food again (anxiety?). Need to get serious about this!