The driest pitas in history (a freezer update)
Hello! I am here with yet another freezer challenge update. Here's what I started with last week.
Peaches
I made a smoothie.
And another smoothie.
And another smoothie.
So, I made it through all of the peaches. Yay me!
Ground meat
I used this to make some taco bowls.
Edamame
I made the veggie-heavy Aldi copycat chickpea salad, and I put in extra edamame to use up the bag entirely.
Bread Cubes
I made another pan of baked French toast, and now all of my frozen bread cubes are used up. SWEET.
Beef Jerky
I did make a dent in this, but it was too much jerky to eat in a single week!
I will keep chipping away at it.
Pita bread
I tried steaming one to make it bendable enough to use as a scrambled egg wrap. But my resuscitation efforts were largely unsuccessful.
Please note the splitting:
So I decided to embrace the dryness and turned the other two pitas into pita chips.
Unfortunately, I did burn some of them, even though I was following a recipe. It's probably because my pitas were so dry to start with!
So, if you try this, watch 'em carefully as they bake!
Here's the end result of this week's efforts.
Next Week's Collection
I think after this one, I'm going to call my freezer good. It's not empty, of course, but most everything in there is relatively up to date and does not need to be used in a hurry.
Also, there's plenty of space now, which means I can restock the freezer with some new bags of frozen fish and chicken.
Ok, so here are my last four items:
I've got some burger buns there because I often freeze a partial package; Zoe and I never eat 6-8 burgers at one time! We will have some burgers this week to use these up.
Second, another bag of peaches (last one!), so I see some smoothies in my future again.
The pack of Hawaiian rolls is from a double pack I got from Sam's. I'll use them to make a pan of the ham and Swiss sandwiches that Zoe likes.
And lastly, those tomatoes appeared in a previous week; they're making a second appearance, and hopefully this time, I will actually use them!
When I was taking out some frozen strawberries for a smoothie I noticed a bag of taco wraps which I'd put in at the start of September, as they had sugar in them. I used them up this weekend 🙂
Oh wow, you were taking your no-sugar challenge VERY seriously. I'm impressed.
Thanks! I still ate fruit and I'm sure I ate and drank some things with sugar in, but I tried to avoid anything where I saw sugar as an added ingredient and didn't buy sweets.
Love these posts! Maybe a pantry challenge could follow the freezer challenge?
Used another frozen veggie burger and frozen bun.
Used up frozen peas alongside a baked potato.
Heated up the frozen Trader Joe's spanish tortilla and served it with sauteed peppers and The Frugal Girl's cilantro sauce.
Fridge vs. freezer challenge: Prepped an entire cantalope and stored the cubes in two large mason jars. When I had a craving for something (anything) to snack on, I opened the fridge, saw the melon, and made the healthy choice.
Pantry vs. freezer challenge: Cooked the last bag of rescued, expired macaroni noodles. I use them in several ways, including in scrambled eggs.
I’ve never thought to freeze jerky before; does it thaw okay or does it change the texture/taste?
I have a few different items I need to use up from my freezer:
- various buns and English muffins that I got from Franz Outlet $1 sale
- a bag of grilled chicken patties we bought to try
- the last of some frozen tilapia fillets from a big sale box we got from a local restaurant store earlier in the summer
- various popsicles, most especially the backlog of not-desired orange popsicles (we don’t have AC and went a little wild with our favorite lemon popsicles this summer to beat the heat, and we also bought a box of cherry/grape/orange popsicles and ate all but the orange because it tastes like frozen Sunny D to me, and I am not a fan…)
The English muffins are pretty easy, I’ll use them mainly for toast, maybe some mini pizzas and Pb&js for lunch.
The buns I will use mainly for chicken burgers, and maybe veggie burgers.
The tilapia I won’t be able to finish up in one week, but I will make a dent in it making baked tilapia for dinner. My husband and son like it when I either bake with lemon slices and thyme, and serve with potatoes & veggies; or if I do it with more “taco” style spices and lime juice, then use it in taco bowls.
Maybe I can channel my inner “Chopped” fan and figure out how to use the sickly sweet orange popsicles to melt down into some sort of citrus sauce or reduction for the tilapia? If that doesn’t work, I suppose I could also just eat them, but I will be very grumpy doing it, haha. 😆
I often buy popsicles and drive by a road work or construction site and pass them out. The workers really appreciate them, especially if it's hot.
I hd some popsicles that were just okay and used them to flavor pitchers of unsweetened iced tea.
oh, i love this plan!!
I was thinking the same thing about the popsicles. The likely problem is that they're going to be very sweet. Hmmm. Which leads me to thing of two things: try making orange ice cream or using it in baking. I wonder if it be used to make jelly.
WilliamB,
...or, make vanilla ice cream and add in the orange popsicle to make a Creamsicle-like ice cream? Yummmmmmm........I looooove Creamsicles (or similar orange/vanilla ice cream pops).
what if you blended the popsicles with some milk, ice cubes, and vanilla to make something like an Orange Julius? Maybe it would tone down some of the sunny-d-ness.
Why not just toss them? After all it’s just sugar and or corn syrup and colored water.
Egg, cheese and sausage/bacon optional to make sandwiches with those English muffins. Better half found sour dough English muffins and we often have the aforementioned (with meat) for lunch.
Our freezer was good too. I made a few jars of balsamic fig chutney, and that was a good opportunity to check om my stash of homemade condiments. I have some to spare, and know exactly who would like them!
My freezer meals last week - random frozen white fish that I made with a turmeric coconut sauce. One of the packages was cod and the other was bluefish (big thumbs down), which I didn't realize until it was thawed. All the cod was eaten, with some of the blue fish, and the leftovers were thrown away. I have another package of blue fish in the freezer that I might cook for the dogs.
Today my lunch is a homemade frozen meal - spaghetti and meatballs.
I also added some to my freezer this week: pulled taco chicken that we had already eaten for leftovers. There are enchiladas in my future. I also froze some salsa that was leftover from work catering. We ate it with those tacos earlier in the week.
My next freezer challenge is cranberries. I have A LOT.
I forgot this -- I freeze frozen baguette slices for French toast. I made some for the boy this weekend and I also made croutons for the Ceasar salad we had for dinner on Sat/Sun.
Native Long Islander here. Try the blue fish in a teriyaki sauce marinade. Takes a lot of the ‘gamely’ taste away. Husband loves to fish & sometimes comes home with lots of bluefish.
Native Long Islander here. Try the blue fish in a teriyaki sauce marinade. Takes a lot of the ‘gamely’ taste away. Husband loves to fish & sometimes comes home with lots of bluefish.
Camille, thank you I will consider this! We were part of a fish share this spring and did not get to choose. Blue fish is my least favorite. We ate it a lot growing up, basted with mustard. Gag.
Freezer win: I pulled out a crumble topping mix (made too much back in February so I froze it) and baked apple crumble. Delicious for autumn, very happy with my previous self, haha, and it was so easy as the crumble topping could be used straight from frozen.
Freezer fail: I was going to cook a leek risotto yesterday, using frozen white wine and stock (that had both been in the freezer for aaaaages). However, I realised I'd accidentally used up the leek in the previous day's dinner. Oops. Wine and stock are back in the freezer for now... I don't really want to do any grocery shopping this week so may just cook a very basic risotto, with some onion, peas and cheese. To be decided!
All the must-use stuff is gone from my freezer. Still have a long-open box of quick cooking barley to use up, so there will be soup made this week.
Ruby, I made a barley and mushroom soup on Saturday, using a beef stock that I made from the remains of last week's London broil plus a bag each of beef bones and veggie scraps from the freezer. I'm taking some of the soup to the Bestest Neighbors tonight. (I must confess that now that NDN1 is in assisted living, I have one less soup "customer," so I'm having to work on making smaller batches of soup.)
Freezer clean out is going really well! Having a list of meals I can make from items in the freezer in addition to my inventory list has really helped. I also cleaned up the pantry while looking for items to donate to an upcoming food drive at work. I can see the light at the end of this tunnel!
My freezer challenge is going in the wrong direction! I opened the deep freezer to discover it was packed. All I know for now is the ice cream is buried under countless (or at least uncounted) little bags of fish from my roommates fishing trip. Oh, and that we're not eating all the ham steaks from the half pig I got 6 months ago. I shall have to reinventory and reorganize. Again.
It's been an EPIC Freezer Challenge so far! Wide variety of items you've needed to use up over there. I've been getting lots of big frugal energy and recipe inspo from it as well. Love it!! Thanks, Frugal Girl.
I've made some progress as well:
-Used up two containers of chicken broth & a bag of rotisserie chicken + a bag of grated parmesan (freezer)
-Used up four cans of beans I wanted to get through (pantry)
The freezer clean up was useful, as I needed to add a large bag of grilled chicken, so we can bring the frozen chicken to DS19 in a couple of weeks when we head to family weekend.
I am not in the freezer challenge ( having almost not freezer space) but I have been intentionally taking advantage of all my gleaning opportunities.
We rent out land to a melon grower. They are done harvesting which means acres of honeydew, golden honeydew and cantaloupe in the field. We had a fun afternoon inviting friends to pick and then to out tiny church's pit beef bbq in our tiny community hall. The melons are delish!
Today another farmer's wife is taking me to their "pumpkin patch." I'll bring her to the melon field.
We brought our pomegranates to a wonderful lady in the our tiny town who makes pomegranate jelly. She always gifts us a jar or two.
And last but not least - walnuts. Our coop went bankrupt last year. It took 300,000 of our walnut money. They will not of course be sending the 10 pound boxes of shelled halves. Hubby will research if the new place will. If not, it is looking like I am setting up a shelling stations in on my porch.
Wouldn't it be fun if we could set up a "Frugal Girl" west and everybody come for a Saturday to a harvest party?
Please assure us that "walnut money" is not the same as regular money!?
@PD, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but here's the truth: the walnut money was all real money owed to Mary Ann and Mr. Mary Ann for their last harvest or even several harvests, if it works the same way the orange co-op worked. And the olive co-op. My parents were involved in both crops and some years were purely dismal.
Re: the walnut money, Mary Ann: ARGGHH!! That's a giant wad of money to lose. I'm so sorry.
And, yes, I agree that various FG meetups around the country would be a fun idea. If anyone in Upstate NY within a reasonable drive of my city (I think you all know what it is by now; think "Otto the Orange" as the university sports mascot) is interested, let me know.
Just down the thruway in roc cha cha. Would love a meet up!
@Mary Ann - it is a low production black walnut year in my neck of the woods. You have black walnuts or English walnuts? If black walnuts, I'd be willing to buy some (Kristen as middle woman).
So Sweet, Selena.
Yes 300,000 is real money but farm economies are on a massive scale with big swings. It would not be as devastating as another small business losing 300,000 although with so many other factors such as the price of gas, labor, chemicals, and machinery it becomes an overwhelming burden.
I love the Aldi brioche rolls, but we don't eat them all at once either. I have found that if I wrap them carefully as singles and put them in a freezer bag, they stay much fresher. Then I can just grab one or two I need them without ruining the whole bag!
Used up some gf sourdough bread in croutons, found 3 pints of various marinara, 3 bits and bobs of cheese and made eggplant parm, zucchini lasagna.
Airfried some corn tortillas, served with cowboy caviar.
I found 1 elk shank, some oxtail and an unmarked pkg, feels like a steak, this will turn into slow cooked French dip.
Ok… joining in!
Freezer hope:
C frozen cranberries
Potstickers
Frozen fruit
Gluten free tj’s shrimp
Green beans
Ice cream(sounds silly but sometimes it sits for a while!!)
Meal prep frozen cubes of leftovers
I plan to make cranberry orange bread, smoothies, and I’ll use the other stuff up for dinners or lunches to take to work/school. That feels like a manageable place to start 😜👏🏻 thanks fro the inspiration Kristen!
- I use the rest of the mashed sweet potato to make pumpkin chocolate chip muffins.
- I ate the random Hot Pocket.
- I made a quiche with the diced ham and some extra red pepper.
- We had two meals with meatballs.
I definitely have more to go. But, about half of what I have left is waiting for my college kids to come back because the remaining folks aren't the primary consumers of those items. I'll take care of that during their winter breaks and not replace those items. This week I'm going to plan to use a package of ravioli and some steak trimmings to make steak pie. Then, unlike Kristen, I'm going to aim for 2-3 freezer items per week until all the not regular rotation stuff is used up. Frankly, at this point I still haven't done a thorough inventory. I'm still grabbing the easy items I see first.
I am almost done with the packages of cooked chicken and taco meat. I probably need to do some cooking and freezing for work lunches. I have some TJ gyoza that work really well for this. I also have a bag of fried rice I need to see about. I am hoping I don't have to pick up many things in HEB this week.
I’ve never understood spinach in smoothies. Can someone please enlighten me?
You get the health benefits of spinach but it tastes like a smoothie 🙂
Oh, Caitlie, I saw your reply just after I'd added mine. I could have just said..."ditto".
The spinach offers very little in the way of flavor, but does add some nutrition. So, it's largely just a health effort. 🙂
To me, the tomatoes are the least challenge - toss into a pot of chili or spaghetti sauce.
Better half's "challenge" amounted to one four item week (yes that was it). He used left over mashed potatoes from 3 days ago to make "double baked" potatoes from baked potato skins leftover from 2 days ago.
The weather in our area was perfect this past weekend and it showed - no marked down steaks today at the store. Plenty of hamburger but he already has enough and no meal tomorrow requiring hamburger. May someone else pick up a bargain.
Watching you do this over the last few weeks is inspiring me to do a freezer clean-up challenge myself.
Maybe some sort of pasta sauce with the tomatoes?
What's the longest you kept buns in the freezer before they became unsavable?