Conclusion of the Freezer Challenge

This day has been marked on my calendar for weeks. Today is the day that I conclude the Freezer Challenge by reporting on my results. Yet, for the first time since starting this blog, I am not excited to write or post.

For most of the month I was doing good, I mean really good. At no point was my freezer wasn’t empty, but I’m pretty sure about 75% of its contents were replaced with fresh things. As a reminder, here is what I set out to use up:

When I was on a roll, here’s what was going down in my kitchen:

1. Ezekiel Bread– defrosted for mid-morning snacks of PB & banana or fruit spread at work
2. Homemade ravioli– brought back to life by sautéing with garlic and olive oil, made a few lunch portions
3. Naan– quick and easy pizza base, topped with sliced tomatoes and whatever other veggies were in the house
4. Turkey sausages– simmered in tomato sauce with veggies and served over spaghetti squash
5. Pizza dough– topped with veggies and freezer tomato sauce, grilled on barbeque
6. Black bean soup– lunch for work
7. Chicken chili– lunch for work
8. Cod fillets– I’m allergic to fish and didn’t eat these, but they disappeared none the less
9. Edamame– steamed and enjoyed with a pinch of sea salt
10. Blueberries– mixed with plain greek yogurt
11. Venison steaks– used for Slow Cooker Pulled Venison

Everything else fell victim to Hurricane (Superstorm) Sandy when I lost power for four days. I do not mean to complain. Most people I know had harder time lost much more than I did. It is just that when the power came back on, and I had to toss almost everything in the fridge and freezer, it was so very sad. We tried to eat as possible before the storm and put a bunch of things into a cooler, but I ended up throwing out a full (and very heavy) garbage bag of food.

Overall, a few important things came out of this challenge. I trained myself to open the freezer and survey the stockpile before running to the store to buy more things. This saved time and money (very precious resources for me these days), and also forced me to get creative and create meals around ingredients by combining them in new ways. You will see a few more of these recipes here in the near future. For now, I need to go figure out what is for dinner tonight.