Forum Thermomix
Welcoming Center, Management and General Chat => Chit Chat => Topic started by: meganjane on February 16, 2011, 05:13:39 am
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I've taken up a challenge to only use what's in my freezer and pantry for the next month. It's quite fun and I've been blogging about it. Rather than reiterate everything here, if you're interested, here's my blog link: The Bush Gourmand (http://bushgourmand.blogspot.com/2011/02/freezer-pantry-challenge.html)
Having a Thermomix will certainly make the challenge easier as I already make so much now and don't rely on processed stuff that has to be bought.
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I'm going to enjoy checking that out regularly MJ - loved what I've seen so far.
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can you buy milk? we use 3+ litres of milk a day and as yet I don't have a cow to milk although that is secretly a dream of mine.
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I think this is a great topic and I will be keeping my eye on what you have been making. I tend to buy a piece of meat and forget about it for months. No wonder we have no room in the freezer :o I look forward to any tips for using up the bits and pieces and hope one day to be blinded by the light at the back :D
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This will be interesting reading MJ.I'll follow it with the object of giving it a go too. Although I keep a tally of what meat is in the freezer and plan according to that. Good luck.
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Yes, you can buy milk. Here's our rules:
THE RULES:
1. You cannot purchase anything that is able to be easily frozen and kept. e.g. bacon.
2. Only staples of milk, eggs, cream and fresh fruit and vegetables may be purchased.
3. You must make bread if you have bread flour in the pantry and yoghurt if you have yoghurt mix.
4. No packaged, canned or frozen food is allowed to be purchased.
I've already broken rule 1 as I bought bacon. There wasn't any in the freezer and usually there is!! I can't live without it. But, I won't buy ham.
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I'm enjoying your challenge MJ and belated birthday wishes for Saturday :-*
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:) That is pretty easy for me, as I usually only buy, fruit, veges, milk, every week, as all our meat, chicken, fish is bought in bulk.
i make bread, yogurt, ice cream, biscuits, cakes, now, and every meal, as we never eat take away.
have fun going through the pantry, to see what you can make.
Robyn
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So who did this?
I honestly forgot about it. If anything my freezer has more in it now than ever before. In my defence I have frozen a lot of bananas after the cyclone when I could get overripe ones for 99c/kg
I'm definitely up for the challenge now though. I have a bar fridge size freezer I want to get rid of as it holds hardly anything so this challenge will help with that.
I also tidied my pantry on the weekend and although there isn't that many canned things in there, there are definitely things I want to use up.
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I haven't posted here but Megan's original post prompted me to use up some of the stuff that has been lingering in my freezers for longer than optimal.
I've cooked some sausages, a meatloaf, used up four packages of puff pastry, consumed some frozen Chinese dishes that were purchased on a whim last fall.
I also rotated my nuts, grains and flours that always live in one freezer and shifted some frozen fruits to the front so they will be used soon.
My big freezer is nearly filled with almost half a steer we had butchered last fall so there isn't much I could do in three except to organize it a bit better - so I can more easily read the labels. I also pulled out a quart container of turkey livers which are presently defrosting in the fridge.
I bought some more freezer baskets to hold the little packages of stuff that doesn't stack neatly and which needs to be used up more rapidly.
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What are you going to do with the Turkey livers?
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I should do this - I don't have any room...anywherre...
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What are you going to do with the Turkey livers?
I'm going to make a terrine. I have ordered a truffle that should arrive on Tuesday as the vendor has promised it will be shipped air express Monday morning. (It is Sunday, 8:00 P.M. right now).
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Wow, Andie! I've never eaten a truffle.
I did manage to almost empty my big chest freezer and one other fridge freezer.
I saved heaps of money in that month and used loads of stuff in the freezer.
The pantry was cleared out pretty well too. I enjoyed the challenge, but found it difficult when all I had left in the freezer was old fish and freezer burned meat.
I had a luxury buy up at the butcher in Lake Grace (100km away) recently. Cost $150, but I have some lovely meat.
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Do you kill any of your own meat MJ? Have a lovely rest over the holidays.
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Alas, not in summer as we don't have a cool room.
Not very often in winter, either as that's DH's busiest time.
No, I buy pretty much all our meat. Crazy, isn't it? 2500 sheep, and I buy our lamb.
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Fair enough. A cool room is sort of needed as then you can do several at a time.
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Even for one sheep carcass, you need a coolroom. They're big and need to hang for at least 3 days.
I'd love a cool room... :-\
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One of my friends who lives in the Sierra foothills and doesn't have room for a big freezer(or enough electricity) constructed a cool room by building a concrete block shed, leaving little openings on two walls and inside stacked flue tiles that he had cut in half crosswise.
He rigged up a system to drip water on the top of the flue tiles that trickles down and the evaporation really chills the interior.
It has a heavy galvanized iron roof and door to keep out the bears and coyotes and the occasional mountain lion. He uses it to hang game, as well as beef he is aging, curing hams, and also wine on the shelves above where the water is dripping.
I thought this was extremely clever but he said he learned about it from an old timer who had lived in the area from the turn of the last century.
His house sits on bedrock (granite) so the digging of a cellar was not an option.
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Gosh MJ we should have sold you the one from the family farm. ;) Too late now though.
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Yes, cookie, you should have! ;D
andie, that sounds ingenious. I can't get my DH to change a light bulb, so I think a cleverly constructed shed is out of the question. He'll fix a tractor, truck, ute, sprayer or anything that he uses, but is absolutely useless around the house and yard. I do it all.
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I think it is a farmer thing MJ. If I ask my DH to do anything in the garden his reply is "I've got 50 acres of garden". However he is in the backyard now building a woodfired oven that we have been "planning" for the last 12 years. I think I finally got him to move when I asked for it never to be mentioned again because it would never happen. The dome is being started today. ;D ;D ;D
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Photo please when it is finished Shiraz49. Lucky you even if you did have to wait 12 years :D :D
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Well done, Megan Jane.
Something I should try and do with my freezer and some of the extensive collection in the pantry,
Read this somewhere on a site about decluttering when a woman was also doing the freezer thing:
After debating for some days as to what I might do with a couple of beef (lamb? who could tell... the inside of the bag was covered in frost) bones, I just pulled them out of the freezer to make some stock.
They're foam paint rollers.
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My DH puts fish bait in the freezer and also scraps to freeze so they won't make the bin smell. (He intends to put them in the bin on bin day). I have been known to defrost one of these wondering what it was. We would then eat baked beans for dinner.
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After debating for some days as to what I might do with a couple of beef (lamb? who could tell... the inside of the bag was covered in frost) bones, I just pulled them out of the freezer to make some stock.
They're foam paint rollers.
;D :D ;D Classic!!
I've done a similar thing recently, but it was dog food that I'd cooked up for Rambo! He wouldn't eat it, either.