How I move food out of my Freezer with Ease

Recently, I ran into a neighbor who mentioned he must have thrown out $100 worth of meat away that was tucked into his freezer.  Believe it or not, some of it was from 2009!  I’m certain there is a large part of the population that can relate to losing items in the depths of their freezer never to be seen again. 

When we have the storage, it is a natural human tendency to fill it up.  We chase after bargains, stock our freezer for a rainy day and continue this cycle over and over.  Life gets busy and we become out of touch with what we have while we continue chasing the current bargains of the day.  I have found three ways of preventing this from happening.

1.  I inventory my freezers about four times a year.  Yes, I have two of them, although, both are very small.  I make a list of items on hand and menu plan.  I also know what meats I need to refrain from buying unless they are giving it away. 

2.  Most importantly, when I buy meat in bulk, I always put it in the freezer with a purpose.  I cut meat prior to freezing it for stir fry, shish ka bobs, soup or whatever and I label it.  I put together meat loafs and label ground beef for hamburgers, tacos or chili.  It seems daunting at first but it really helps me cycle the food out of the depths of the freezer and onto our table.  I find that I have less of a block of “what to make” when packages are labeled with ideas in mind.  This is especially helpful if I have spotted a new recipe that looks great but I don’t have time to make it.  I keep the recipe in a binder to be made at the appropriate time.  I do have a few packages of meat unlabeled other than the contents and weight.  I also pack various sizes of meat to accommodate when we are cooking for a smaller bunch.  

3.  About twice a year, I move meat out of the freezer by taking a day and smoking the meat on hand.  Long ago, a good friend gifted me with a meat smoker.  I am able to smoke 20 – 40 pounds of meat in a day. It makes a great gift, freezes well and is always a favorite meal.  Smoked meat at home is out of the ordinary for most.  We always feel like we are fine dining when we pull out a smoked chicken to eat a few months after we prepared it. 

The key to having a freezer and filling it is to have a plan.  Hopefully this will inspire you to never experience the unpleasant discovery of “freezer burn” and trashing once valuable meat gone bad.

It's All How You Look at It

When I started weaning myself away from convenience foods, I spent a whole lot of time cooking and planning meals.  It seemed that I never had exactly the right ingredients for a dish.  Last minute grocery store trips were quite common.  In my quest to eat fresh, I was actually paralyzing myself. 

Cooking is an art.  People who don’t cook a lot will tell you a recipe is critical when preparing anything.  Following it religiously is the key to a successful dish.  After searching the web for recipes it dawned on me that I was making cooking much harder and time consuming than it really is.  Thanks to the comment section of the various recipes on line, I learned how others thought outside the box and created success after success preparing new dishes. 

Myth #1 – Everything needs to be fresh.

Mythbuster – minced garlic in a jar.  I couldn’t live without it.  It saves me oodles of time, tastes great and encourages me to cook more often.  Sure I use fresh garlic sometimes but the jar allows me to throw things together quickly.

Myth #2 – I’m out of an ingredient.  I need to run to the store.

Mythbuster –Out of Cajun spice.  Google it.  You probably have all the spices to make it.  Out of dry mustard.  Google the substitute.  Recipe calls for cans of northern beans?  Substitute any can of white beans or used dried beans in its place.

Myth #3 – My recipe won’t turn out if I don’t follow it exactly as written.

Mythbuster – Be open to making it without an ingredient and see what happens.  You may not even notice!

Myth #4 – My recipe requires heavy cream to be successful.

Mythbuster – I make plenty of soups and dishes without heavy cream. Try a dairy creamer substitute or half in half.  Experiment with other choices than heavy cream.   Fewer calories, less costly and super yummy.  It may not fit the bill 100% of the time but do try substituting this ingredient on many recipes and I’ll bet you’ll be surprised. 

Lessons learned:

•  It’s ok to substitute canned tomatoes for fresh and visa versa in many recipes.  

• Don’t get hung up on labels.  True there is a difference between potatoes if you are a purest but if not, feel free to substitute.  In general, a potato is a potato and the flavor will be there.  If you want to learn about the differences and which variety is best in certain situations, check this book out from your library.  The Great Potato Cookbook: 250 sensational recipes for the worlds favorite vegetable. 

• It’s possible to use ½ egg if you need to when cutting down recipes.  Beat up one and use half! 

Once I learned to be creative when cooking, it was much easier to deal with cooking fresh.  I have become a lot more adventurous when throwing my meals together and have evolved into a family that eats so much better with a lot less worry about the end result.  Please feel free to share any of your previous myths and mythbusters with me.  I’m all ears. 

The Library

I have always been one to use the library but really more on a sporadic basis than regularly.  Any time I went to look at the movies, I was less than inspired to pick one up and bring one home.  At the same time, we don’t usually go to the theatre to see the new releases so I do not always keep up with the current movies.  Of course, this was the same for the top selling books.  As usual, people do not change their habits overnight but the fact that our local movie store, which we had an online subscription, closed forced me to make a change.  Not really wanting to drive to return movies or exchange them at the next nearest location, I started wondering if I could be happy renting movies online, from a kiosk or from the library.

My preferred choice was the library since movies could be checked out for 7 days as opposed to 24 hours and the price was right.   It just so happened that the Oscars were on TV so I started with that bit of information.  The next day, I did a search on the Oscar winners and compiled a list of movies for my wish list. 

I logged into the library and did a search on these movies only to find that they did not have most of them.  What I did find out was that there is a section on the website called upcoming DVD’s which are DVD’s on order and how many they will receive.  I quickly found about three fourths of the movies on my list and requested them on line.  To put things in perspective, I may be the 500-700^th person in a queue for these movies but many times the library was receiving 80-120 copies. 

At the same time,

Gas prices are killing me……or are they?

There is definitely an upside to gas prices.  They have reached a point where one thinks before hopping in the car for any one trip.  Some people carpool, some decide not to take vacations as far away or as often.  Many trips are delayed and combined with another planned trip.  We may decide to stop on our way home from work at a store that is in the route instead of making a special trip.  Our household has started encouraging the use of bikes on a regular basis or walking to places close by.  These ideas were not part of our everyday vocabulary before rise in gas prices.  Upside number 1 is we have learned to be greener due to our awareness of how dependent we are on our gas guzzling cars.

I am a walker and have been for years.  I regularly take 3 to 5 mile walks with our dog Sammy.  Rarely, however, did I walk out of necessity.  It was for my health and to get Sammy out of our house which always makes for a better dog.  With gas prices, I started to rethink this.  Can I find common ground in getting in my exercise and running errands and sometimes take the dog as well to satisfy that requirement?  The answer is YES! 

Of course there are times that having a dog with you can be a problem.  Like going to the store for an item or the library without someone to wait outside with the dog for a minute or two.  After a little thought, I learned to be creative.  Is anyone in the family going that way for anything else?  I grab the dog, hop in the car and get dropped off.   I return my books, grab the ones waiting on the shelf for me, grab the dog from the car and walk home.  My family goes on their merry way and I have saved the earth and walked 3 extra miles in the process. (and on a new route that keeps things interesting)  If my car needs an oil change, I just drop off the car and walk home.  When done, I walk back and pick it up.  All of a sudden I am ashamed to think of all the times I felt like I had to have a car.   We are fortunate enough to live within 1-3 miles of a fair number of grocery and department stores as well as the post office.   This is truly a gift that should not be overlooked!

Cabinet Inspiration

We have all been there.  There’s nothing in the house to eat either healthy or not healthy.  A trip to the grocery store is way over due and the family is grumbling.  The truth is that you don’t feel like shopping.  True, things look pretty grim around here but upon taking a second glance I find some treasures.  Marshmallows never used that were bought for a chocolate fondue.   Rice Krispies cereal that someone thought they wanted and then promptly decided it was not for them now just sits in the cabinet and probably will be for another year.  Wahlah!  What do I need for rice krispie treats?  These two ingredients plus butter.  I have it!  And thus we have some great junk food on hand totally unplanned for the week.  We are happy campers. 

After this revelation, I am reminded that we are out of wheat bread and it is critical to get to the store before the week starts because a day without wheat bread is a day without sunshine to some in my household.  Wait a minute…….Hold on……..I remember that I have wheat flour in the basement.  It’s something I bought a while back when I was totally inspired to make some wheat pita.  I know I bought everything I needed way back when but when was that?  Is it expired?  Can it still be used?  My objective isn’t to kill us all off.  To my delight, I find I am within the limits of the “its’safe to eat” status and I decide to play Martha Stewart for the day.  Oh, how fun it is this to be able to whip up a batch of wheat pita.  Wow!  Why didn’t I do this before?  It is totally simple and something I will do again especially since I have all the ingredients that are not used in any of my other recipes that I know of.  The recipe can be found on this blog and I’m sure you won’t be disappointed. Wheat Pita recipe

I’m out of time but I am sure to look for and report future occurrences of cabinet inspiration.  This I am sure because it’s like winning the lottery and we all know what a rush that can be.  I am thankful for the perception that our cupboard was bare.