Empty the freezer challenge: Week 1
It’s been a good week for making lots of meals from the freezer, and we’ve managed five main meals from it. If you’re tempted to join in with the Empty the Freezer Challenge yourself, the rules are here.
Our first meal was bangers and mash with fresh vegetables, using up two pork sausages for Beau and two veggie ones for me. The pork sausages cooked up very badly and just didn’t look ‘right’, so unfortunately we’ve had to bin those. Getting food poisoning as a freelancer isn’t a good idea…
We had better luck with the frozen chicken though, which defrosted and cooked just fine. Beau had one portion marinated in Tex-Mex spice and lime juice, and I had one of the Quorn escalopes instead. We also used up four of the frozen tortillas to make fajitas, along with salad, cheese, beans, natural yogurt and hot sauce. They were delicious (see picture above).
The next meal was prawns and vegetables in ginger and miso broth (pic above), which used up 100g of prawns. I added some garden vegetables, tofu and rice noodles to turn it into a fairly healthy, tasty dinner. I’d definitely make this recipe again.
We also had a very easy casserole (above) using one portion of the pearl barley casserole base, and the last four veggie sausages. That had some of the frozen spinach cooked up on the side as well, so the whole thing was a freezer-based dinner, with just a little water added to get the sauce to the right consistency.
I made a very quick meal by using up a big handful of frozen peas in an omelette, along with eggs, milk, seasoning, a pinch of dried herbs and a couple of rashers of veggie bacon. That was served with the defrosted crusts of sourdough – they’re from a round loaf so they looked like half a bread roll. Nothing fancy about it (picture above), but it did taste nice.
We also used up the raspberries on top of a coconut chia pudding. It was delicious and I will be making my made-up recipe for this again and again. There was enough left over to have warm for breakfast the next morning. Mmmmm.
At the weekend we cooked a mini-roast with the remaining chicken portion for Beau and the last Quorn escalope for me, plus one of the boxes of courgettes and the frozen broad beans. That just needed roast potatoes and gravy adding to turn it into a hearty meal.
The rest of the week was also good, and we used up the fish fingers in fish finger sandwiches (including frozen wholemeal bread), made cheese toasties (more bread) for another quick lunch, and had two toasted English muffins for snacks, plus two croissants and a sweet mincemeat Chelsea bun for breakfasts.
Next week’s meals
My three main meals this coming week will be to use up the gnocchi (a side dish to an Italian-style bake), the veggie pies, and the fish in breadcrumbs. I’ll try to use up lots of vegetables to accompany those, if possible.
I’m also planning to use up some spinach, maybe in lunches or brunches, and some of the frozen berries. If there’s time at the weekend there might also be something tasty with that rhubarb, but we’ll have to see how we go.
Have you been cooking up the contents of your freezer too? Did you manage to make any good new dishes? Tweet me your pictures with the #emptythefreezer hashtag or show me your pics on the Facebook page!
