Frugal Friday: Freezer Tetris

One day, in the near future, I am probably going to lose at Freezer Tetris.

You don't know about Freezer Tetris?  You remember the early computer game, Tetris, don't you?  Where you had to fit shapes into a finite space, without leaving any gaps?  Well, Freezer Tetris is a real-life version of the game, where you have to fit more and more food into a freezer that is already full.  This was my freezer two weeks ago, at the tail end of Easter:

Hard to believe that I'd taken an 18lb turkey out of it to roast for Good Friday. I took that photo after I successfully managed to shoe-horn in 6 x 600ml containers of turkey stock, as well as over 2kg of cubed leftover turkey.   In the interim week after removing and defrosting said turkey, I also added 800g home-wilted spinach and 1.5kg cooked chickpeas.  

With the exception of a couple of lunch-boxes of leftovers (and four haggis plus a whole black pudding), the contents of the freezer  remained static until I decided we needed more kidney beans, so I soaked a 1kg of dried beans overnight, bagged them, then shoved them into the freezer.  Somehow. (Freezing causes ice to form in the re-hydrated cells, which damages the cell walls and shortens cooking time.)  How I got them into the freezer, I don't know.

Last night, I couldn't resist the big bag of frozen hash-browns at Costco, so the beans came out of the freezer and I cooked them this morning.  1kg of dried beans cooked became 2.35kg.

 Half an hour ago, I stood staring at the freezer wondering how I was going to fit that lot in.  Last night's hash browns had been difficult enough.

Hmmm.... If I take these out and rearrange that......

 Victory!

Pam 3 :  Freezer 0

 - Pam



PS:  There is a serious point I want to make here.  One of the things that keeps our food bill low is the way we utilise the freezer.  Leftovers get frozen.  Before we went on holiday, all our remaining fresh veg was chopped up and frozen.  I batch cooked dried pulses, portion them up and freeze anything that won't be eaten that day.  At Easter, we nabbed a bargain on fresh spinach - an 800g bag marked down to 75p from £3, so I wilted it, portioned it into 4 and froze it.  We don't go supermarket shopping for dinner, we go to re-stock our stores.  When I think about cooking a meal, I start by considering what is in my fridge, my freezer and my larder.

PPS:  I heard a great quote yesterday from either episode 5 or episode 6 of A History of the World in 100 Objects:  "If the larder is full, the mind has time to focus on other things".  The presenter was explaining why art appeared after early man became farmers.  Previously, all their time was taken up with hunting and gathering food, but once they started farming, they developed surpluses of food which they could store.  Suddenly, there was time to do other things: become craftsmen, worry about gods, etc.

Scrummy with a touch of spinach

Several months ago while surfing the "condemned food counter" at Tesco, I scored the final four inches of a chorizo sausage discarded from the deli.  like many such prizes, it went into the freezer until I decided what to do with it.  I was really tempted to try Kale and Chickpea Stew a la Crazy Aunt Purl but DH doesn't like cooked kale or many of its relatives (cabbage, etc).  He'll eat them raw, but not cooked.

Saturday, when we were grocery shopping, I hit on making it with spinach.  Thanks to an offer, I could pick up a large bunch of spinach for 60p.  DH will eat spinach raw in salads and cooked in Sophie Dahl's Dhal so I rationalised that maybe, just maybe, he'd eat it in this.  The original recipe is here.  This is my version.

Chickpea and Chorizo Stew

Serves 4 to 6


Ingredients

1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 red jalapeno chillies sliced
100g/4oz chorizo, diced
450g cooked chickpeas (drained weight)
1 large bunch of spinach roughly chopped
1 bay leaf
500ml chicken stock
500g potatoes, peeled and cut into 1 inch dice (preferably use a boiling potato)
2 tablespoons olive oil

Method

1.  Heat the oil in a large saucepan/stew pot.  Fry the onion and chorizo together until the fat starts running from the chorizo (it will be red-ish).
2. Add the garlic and chillies.  Fry for two or three more minutes.
3. Add the stock, chickpeas, potato, spinach and bay leaf.  Bring to the boil and simmer for at least 20 minutes or until the the potato is cooked and at least half of the liquid has evaporated.  The dish should look stew-like not soupy.
4. Season with salt and pepper.
5. Serve in deep soup plates.

This goes well over couscous or with good bread for dunking.  It is even better when left to be eaten on the second day.

And the verdict?  DH declared it "Scrummy", went back for seconds, and then demanded that I make it again soon.  Even the dreaded spinach got the thumbs up.

- Pam