I pretty much live on frozen vegetables. Granted, there are certainly times when fresh is a necessity, I've found that for most dishes cooking time can be tweaked slightly to accommodate the already-blanched quality of frozen veggies. They're really wonderful if they're defrosted in a bowl of water, drained well, and used in stir-fry.
I also go through a LOT of leftovers. I can make generally about five meals out of one recipe if I have enough leftovers.
As for meat freezing and everything sticking. Make sure the baggies are completely bone dry before sticking them in the freezer, first thing. Then, make sure that there's no air in the baggies around the meat, then either roll the baggie around the meat (if it's something like a chick breast) or just stack extremely flat (if it's something like a pork chop or steak). Sticking comes most often when you've got damp bags that mold around one another. Sometimes, it's going to stick anyhow, but I haven't had a problem with that since I moved out of my mom's house, so it's been about six years.
Definitely scope salad sections in food stores for smaller amounts of ingredients. You'll pay a higher price, certainly, but it might just even out for you if not being able to use up fresh produce is a real problem. In many salad-bar type areas in markets you can get small amounts of peppers, mixed salad greens, individual handfuls of spinach, and so on.
And can I just rant for, like, two seconds? WHY is parsley sold in bunches THAT FREAKING HUGE? I'll use, like, half a cup of it at the most-and that's if I make tabbouleh-and I still have about 900 pounds of freaking parsley. There's only so much parsley pesto a girl can eat, dammit!
Which frozen veggies work for you? I was raised on frozen green beans and pretty much think they're the grossest thing ever. But I do like frozen peas just fine.
Leftovers are the thing I want to avoid. I know a lot of great huge recipes where you just use the whole pepper or onion or what have you, but dude, I don't want to eat the same thing five days in a row, you know? I do it sometimes but it's so boring.
Oh! Good on sticking. I haven't tried all that hard to figure out why everything sticks. I just get pissed off and then don't freeze things. I will try to work on it! Thank you.
And great advice on the salad bar type things. I never look at those because of the expense, but you're right about it being worth it if I can't use all of the packaged stuff anyway. It'll probably come to around the same price. You genius, you!
Omg, so true about parsley. It always pisses me off. Although pesto, mmmm. You know what's sad, is I used to get pissed off about celery...and then I finally discovered you can buy individual stalks. Dude, I'm so lame.
HAHAHHA icon.
Thanks so much! I think it's so cool people help me in my ineptitude.
Yeah, frozen green beans aren't all that great but I would die without a steady supply of frozen peas and broccoli. I like general veggie blends as well, and black-eyed/field peas are pretty amazing. Edamame, lima beans, carrots, assorted peppers, spinach... God, pretty much everything. I've even had luck with frozen onion, but it really doesn't make a huge amount of sense since, really, how hard is it to chop an onion?
And as for using leftovers again, I find it helps to reconstitute them. Even just by adding a different sauce or a bit of a spice blend or even heating it up in a way different than how you initially cooked it can completely transform what you're eating.
One of my favorite things is using some old fried rice or stir fry, coating it in egg, cooking it in little patties, and dipping it in some kind of sauce (often mustard since I'm a self-avowed mustard fiend).
Generally, food that is delicious plus other food that is delicious will produce more food that is delicious, but possibly in a slightly different way. I very rarely use leftovers in any way resembling how they were originally cooked. Except for my pork tacos. Those are just too damn perfect to be anything else.
I actually didn't KNOW about the individual celery stalks thing! YAY! :D But yeah, parsley still pisses me off. Who thought that was a good idea??
P.S. I totally picked that icon out for that response just for you. ;)
Edamame, that's a great idea! Frozen broccoli, huh? I'll have to give it a go.
Oh, reconstituting left-overs. Someone else mentioned that. I've done that before, but usually I can't figure out how to change it or what to add. I'll have experiment.
Mmmmm!!!! The fried rice things sound so good!
...I almost always use this icon. Thanks again for all your help and advice!
I also go through a LOT of leftovers. I can make generally about five meals out of one recipe if I have enough leftovers.
As for meat freezing and everything sticking. Make sure the baggies are completely bone dry before sticking them in the freezer, first thing. Then, make sure that there's no air in the baggies around the meat, then either roll the baggie around the meat (if it's something like a chick breast) or just stack extremely flat (if it's something like a pork chop or steak). Sticking comes most often when you've got damp bags that mold around one another. Sometimes, it's going to stick anyhow, but I haven't had a problem with that since I moved out of my mom's house, so it's been about six years.
Definitely scope salad sections in food stores for smaller amounts of ingredients. You'll pay a higher price, certainly, but it might just even out for you if not being able to use up fresh produce is a real problem. In many salad-bar type areas in markets you can get small amounts of peppers, mixed salad greens, individual handfuls of spinach, and so on.
And can I just rant for, like, two seconds? WHY is parsley sold in bunches THAT FREAKING HUGE? I'll use, like, half a cup of it at the most-and that's if I make tabbouleh-and I still have about 900 pounds of freaking parsley. There's only so much parsley pesto a girl can eat, dammit!
Reply
Leftovers are the thing I want to avoid. I know a lot of great huge recipes where you just use the whole pepper or onion or what have you, but dude, I don't want to eat the same thing five days in a row, you know? I do it sometimes but it's so boring.
Oh! Good on sticking. I haven't tried all that hard to figure out why everything sticks. I just get pissed off and then don't freeze things. I will try to work on it! Thank you.
And great advice on the salad bar type things. I never look at those because of the expense, but you're right about it being worth it if I can't use all of the packaged stuff anyway. It'll probably come to around the same price. You genius, you!
Omg, so true about parsley. It always pisses me off. Although pesto, mmmm. You know what's sad, is I used to get pissed off about celery...and then I finally discovered you can buy individual stalks. Dude, I'm so lame.
HAHAHHA icon.
Thanks so much! I think it's so cool people help me in my ineptitude.
Reply
And as for using leftovers again, I find it helps to reconstitute them. Even just by adding a different sauce or a bit of a spice blend or even heating it up in a way different than how you initially cooked it can completely transform what you're eating.
One of my favorite things is using some old fried rice or stir fry, coating it in egg, cooking it in little patties, and dipping it in some kind of sauce (often mustard since I'm a self-avowed mustard fiend).
Generally, food that is delicious plus other food that is delicious will produce more food that is delicious, but possibly in a slightly different way. I very rarely use leftovers in any way resembling how they were originally cooked. Except for my pork tacos. Those are just too damn perfect to be anything else.
I actually didn't KNOW about the individual celery stalks thing! YAY! :D But yeah, parsley still pisses me off. Who thought that was a good idea??
P.S. I totally picked that icon out for that response just for you. ;)
Reply
Oh, reconstituting left-overs. Someone else mentioned that. I've done that before, but usually I can't figure out how to change it or what to add. I'll have experiment.
Mmmmm!!!! The fried rice things sound so good!
...I almost always use this icon. Thanks again for all your help and advice!
Reply
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