Eat the Stores - The Freezer Challenge

I've decided ... it was a spur of the moment type decision and the sort I'm really good at, the sort which usually get carried through ... but not always.  Well anyway I've decided to concentrate the final part of this Eating the Stores Challenge on eating down the contents of the freezer in the kitchen.  So if you will, it's a Challenge within a Challenge.

To be totally unique and to simply say it like it is I am calling this part of the Challenge ...The Freezer Challenge

The reason for deciding to narrow down the margins of the January Challenge is that I have discovered there is quite a bit of food in there that I don't really want us to keep eating in the future.  Things like the 'No Chick Fillets' for instance that were pulled out of the freezer for my tea tonight.  If you've never tried them before ... don't bother.  They were bloody awful ...and that's swearing!!

Alan's Gammon Steaks with Cheese and Pineapple was much more successful, although it was a meal I wouldn't have bought if it hadn't been boasting a yellow sticker.  Both were served with simple boiled potatoes.

In the cupboards we have tins and jars of foods that we pretty much know we like to eat, are pretty standard and have long dates on.  The freezer food has been left in there far too long, so much so that the freezer in the workshop that is supposed to trickle it's food forward into this one has not been getting much of a look in except for bread and a few bulky items.

So to start this Freezer Challenge off I took some photos of the freezer shelves in close up.  It's hard to play spot the difference from the full length door photos I published yesterday.

Shelves 1 and 2

As Joy mentioned in her comment yesterday this freezer has very useful door shelves/pockets.  I used to use them for all the tall narrow things and then over the last few months lots of bitty bits have crept into them.

Shelf 1 is holding our replacement Conkers. 

Conkers on windowsills keep the majority of spiders out of your house, this is a proven fact as far as I'm concerned ... we've been doing it for a few years now with brilliant results.  You need just two conkers per windowsill.  After a few months the conkers gradually dry up and start to lose their effectiveness, so having a fresh supply in the freezer means we are able to replace them all and keep ourselves going until conker season comes around again :-)

Shelf 2 has some yellow sticker pastry (if I see any ready rolled pastry in the reduced cabinet and it is one pound or less I buy it as it is a great standby for a quick meal), some fresh ginger wrapped in foil and a tub of home grown garlic cloves.  Freezing ginger as soon as you get it keeps it fresh and means that you can grate it skin and all into any dish you need to direct from the freezer and put back all that you don't need but it needs to be wrapped extremely well.  Garlic cloves whether homegrown or bought from the shops, freeze extremely well and can be grated or chopped finely straight from the freezer again, meaning no waste.

Shelves 3 and 4

On shelf 3 there are two more ys packs of pastry, some ys Rosemary and Sea Salt Foccacia bread (ooh ... posh) and a bag of lemon slices for my morning water drinks, a habit I need to get back to for sure.  

On shelf 4 we have a single Magnum white chocolate ice-cream lolly, a pack of pate, a pack of nut cutlets behind which hiding completely from sight there is a pack of Linda McCartney sausages and there is also a multi-pack of salmon fillets.

Shelf 5 simply has a pack of pate and a ys pack of stuffed mushrooms.

Tucked into a few of these shelves you will have noticed ice packs, as we really don't need these at the moment my first job after taking all these photos was to remove them all from the freezer and leave them on the draining board to thaw out.  Once the freezer has been cleared out they will probably go back in and be kept in just the bottom door shelf ready for use.

So that's it the freezer door in all it's detail.

I will be back tomorrow with the next food that have been taken out and a close up of the shelves in the main body of the freezer.  I will not be moving things around in the freezer as gaps appear or be adding to it at all, so no leftovers are going in and no new purchases are to be made as the main Challenge of Eating the Stores is still in force.  Hopefully between now and the end of the month (which unbelievably is only next week) this freezer should start to look very different.

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