This title is a play on a Warhol exhibit where he raided the storage rooms of old museums etc. and displayed his chosen findings as instalation pieces
One of the best purchases I ever made was a small deep freeze. I got it in my first year in Edmonton when I was living alone in the mouse-ridden student housing and couldn't finish things like pasta sauce or bread loaves before they went bad. My tiny apartment fridge had a terrible freezer that would either be too warm or would frost up.
I would load up the deep freeze on occasional weekends where I'd rent a car and do Costco runs or get things from M&M Meat Stores. It saved me a lot of money, time, and gave me way more food variety than I'd have otherwise.
But now, my deep freeze has been holding random bits of stuff for about 6-months, and it's driving me crazy.
After first sorting through everything and putting things from the fridge freezer into the deep freeze (and vice versa), I have been planning meals around the random bits of things for the last week and a bit.
First I used up big pieces, like pork tenderloin, for the main course in a meal; I also had salmon with ceaser salad that was a no-brainer. But then there are the pieces where we only have like 2 chicken thighs, or a single very small steak...
My truly inovative dishes have included today's supper appetizer: lettuce wraps, where I used the small steak and grated carrot from the freezer along with rice vermicelli, peanut butter, assorted sauces, a half-wizened red pepper, and the lovely butter lettuce we bough a week ago - total hit.
The zesty beef pasta toss (inspired by the Campbells Kitchen website) used up a pound of ground beef, some left over penne, a sad looking onion and one of our many cans of tomato soup. The cheddar cheese would have continued to be good, but Chris didn't put it back in the fridge and I saw it all yucky and waxy looking on the counter the next morning.
Tonight, our main course will be a Thai fish curry using up the other half of the near-be-gone red pepper, basa fillets, frozen brocoli, the last can of coconut milk, and red curry paste. Other assorted Thai spices (lemongrass, kafir lime leaves, galangal ginger, thai bird peppers) will also get a clean up from the containers and ziplock bags they were stored in in the freezer.
But my favourite clean-up dish of all was the jambalaya I made last weekend. It used up the 2 chicken thighs, a chorizo, half a pound of shrimp, tomato paste, the last of the basmati rice, another sad looking onion, some red pepper, and a can of "bruchetta-style" tomatoes (which was no bruchetta-ready at all). It was really great and cleared up so much room.
The major remainders in the freezer include yet another pork tenderloin, salmon filets, a block of frozen spinach (left over form the e-coli scarce spinach days), some sour cream we froze, more veggies, pyrogies, about 6 butternut squash ravioli, random burgers (turkey, thin thin thin beef ones, and good beef ones), more chorizo/bavarian sausage, and purple-mashed potatoes. There's also a big hunk of easter ham left that is VERY very frozen, and will take like 3 days to thaw.
I forsee a german meal (using up the pyrogies, bavarian sausage, mashed potatoes, some veggies and sour cream)... Perhaps a quiche or frittata to use up the spinach and ham (though I'd need more cheese - damnit!)
And maybe I can break up the hamburgers? That would be way more practical...
And then, I will get to clean out the freezer and thoughtfully restock it with much more reasonable, useful items
posted by traxis @ 5:40 p.m.
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