The Sunday Ritual: The Freezer Clean Out

I've been a little guilty of hoarding as of late...let me explain.  We used to buy most of our meat at the local organic butchers but for some reason that stopped.  I think it was when chicken breast went on sale at our local grocery store and we bought about 6 bulk packages of it and put it in the freezer.  Then the next week something else was on sale, and then something else.  You see where I'm going with this right?  I went by the grocery store today to pick up a few things and lo and behold pork tenderloin was on sale.  Sweet!  I was hoping to make pulled pork on the BBQ so I figured I'd get some of this and give it a go.  I got home and opened up the freezer to put things away and thought to myself "Geezus what the hell happened in here?!?" as a couple of bags of unidentifiable frozen things fell to my feet. 

Meat hoarding is what happened my friends.   It was not pretty.

I had ziploc bags with random pieces of chicken thighs, turkey sausages, flank steak, ground turkey and shrimp.  Not to mention a whole package of chicken breasts and a bunch of pork chops that I just bought last week (and didn't get to cook, but that's another story).  I also had 2 ziploc bags with my assorted burgers that I've made over the last couple of weeks.   Something had to be done.

The challenge:  to use up all the bits and pieces for meals this week.

First up:  The flank steaks.  Easy.  They are currently marinating in the fridge in this recipe so that's what we'll have for dinner.

Next:  Chicken thighs.  There are only 4 of them so I think I"ll marinate those and bring them into work to cook on the BBQ there.  I'm going to marinate them in this recipe. 

Ground Turkey:  The bit that I have left is going to be added to the package that I have opened to FINALLY make those chipotle burgers I was going to make last week.

Shrimp:  There aren't many but I will bring them to work this week and cook them up with some garlic and use them in a salad with some peanut sauce.  I may have to add some chicken and some nuts (cashews would be good!) to this given the low calorie count of shrimp. 

That should help take care of all the random bits and pieces and make bottom half of the freezer an easier place to negotiate.

The top shelf will have to wait till next week.  It's filled with random packages of bread, wraps, bagels and who knows what else.  I can't face cleaning that out right now.  

In other news, I'm having another love affair with chick pea flour.  I used it last week for the crust of my country breakfast pie and I loved it so much I decided to make another pie this week with slightly different ingredients.  Instead of roasted red peppers & aged cheddar, I used sundried tomatoes and parmesan cheese along with some frozen spinach and turkey sausage.  Oh yeah.  And while I was at it, I made a chick pea & coconut flour pizza crust which I'll put in a ziploc bag and stash in the fridge for Tuesday night's post run dinner. 

Breakfast pie assembly

Fresh out of the oven!

 Good thing I did some of this stuff yesterday because I'm freaking tired. 16km run today and, I was up at 4:45 am this morning to go and cheer on my hubby at the Toronto Triathlon Festival.   If that's not love, I don't know what is!


What did you get up to this weekend?    Did you race or take it easy?