I am at a point where I have a mostly empty freezer and a need to have fast, cheap, healthy ingredients on hand for my new dedication to going mostly vegetarian.
Here are a few plans.
~I've been saving veggie scraps and any left over meat bones in a ziplock in the freezer. When I have enough I toss them in the crock pot (Thanks for donating a crock pot, Julia!) and let it cook and cook. An overnight in the fridge allows for scooping off any fat prior to freezing. Yay - free stock with no sodium.
~I'm also trying to get in the habit of cooking some grains and beans ahead for fast meals. To that end I am also saving items like cilantro stems, pepper bits, green onion scraps for putting in with the beans while they cook (also in the slow cooker).
~Sort of off topic but it's Friday and tomorrow is Farmers' Market day. That means today will be soup or chili with as many veggies that are left as possible. Anything else that won't make it much longer will be frozen, juiced, or dehydrated.
~Also, also - I wound up with a bunch of plain yogurt that I'm not going to eat before its best buy date of tomorrow. This is getting frozen in small portions for when a dish calls for just a bit - mostly thinking Indian food right now - and either I don't have any or don't want to buy a whole thing that will then go bad.
Yay! Saving various things saved dinner. I had oranges that were not going to get eaten (the 10 lb bag for $6 is only a good deal if you eat them) and too big a piece of ginger that I froze a ways back. The oranges as juice and the ginger peeled, wrapped in saran wrap and frozen. Frozen ginger is so much easier to grate than fresh. I was making a stir fry & needed both for the sauce - hooray for not going to the store!!!
ReplyDelete