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Again with the will-I-ever-cook-much, following on where the last post left off.
Three freezers might do it. Compared with a couple who eats together, I'll need to store more stuff and I'll need to store it longer. If a recipe feeds four, and the variety they have in their diet means they eat the leftovers a week later, they're storing two servings for a week. I'd be storing three servings for the first week, two for the second week, and one for the third week, an average of two servings stored over a period of three weeks. This multiplication factor gets carried out to unused portions of ingredients, too, since (in this scenario) I'm not cooking again until two weeks later than the couple would. I am not (consciously) exaggerating; I'm guessing that somewhere near 3x the freezer capacity would put me on an equal footing.
To further multiply the problem, I'm only gastronomically single. Rob gets the top shelf of the freezer. I get the bottom (and by sneakily using those ice packs, I've gradually taken over almost the whole door). Folks who cook and eat in pairs, imagine living in one-sixth of your freezer. Singles, imagine living in half of yours. How would you work that? What clever solutions have you come up with when, say, you've shared the space with roommates?
Some options I have:
- One possibility is an auxiliary freezer. Where to put it is an open question, and we're also kind of trying to CONSERVE electricity, not soak up a lot MORE of it. (Let's not mention the oven, the microwave, the stove, or the crock pot. Shhhh.)
- Another possibility, and for various reasons this is where I want to go eventually, is trying to learn to cook with stuff that can be stored on the shelf. Dried grains are excellent for this if you can handle the glycemic load most of them will give you. Anything sold in dehydrated form would be a serious win (I am never going to re-can half a can of tomato paste, but if it were somehow sold without the water in it, I could easily keep the leftovers). Maybe I should learn to dehydrate stuff myself.
LJ brain, can you see alternatives I'm missing?
Three freezers might do it. Compared with a couple who eats together, I'll need to store more stuff and I'll need to store it longer. If a recipe feeds four, and the variety they have in their diet means they eat the leftovers a week later, they're storing two servings for a week. I'd be storing three servings for the first week, two for the second week, and one for the third week, an average of two servings stored over a period of three weeks. This multiplication factor gets carried out to unused portions of ingredients, too, since (in this scenario) I'm not cooking again until two weeks later than the couple would. I am not (consciously) exaggerating; I'm guessing that somewhere near 3x the freezer capacity would put me on an equal footing.
To further multiply the problem, I'm only gastronomically single. Rob gets the top shelf of the freezer. I get the bottom (and by sneakily using those ice packs, I've gradually taken over almost the whole door). Folks who cook and eat in pairs, imagine living in one-sixth of your freezer. Singles, imagine living in half of yours. How would you work that? What clever solutions have you come up with when, say, you've shared the space with roommates?
Some options I have:
- One possibility is an auxiliary freezer. Where to put it is an open question, and we're also kind of trying to CONSERVE electricity, not soak up a lot MORE of it. (Let's not mention the oven, the microwave, the stove, or the crock pot. Shhhh.)
- Another possibility, and for various reasons this is where I want to go eventually, is trying to learn to cook with stuff that can be stored on the shelf. Dried grains are excellent for this if you can handle the glycemic load most of them will give you. Anything sold in dehydrated form would be a serious win (I am never going to re-can half a can of tomato paste, but if it were somehow sold without the water in it, I could easily keep the leftovers). Maybe I should learn to dehydrate stuff myself.
LJ brain, can you see alternatives I'm missing?
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You might look into a small freezer - similar in size to the small dorm size refrigerators.
I have found that labling what I am freezing helps - when I buy meat I try to buy the bulk packs and split it into portion sizes (chicken pieces, hamburger, steak, roasts)- the type of meat and the date purchased. I also freeze bread and butter.
When I portion out uncooked meat I usually wrap it in waxed paper, then aluminum foil and then put it onto a ziplock bag. If I remember to set out something the day/night before, it will thaw in the refrigerator.
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On the shelf: I keep lots of canned stuff (beans, chili, soup, diced tomatoes, tomato paste, olives, corn, mushrooms). Grains you covered, and there is also pasta, oatmeal (a grain, but in a different category in my head than rice)... anything in a sealed container (rice milk, lots of ready-made food at TJs).... extra unopened jam, nut butter.... I have lots of problems (off and on) with weevils (them little mothies) -- ug. I have covered tupperwear-ish containers for sprouting seeds and beans. One could also have things like corn meal, flour, sugar (if one bakes). I do have honey, maple syrup, baking soda, soy sauce, vinegar, spices and other such assorted things. Oh, and tapioca. Also sometimes things like falafel mix or hummus mix from whole foods. These are powdered and bought from the "bulk" bins. (It's not as good as making it from "real" food, but it is not bad.) Oh, and speaking of dehydrated, they (whole foods) also sells dehydrated soup in the bulk bins -- but I'm not recommending it. (Stuff like split pea soup.) I guess you could spend some time in the "bulk" aisle at whole foods, actually, to see what else you can buy as a powder. (I'll bet you don't have weevils!)
If I had 1/2 the fridge space I don't know how I would cope. It's always full and chaotic in there. And the other issue is where to put all the fruit and whatnot-fresh-stuff that is not refrigerated -- this can be a lot of stuff -- bananas, apples, oranges, tomatoes, sometimes bread, onions, potatoes, avocados, pineapple, melons.... and it goes on from there. Well, I guess this (fresh food that sits out) is not your problem though -- but I think I should give this some thought, maybe try to clear out some space somewhere for fresh food. It ends up sort of taking over.
Dried mushrooms are relatively small. hummmm Tomato sauce is ALREADY so concentrated..... what about smaller cans as a general idea.... (Yeah, I realize there may not BE smaller cans, but in some cases there are....)
Have you noticed I like all these "food" topics?
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When I have my normal set-up my freezer typically has things like lasagne, enchiladas, soup, things like that--stuff that cooks 'big' and is easy to reheat and have a meal plus leftovers.
Tomato paste can be gotten in a tube that lasts practically forever. Great for those times when you just need a dab.
Oh, and the freezer is where I keep extra cheese, butter, bread, nuts, etc. Stuff that I can purchase in bulk but can't store long-term at higher temps. And film and paper of course :^)
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I used to have problems with a little creature that might have been weevils. (Hard to say; I kept finding them in the larval stage.) I cleaned effing EVERYTHING, throwing out a lot of stuff, and then bought and distributed a big pile of those cedar blocks you're supposed to put in sock drawers and the like. Those are all over my kitchen shelves now. Seems to keep the problem way down.
Potatoes! That's a problem too. If you buy a couple of potatoes individually in one of those the-grocer-will-weigh-it bags, they're costly. For almost the same price you can get a big five-pound bag. But what the heck do I do with a five-pound bag? I use two potatoes, then discover months later that the others have all sprouted and gone squishy. *sigh* Stuff like fresh fruit doesn't have this problem for me. You can't buy apples or pears in cheap five-pound bags, so I'm not tempted. :-)
It's looking pretty clear that what I really want is a chest freezer. Maybe a small one would do.
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Maybe a chest freezer wouldn't use much power. Rob is going to kill me... :)
Living out of the freezer
Maybe this won't work for you, but it does for me--except for soups (which I usually freeze in 2-4 serving blocks) I almost never cook more than 2-3 servings of anything. I would rather eat the same thing for 2 or 3 days and (cook more frequently) than loose a single serving of something that doesn't reheat very well after being frozen in the depths of my freezer.
Re: Living out of the freezer
Yeah, about cooking 2-3 servings... I can see that one of my problems is that I so rarely have time. (I am also not good at remembering that many recipes can be halved. Duh.) So I'll cook on a weekend, maybe 6 servings of something, more if it's lasagna, and I probably won't have another "good foot" day free like that for a month. Of course, I'll also try to do things that reheat well. Dijon chicken was a mistake.
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A bunch of my freezer space is occupied by assorted frozen vegetables. pour out what I will eat tonight, nuke, reclose bag with chip clip, return remainder to freezer. But I'm not organized enough to cook ahead; most of what I cook for myself is only a little bit beyond "reheat and serve".
And when I do cook more than I can eat in one meal, I tend to eat the leftovers (albeit with minor variations) over the next N days, before I go off and cook something else. In general this means the leftovers stay in the refrigerator rather than the freezer.
one of the more inspired variations: I made vast quantities of beef stew. When I was about halfway through it, I watched the "Good Eats" pocket pie episode.
I was too lazy to actually make crusts from scratch. Instead
I extracted two rounds of pre-made biscuit dough from my refrigerator, rolled them flat with a rolling pin, put some stew on them, folded them in half and then sealed them as demonstrated by Alton Brown, then baked them according to the biscuit instructions. Instant meal variant...
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I can't remember eating ketchup in the last year, maybe more. Me too -- so why am I reluctant to pitch it?
I used to have problems with a little creature that might have been weevils. (Hard to say; I kept finding them in the larval stage.) I cleaned effing EVERYTHING, throwing out a lot of stuff, and then bought and distributed a big pile of those cedar blocks you're supposed to put in sock drawers and the like. Those are all over my kitchen shelves now. Seems to keep the problem way down. I have not heard that one (and yes, those are probably weevils -- laval type critters, like to live in flour, grains, etc -- and then turn into teeny moths). I have a couple of other things around (PERMANENTLY) that are spozed to prevent/reduce/kill them. I'll get the cedar blocks out of the sock drawer and put them in the kitchen, and buy some more. It's hugely frustrating.
If you buy a couple of potatoes individually in one of those the-grocer-will-weigh-it bags, they're costly. For almost the same price you can get a big five-pound bag. But what the heck do I do with a five-pound bag? I use two potatoes, then discover months later that the others have all sprouted and gone squishy. YEP! Sometimes I use up half the bag, but usually not the whole bag. I do try to throw them out prior to the growing stage.
==> What is the deal with "preview". It claims I am previewing, ("This is how your comment will look when posted.") but it doesn't actually do the HTML. But I think HTML does work here.... (Never mind, I'm just griping...)
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I think it was Rob who cut his finger on ketchup once. (Can't remember; been a long time since I heard the story.) I bet that ketchup was just about as nasty as the stuff you pitched.
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I have no clue, but I'm in the same situation. I'll make you a deal: I'll pitch mine if you pitch yours! As little as we use them, both yours and mine are probably nasty by now anyway!
When I look for weevils on the web, I get images of bug things instead of images of moth things, but frankly if they eat flour, I don't care what they are, I want them out of my pantry. Grr. I hope the cedar blocks help you. Their "aid" may have been total coincidence for me, but we can hope.
As for potatoes, this weekend might be Potato Leek Soup. It still won't use the whole bag though!
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I like your meal variant! That sounds like it would be yummy for any number of stew-ish things.
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I know you will be pleased and/or amused that I also decided that the 1/2 bottle of nayonaise could go. I think it is still good, but the expiration date is in 2005. The 1/2 bottle of fancy aiola spread is going too -- it's old and much as it seems like a great idea, apparently I don't think to use it. There are 2 sugary things that I identified to go but they are perfectly useble (I'm eating little or no sugar right now) -- so they are still in the fridge. I need to find a new home for them and think it should be easy (we'll see).
I looked at wikipedia about weevils and what I have is not weevils! I'm disturbed and embarrassed! Where did I get that wrong idea from? Somewhere a looong time ago, as I've thought they were weevils for years now. An image search for "grain moths" results in pictures that look more like what I have, apparently called angoumois grain moth.
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Grain moths, eh? Well, we want 'em gone whatever they are. And I don't even know what mine turn into. They're all larval. Maybe the food I keep is terrible enough that none of them survive to adulthood! Ha!
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Cook of the Month (http://www.cookofthemonth.com/default.asp#) is a web-based one. A full day of cooking might be tough on your feet, but then again it's one day a month...
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