Operations Underway

Funny how relative the temperature is... two days ago it was -15 degrees. Today was a warm and toasty 15 degrees. And it should be 35 degrees by Saturday. Practically flip-flop weather.

As I popped into Trader Joe's for a few items, the staff and shoppers were visibly happy. We're all just glad to be outside today, our legs needed stretching, and our faces needed the sun. Man, the cold crisp air felt good in my lungs.

Speaking of Trader Joe's, Operation Freezer Burn is going swimmingly. I'm shocked at how many meals worth of food we have around here. It may not be my favorite foods, but it's been easier than I thought to hunker down and focus on using it up. 

Three bags of half empty chicken nuggets. Why? WHY?

We still have a deep freeze worth of duck, quail and dear steaks from Mike's various hunting trips. That's not easy to burn through. Meat isn't my favorite thing and I wimp out when it comes to using it up. However, Mike fixed this pheasant recipe on Tuesday night and I can see us revisiting that in a couple of weeks. And deer stroganoff is on tap for next week.

We've used up extra tomato cans with a big pot of chili and I had some random frozen chicken breasts to throw into a chicken pot pie. We used up odds and ends pasta with a can of sauce and some veggies.  I've got a box of red beans and rice mix (and a box of corn bread and turkey sausages in the freezer) on tap for Saturday night dinner. That's a complete meal I had in the cupboards. Just. sitting. there.

Mike rightly points out that I shouldn't be trying to clean out the freezer entirely. We'd be eating deer steaks for a fortnight (like how I used the word fortnight?).  And my taste buds would revolt. They would revolt for a fortnight. They would fortnightly revolt.

But I feel confident I can handle this for another week. After that, we can bring this operation to a close. I've primarily supplemented milk, yogurt, fruit and fresh veggies this past week and will do so for next week. Any other incidentals have only been to help complete the meals we had all the main elements for already.

The cleansing of our cabinets has gotten the year off to a good start. As a bonus, our grocery budget will definitely be lighter this month. This has given me a good boost of energy to get cooking again once we've wrapped this up. Food photography looks even more scrumptious when you've been staring at a shelf of frozen deer meat for the last week.

My quiet time

The kids were excited to be reunited with friends at school today and I even got a bit of quiet time during preschool. After bagging up a bunch of Goodwill items, I sat down to a cup of tea, a few cookies, and the latest Boden catalog (or is it catalogue?). 

Today felt good. 

Today felt productive.