But hey! I've still got blog posts roaming around in that space between my ears. And I've been dying to wrap up this whole "Freezer Series" so we can get on to other topics.
Alright, I've gotten most everything used up from my freezer stash, except I still have tomatoes and peppers, and I'm in no hurry to use those up and then have to pay $2.00 each for peppers in the store that are grown thousands of miles away, picked too early, have traveled in a truck for days or weeks, are overpriced, and of low nutritional quality. I'd rather keep eating peppers I can get in season, a few miles from my home, picked fully ripe that morning, and stashed away in my freezer that same summer afternoon. (Just as a side-note, I pay about .30 to .50 cents each for peppers in peak season at the farmers market, as opposed to the aforementioned $2. EACH in the store mid-winter.) So...I'm holding steady on the peppers and tomatoes I have left...we've still got a good 5 or 6 months til the next local harvest.
Lately I've been focusing on the pantry items--dry beans and dehydrated foods. Now, let me just clarify, for the record, that I'm not a "Prepper". Have you heard this term? It's basically when people store tons and tons of food in their house, like long-term food storage (years!), incase of some sort of catastrophic event. Ok, I get that. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with being prepared for life's emergencies, and in fact, it's probably a great idea to have some stuff stored away--I mean, what if you lost your job? Would you have several months worth of necessities saved up and enough $ in the bank to get by for several months until you recovered? Or what if there was a storm and power outage...would you be able to survive away from the grocery store for a week or two?
However, in terms of food storage, my personal philosophy is solely focused on getting the most nutrition possible for the least amount of money, which means, yes, I will dehydrate and freeze foods in season to eat when they are out of season in order to ensure superior nutritive value, (and save a lot of $ at the same time). However, by the time the next season rolls around, I want the previous year's crop to be totally eaten up. So I do not store very much of anything very long--just enough to get from one season to the next. I can't stand a bunch of extra "stuff" hanging around. I'm just a simple girl. I like my home to be simple, clean, and organized as much a possible. Collecting a lot of "stuff" I'm not using is burdensome to me. My family lovingly calls me "the anti-hoarder" because if anything is not earning the space it takes to keep it around here, it's gone. Clutter and I are not compatible housemates.
I see no point in dehydrating and freezing (or canning) any more food than I can use up before the next crop comes in. Why would I want to still be eating 2013 tomatoes past the time when 2014 tomatoes are ripe and abundant? And nutrients do start to decline the longer you keep stuff, so, essentially: I like to eat stuff that's ripe, freshly picked and local as much as I can while it's in season, then stash some away for winter. Simple as that. (If you like the idea of keeping food longer than that, you may want to purchase freeze-dried food, which is something people like for backpacking and camping because it is light and compact, but that's not what we're talking about here.) What I'm focused on is not keeping food forever, but rather stashing a few super-nutrient-packed items with summer sunshine still alive in them, just long enough to nourish us in the cold months until the earth wakes up and starts producing again.
We're getting down to the time when I need to make sure I'm using up anything I saved from 2013 harvest so I have space to start this process over for this coming season. That said, we won't see any good local crops around here until June, at the earliest, so I still have 4 months to slowly and steadily, use up whatever I have left from 2013.
This morning I knocked out a bunch of pantry staples all in one shot: my home-dehydrated carrots, dehydrated onions, raisins, canned fire-roasted tomatoes, rice--and frozen items: chicken thighs, chicken stock, and some fresh stuff I had that needed to be used up: apples and a lemon. What could all these random items come together to make? Drumroll please...mulligatawny!
If you like curry you will love this soup. If you hate curry, you will probably hate this soup. I am the only one in my family who loves curry and loves this soup, so I don't make it very often, so when I do make it, I get it all to myself.
You know I'm not about to sit here and re-type what's already up on the web, so here's the link for you. This recipe is from Stephanie O'Dea, author of the Make it Fast, Cook it Slow books. My tweaks are: double the chicken thighs, reduce the curry by half (for those who are not big curry fans), maybe you will need a few extra cups of stock or water, and make this in a 4 qt crock. I go "High" for 3 hrs, then add in the rice and go about 45 minutes more.
I've been sick with a cold this week--first time in, I dunno...years? I can't actually remember the last time I was sick. I made the mistake of stating that fact out loud last week. Don't ever do that people. Because not more than a week later I was sick. I guess I forgot my old friend "Murphy", and his "laws" about these kinds of things! Boldly boasting about your awesome immune system is the surest way to catch a cold. So, I've been a soup-making machine all week, and grateful for my stash of chicken stock, which is now almost depleted--time to make more.
First it was "Red Lentil Soup" from Shaye Elliot over at The Elliot Homestead. The minute you are done reading this blog post, do yourself a favor, click on the link and go get that recipe. It. Rocks. I love Shaye's book by the way. You can see it on her website. My whole family is crazy about that soup and requests it for their lunches.
Then mid-week I made a chicken tortilla soup, with black beans, and I also threw in some chopped spinach and zucchini, just cuz they were hanging around and needing to be used up. It was really good. Everyone loves that soup. I just make it out of whatever I have, but the basis for the recipe comes from Sarah Fragoso's book Everyday Paleo Family Cookbook. Sorry, I don't have any link to give you on that one.
O.k. Here are the last of the freezer principles:
#4 Keep the Freezer Full for Maximum Efficiency: I line the bottom of my freezer with gallon-size water bottles (remove a little for headspace so they don't split when they freeze). This helps for times like right now when there's not much left in there. And in the summer when it starts to get packed I can always remove the bottles for extra space.
#5 Diversify Your Preservation Techniques: So here's something I need to keep in mind next year. For instance, zucchini. This year I simply dehydrated chopped zucchini. But there were times recently when I wished I had some frozen chunks that could be used immediately instead of having to re-hydrate, like in a soup. And there were times I wished I had some shredded and frozen for muffins. So next year--diversify. Freeze some in chunks and some in shreds, and dehydrate some--both chunks and shreds. Also, if you have a freezer failure, or something happens, like moisture gets into your jars of dehydrated stuff--at least you still have some left in another form. (By the way, you may want to get a freezer alarm--I am going to get one as soon as my freezer gets full again. That will protect you from any unnoticed freezer failures that would result in a ton of lost food--so sad!) And next year...I need to diversify the foods I choose to save. This year it was a lot of some things and nothing of others, which gets old round-about January.
And last but not least...#6 Make Kits as You Go: Here's something I discovered last year and have LOVED reaping the benefits this winter. Make kits. Like, fajita kits: Onions and peppers are ripe at the same time. Buy a box of each, come home and combine your peppers and onions, sliced and portioned out for individual meals. Then all you have to do it add the chicken when you go to use it. Or Apple Crisp Kits: Prep the apples and berries in one container, crisp topping in another, keep them together, then all you have to do is dump it in the pan, add the topping and bake. Any steps that you can "front load" will really pay off when it comes to prep-time and dishes later.
Okay...I've got Mulligatawny to eat. Over and out.
No comments:
Post a Comment