Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Pantry Challenge-Day 2

So, while cleaning out the inside freezer (the one attached to the refrigerator), I am finding I need to be more diligent about dating and identifying the contents of the things I freeze. See, I forage and garden and buy items at farmers' market and then freeze them. I freeze left over bits of meat or leftover soups. Sadly, I seem to have been a bit lax on the labeling and I have no idea what some of the things I am finding shoved to the back actually are!

My plan of attack is to get the inside freezer inventory and clean it out so I can bring the week's items in from the garage freezers as part of my meal menu plan. Part of my challenge, especially in the winter, is to dig through those awkward cooold things for a meal. If I take the less used items out to the garage and make an effort to bring in items to use during the week, I really think I will be more successful at utilizing my stockpiled food. The key for me is visual!

So, I tackled a couple of shelves (I have a side-by-side 'frige) and found what I think is sweet potato butter, two qt bags of blueberries (and, sadly, my kids have been begging for these but I didn't want to have to dig in the cold for them and here they were a few items away...), two small freezer-burned containers of what I think is turkey (thawing and will heat for cats), 1.5 bags of chocolate chips, a pint of current jelly (from my own currants I picked summer of 2008!), a qt bag of chicken broth, bacon, bologna (ick, in my opinion, but Sr likes it for his lunches on the road), yeast, gallon bag of dandelion petals (also from 2008-these are going to the chickens), leftover ham, and homemade applesauce (thawing to eat the rest of the week). I still have three more shelves and the door to go. I wonder what other mysteries I will discover...!

Yes, I am slow at this due to very hectic month already!

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