Friday, January 31, 2014

Storming the Freezer

Last night a cyclone crossed the coast. For the first part of the week, it looked like it was coming pretty much straight at Townsville. I have lived here for nearly 7 years, and while I'm not a local nor a meteorologist, I have seen several cyclones heading straight for Townsville that end up going elsewhere when push comes to shove. So we got prepared by cleaning up the back yard but didn't get too worked up. Good thing, too, because it ended up heading 200kms south of us, and we saw less than 40mm of rain at our house.

One of the things we figured out during Cyclone Yasi, which is rarely given out in official advice, is to eat anything precious from the freezer, so that if the power goes out for a few days you don't have to throw it away. So this week we had a few freezer based dinners. We still have rather a lot in there, but now there is plenty of space for a new batch of ice cream...

We tried some Fry's vegan burgers, which were good but not worth full price. They were delicious with some cherry tomatoes, cooked down with olive oil and garlic.


Here we have tofu (from the freezer) marinated with teriyaki and chilli sauce, spring rolls (from the freezer), BBQ pineapple, and fried rice with capsicum (from the freezer) and eggplant, green beans, cherry tomatoes, sweet potato shoots and baby kale (all from the garden).


When our mulberry tree gets ripe fruit on it, we pick them and stick them in a container in the freezer, till we have enough for something yummy. This container spent an overnight with some oats to become a yummy breakfast.

And for lunch I brought a chickpea naan roll to work, inspired by Joey's link to Dan Lepard's recipe - but with a slightly different filling.

None of this made a massive dent in the freezer stash - we still have about 15 naan rolls, a few boxes of Fry's, a bag of frozen capsicum, 6 blocks of tofu, and other random things. But if any more cyclones form in the coming months, at least we've made a start!

9 comments:

Lisa said...

I'm interested in how you freeze your vegetables. Do you blanch first or some other way?

Cadry's Kitchen said...

Oh, it does my heart good to see those mulberries! Mulberry season is over in such a flash here, but it's one of the sweetest parts of summer picking them off the tree while on a bike ride... I always eat them so quickly from hand to mouth, I'd never thought about being able to freeze them.

I'm glad that you missed the storm and didn't incur any damages!

Theresa said...

@Lisa - we just chop up things like capsicum and broccoli and freeze them without blanching. Then we use straight out of the freezer - they're a bit mushier than fresh, but not much different.

Kari said...

It looks like you got some great meals out of the cyclone possibility! We're not that fond of the Fry's burgers either, but do like the schnitzels they make - have you tried them? Before inheriting my parents old freezer it wouldn't have taken us long to work through our frozen food, but now we have the extra space, there is quite a lot :D

Hannah said...

Fresh mulberries! I'd flirt with a cyclone for that (not really).

Susan said...

Glad you are safe and sound!
Your freezer sounds like a pretty yummy place.

Joey said...

Good news the cyclone didn't hit you guys. Freezer balancing is always tricky - you don't want it empty, but not too full to get annoyed if it all goes south (which has happened to me more than once). If my freezer yielded the same treasures are yours, I'd be in there more often!

Kumudha said...

Delicious vegan fare! Thank you for inspiring people to eat plant-based food...

Millie said...

seems like we are all trying to empty out the freezer. I have been eating out of my freezer for about a month now. I have to clean it out so I can refill it again as I make new recipes for my blog. Good stuff Theresa, keep on posting all these great recipes...I love them.

http://nuestracena-vegancuisine.blogspot.com