Scratch time - Working through the Freezer

This month I am intent in reducing the freezer supplies even more and having good eating in-between time. Once the Freezer is empty or as empty as it can be, then it will be defrosted and given a good clean down. Although I keep everything clean, like most things it needs the defrost to ensure that it is working efficiently and this for me is the most opportune time to do this.  

During the winter months the freezer is more stocked with meat and some veg, perhaps a little fruit but the emphasis is on main meals.  The less we have to go out into the cold the better as far as I am concerned. The other reason for the Freezer overhauls is that  I also need room in the freezer to start gathering food items in readiness for Christmas and up until I started emptying the freezer. There was no way that this was going to happen without some housekeeping going on. I tend to "Squirrel" away all sorts of things and shove them in where I can. Sometimes nice organisation does not play a part in my freezer storage, but getting things frozen and in there is the priority, as long as the labels stay on the packages everything will be fine.

My  philosophy for meals during the winter months is that we must have at least one hot main meal a day; you need a good hot meal a day to help stave off the cold of winter and to keep yourself healthy.  This is also supplemented with good home made soups as well to keep warm.  They are easily made from veggies and you can also incorporate leftovers into them as well which add a lot more flavour.

The freezer is not my only food storage area, however it is the one I am focusing on as at the moment.  From the beginning of next month I intend to go and do a good starter meat purchase to start re-filling the freezer with.  What I hold in the freezer in the Winter months is very different to that which is housed there in the Summer months.  It all serves a purpose.

At the moment there is a lot of fruit in there which is going to be turned into jams for use on toast, Croissants, used in pies and pastries, cake fillings and fillings for other baked goods as well as puddings.  I like to have a range of different flavours Raspberry jam is high on that list.  During the Summer months I have been buying in reduced Raspberries reduced to £1 or £1.25 a tray and now have about 2 kilos of Raspberries for making preserves.  The full price of these trays has been £2.50 a tray so a substantial saving on what you are expected to pay full price.  That will be made shortly.  I also have Cranberries, Gooseberries, Mixed fruits and Strawberries in there as well.

So at the moment I am working through the freezer to replenish it.

We (metaphorically speaking) are approximately half way through the month a time when for many households pennies start to get tighter. I am very determined this month to live out of the freezer at the moment and using for the best part what I have to hand and in the process things will naturally run down.  

I am now at the stage where some items I do not have and in others I am using and working with what is available to me.  We had run out of Bacon; for the best part we buy one of the big packs of Bacon from Iceland (although I do buy other types of Bacon when I go to the Butcher). I prefer Green Back Bacon by choice, but come on you have to be sensible and you can only afford what you can afford. Bacon is not only used for G's breakfast, I also use it in homemade Quiche, Egg and Bacon pie and mixed roasted veggies and Beef Bourguignon. Bacon Butties are also on the menu as well. Therefore from my perspective quite a useful staple to have stored either in the Freezer or the Fridge.  I do try and give G a cooked breakfast most mornings as that is what he is happiest with.  Me - well am quite happy with porridge in the winter months or Muesli or Granola or some other cereal to start my day.  However before I eat anything, I usually have yogurt to start with.  

This morning I cooked myself a partial breakfast after going Freezer Diving to rustle up breakfast ingredients for G to indulge in his breakfast fix.  Fortunately I had had the foresight to stock up on breakfast ingredients a while back and there is therefore a good supply of those items in there. I am talking White Pudding, Black Pudding, Chipolata Sausages, Lorne Sausage, Fruit Pudding and some emergency packs of Bacon which in all honesty I did not know as in there. Some of the items he does not have everyday, the basics being egg, bacon. mushrooms and sausage (not always necessarily so but these seem to be the base ingredients).  Once these are all used up then I will start the process of replacing them again.  The Lorne Sausage and the Fruit Pudding come from a Butcher in Scotland.

This morning though I had to go Freezer Diving before he could eat.  This afforded me time to partially go through the Freezer to see what I had actually left in there and I have been pleasantly surprised at what I have found.  There is more there than I had anticipated which I am pleased about. Moving forward though, now is the best time to start re-stocking the Freezer with items that we use on a regular basis without necessarily excess cost but most of all to provide good eating.

This morning I have found loads of Beef Skirt in the Freezer.  I buy Beef Skirt for making homemade Cornish pasties, stews, and meat pies often in preference for buying in Stewing Steak although I do buy that in too.  I also found a couple of packs of mince, a large Beef joint, chicken, Belly Pork joint and a Leg of Lamb.  Some minted Lamb steaks.  There are also prawns, a couple of crabs.  I still have to go back in there and see what else there is.

There are more veggies than I thought I had, certainly Parsnips, and Swede, but these need using up in order that at the end of November I can buy in and prepare veggies for Christmas dinner so a lot of the hard work is dealt with and there is less stress in the kitchen as a result.  Makes life a lot easier overall.  There are also sausages and all the breakfast items we have had today, cherry tomatoes (which are also used with breakfasts) as well.  If my freezer was bigger I would certainly save more of these as they are good for soups as well.  However these ones are purely designated for breakfasts.

Every so often G is given a treat and has a massive breakfast like he had this morning (which is counting as our main meal of the day today) and we will have a light tea this evening as a result.  Today's breakfast consisted of White Pudding, Lorne Sausage, Black Pudding, Fruit Pudding, Bacon, and Egg. For the future this will also be varied up with Beans or Tomatoes (either fresh or tinned) and homemade Confit mushrooms to use toward the end of the month and other cooking but I tend to save these to use when the pennies are really tight so G gets his mushrooms. I have read an article that suggests that Mushrooms are very good at balancing mood swings out and also full of Vitamin D.  G is Bipolar in any event and I do my best to keep him on an even keel - hence the Mushroom intake.  I will be putting up a full post on Confit mushrooms together with the original video tutorial I followed (I found it) in the next few days.   

Apologies, once again I digress.  

Breakfast has today gone down very nicely although I could not eat it all.  My appetite is not as good as it was and I struggle with eating bread (even though I love it), and I also struggle with fatty foods as well despite having my gall bladder removed.  I therefore have to take things gently.

The reason I store breakfast ingredients like this is that they are a regular meal here; a staple set of ingredients that are regularly used.  Towards the end of the month pennies often (not always) become tight and I am intent that despite what else is going on in the household we will eat well every day as well as paying bills moving forward. It is a way of paying it forward and planning for all eventualities. 

Sometimes things are better than others, but for me eating is perhaps the most over-riding and necessary priority and I focus on good traditional eating rather exotic this or that.  Although we do have Anglicised homemade stir fries and Lasagna and other pasta dishes.  Not strictly purist, especially when it comes to the cheese element as I love for the sauce and the layers between Lasagna to use a strong tasty grated cheese (home grated and using what tends to be in my fridge as a staple).  However, it is more that I use the cooking techniques to use up what I have. This is often the foundation of traditional English cooking in that you use what you have to hand and make use of what comes your way and make the most of it. You cannot afford to be too sniffy, especially when some of the items required for such dishes cost a lot of pennies which we cannot always afford. You can only buy in what you can afford at any one time. I tend to buy in those ingredients that I will use.  However your base ingredients may be very different to mine. Overall though I will use what I have and find a like for like alternative i.e. if you have Shallots but do not have onion, use the Shallot.  Equally Leeks and Spring Onions can also be substituted although Leeks are perhaps the mildest of the bunch.

All of the above is part and parcel of my yearly planning when it comes to the type of ingredients available to me.  As I do not have the chest freezers now (which I would dearly love back) I am restricted on what I can freeze which is particularly difficult for someone who used her freezers an awful lot.  You have to be grateful for what you do have though rather than that which you do not.  At one stage I was without a freezer for four years and pulling my hair out as it severely restricted the type of food I could store in-house and also stop a lot of wastage.  At least now I am now able to save leftovers and bits and bobs for another day.  It has also meant less visits to the shops.  Having to go to the shop more regularly to shop meant that I ended up spending extra pennies that you do not necessarily have.  Having the Freezer has stopped a lot of that and I do buy ingredients now to re-stock and use and save wastage as am able to freeze leftovers which form the basis of another meal for another day.  For that I am extremely grateful.

That is another piece of the jig saw in play now, and once completed it will be slotted into place, in my run up Calendar for Christmas.  All of this in readiness for getting ready for Christmas.  

Aside from the Freezer, there are also some items I will start shortly which will be used for this Christmas and also next Christmas but shall try and do everything in a natural order to get them dealt with and out of the way and off my check list.  For me it makes sense to make what I can moving forward to Christmas when I have the time rather than be panicked a few days before Christmas that I haven't got something done.  There is an awful lot to do. I am hoping to start those projects by the end of this week.  Will see what happens.  More on that later on.

Here's me talking about the C word when I haven't even got all my preserving done. I have two large boxes staring me in the eye containing pickling onions and shallots.  I need to start processing these - I have everything to hand.  I also need to prepare and freeze a good sized bag of these to add into roast meals moving forward. However  all this planning and doing is  a necessary evil to make sure that everything is in place, and off the check list.  Most of all it is paying it forward to Christmas this year itself and also stopping a massive hit on the pocket in one fair swoop and affording things a little at a time.

I am now off into the kitchen to get a few things done.  I do not have to cook tonight as we have already had our hot meal for the day.  I am therefore off to play a bit.

I hope everyone has a lovely evening.

Catch you soon.

Pattypan

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