Empty the Freezer Challenge 2018: Week 2

We’re only into the second week of our Empty the Freezer Challenge for 2018, but we’ve been making a big effort to create plenty of meals based around all the frozen foods that we need to use up. The long list of surplus stocks is getting smaller every day or so, and the delicious dishes keep on coming.

This week we managed to create four evening meals, some leftovers for lunches, and a few mouthwatering breakfasts and desserts, and I’m feeling even more enthusiastic about this challenge than I did before. Even if I do have an as yet unopened 1kg bag of frozen peas that I still need to get rid of… but that’s a story for another day. The weather’s been non stop hot and sunny, so we’ve been avoiding making too many bakes and focusing on wraps and salads to beat the heat.

Meal 1 was chicken and Quorn chicken fajitas (fillings pictured above) with four of the frozen flour tortillas, one portion of leftover chicken and two portions of Quorn. They were served with a homegrown salad of mixed baby leaf lettuce, radishes and coriander, and toppings of grated cheese, tomato salsa and avocado.

Meal 2 was loaded veggie hotdogs (pic above) with four veggie sausages, plus fried onions, tomato relish, mustard, and a salad of mixed leaves. It seemed like the best way to use a bunch of sausages up on a roasting hot evening, and I’m very glad we didn’t go with bangers and mash instead. It was lovely and didn’t involve too much cooking.

Meal 3 was a mushroom and ham pizza (see above) made with frozen dough, topped with veggie ‘ham’, mushrooms, spring onion, olives, tomato puree, Italian herbs and mozzarella. There’s nothing quite like a thin crispy homemade pizza, fresh out of the oven, where it only took 12 minutes to cook. It was accompanied by a homegrown side salad of green leaves and fresh basil to add a little freshness on a warm, summery evening.

Meal 4 was a spinach and mushroom tart (above) that used up all of the the frozen filo pastry and chopped spinach. I added eggs, milk, nutmeg, leftover garlic mushrooms and some homegrown yellow courgettes. It was served with a completely homegrown salad of loose leaf lettuce, radishes, parsley and chives. Definitely worth making an exception and putting the oven on for, and something we haven’t cooked in ages for some reason even though quiches and tarts are eternally popular in this house. Simple but oh so good, and there was enough left over for a no-cook meal the next day too.

Other meals and snacks: one more serving of rhubarb mixed with fresh garden strawberries for dessert, one cinnamon pecan pastry as a post workout snack, 100g of black cherries on porridge on the only cold-ish morning of the week, more cherries with some fresh banana in a smoothie, the last of the frozen mango and pineapple as a dessert, and 100g each of blueberries and raspberries in a batch of overnight oats (before and after pics above).

By the way, if you’d like the recipe for the overnight oats, let me know and I’ll write it up for you in a few days. I’ve been having a lot of fun making up new recipes and adapting old ones so that me have something new to try every day.

So far this week we’ve only spent £3.00 on groceries, including bread, milk and a few salad ingredients that we don’t already have growing in the garden, which shows exactly how thrifty a zero waste approach like this can be.

Are you making any meals out of your freezer this week? It isn’t too late to join in with this challenge, the rules are here. Remember to tag your creations with #EmptyTheFC so we can see what you’ve been cooking up.