The Freezer

So yesterday I posted about our fledgling food stockpile.  In addition to The Pantry, we've also invested in a new freezer.

My new bff

Bought ridiculously cheaply on ebay because it has a couple of dents and one of the drawers needs a corner glued back on.

This replaces our old second fridge, which has never been made good use of.  It also uses about 200kWh less power.

My next job is to investigate wholesale meat and how you go about buying half a cow and getting it into bits small enough to fit in the freezer drawers.  I believe there is a wholesale butcher in Dural, so that will be my first stop, if I can find him.  Liss over at Frills in the Hills heads down to a butcher in Wilberforce every month or so, which might be worth a trip.  And I know MumnDad's butcher at Mulgoa might also be able to help.  I'll keep you updated on how I go.

:)

The Pantry: Why oh why do I keep typing The Panty??

This post is not about my underwear.  No siree.  I have posted about my underwear in the past, here, but today underpants will not be mentioned. Well not again. I hope.

Ahem.

The Panty (bugger) Pantry.

Creating and maintaining a grocery supply is something I've been thinking about for a long time, but I've been putting off, mostly because my cupboard looked like this.

The Last Bastion of the War on Clutter

However, we've decided its time to get our stockpile up and running.

I'm not going to write an instruction manual on it, because (as usual), others have done a brilliant job already.  If you want info on creating a food stockpile check out...

Down To Earth
http://down---to---earth.blogspot.com/search/label/Stockpiling
http://down---to---earth.blogspot.com/2009/09/from-stockpile-to-pantry.html

Eat At Dixibelles
http://eatatdixiebelles.blogspot.com/p/get-prepared.html
http://eatatdixiebelles.blogspot.com/2011/01/be-prepared-challenge-acquire-step-one.html

Simple Green Frugal Co-op
http://simple-green-frugal-co-op.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-stocked-is-your-store-cupboard.html

Hubs spent an afternoon tackling The Cupboard, and I have slowly begun to stock it.

Its a start

I'm not one for making huge lists and inventories, so I'll be adding to our store as I see things on sale in the supermarket.  I aim to get about a three month supply happening, and have it all up and running in the next few months, before hubs next work contract runs out.

I am already loving having the extra jars of peanut butter on hand.  No breakfast disasters/tantrums in this household, not any more.

:)

Pesto update

So back at the end of March I posted about my bulk pesto making efforts.  Instead of freezing the pesto, I elected to keep it under oil in the fridge.  And three months later this is what it looks like.

Mmmm, so very very yummy

Yes, bit of a mess, and this is after I'd scraped off the brown crusty bits on the top.  It had gone brown down the sides of the container as well.

So, lesson gleaned; Pesto keeps beautifully for about a month under oil in the fridge.  If you are planning on keeping it longer my advice is to freeze it.

I picked out the still green bits, smeared the over the base of a veggie pizza and fed it to hubs.  Thus far he has shown no ill effects, but I am watching closely for any adverse reactions.

:)

Cake in a Mug Friday

I loves a challenge, and when Rach over at Ramblings of a Romance Writing Mama issued a cake baking ultimatum that involved chocolate, I was all Hell Yes.

I'd heard of these microwaved cake-in-a-mug before, but never actually tried them.  So when the kids got home from school this afternoon we gave it a shot.

Mixing ingredients

Eating - it didn't even make it out of the cup

Not the most elegant presentation I'm afraid, but small people were tired and crabby after a long week of school - its nearly the end of term as well - so it was wisest to let them dig in without any delay :).  Was rather amazed at how easy and how yummy they were.  See Rach's blog for the recipe etc.

Have had a day in the kitchen, dealing with the apples we picked up at Bilpin a few weeks ago.

Two batches of blackberry and apple jam (about 7kgs in total, which cost me about $30 in total - largest expense being the 3kgs blackberries which I bought.  That's around $1.36 a jar)

I'll do a batch of strawberry jam when they come into season, and that should see us jammed-up for the year.

I also made a second batch of apple pie filling.  So I've now got the equivalent of 12 apple pies in the freezer (no pastry).

Knackered now, and yes I peeled all those apples (but do have a brillo mixer that has a slicer attachment which does all the slicing for me).

Yawn.