After Thanksgiving in the weeks leading up to Christmas, I make a lot of plans to celebrate the season. Parties to host and to attend, big meals to cook – and in the midst of all of this socialite planning, I like to also finish off the year by finishing off the food in my house. Part of this is that we will be going home to Canada for Christmas and would prefer to not have a bunch of rotting food when we come back, and part of it is that it feels good to return home in January, turn over a fresh leaf for cooking and fill my fridge with healthy ingredients for new recipes.
To start, I clean out my fridge, which is a true horror story. I’m not sure if the cheese is blue cheese or just unrecognizable brie. I can’t remember buying this soy mirin, but it’s the third year in a row that I’ve thought “does this go bad?” during my annual purge and shuffle it back further in the middle row of shelves. I hold up a bottle of super spicy szechaun sauce that not even my husband could enjoy and the lemon tamarind salad dressing that tasted like a foot and I give myself permission to get rid of it – because let’s be serious, I’m not going to use it again.
Then I prepare my remaining produce. I’m way more likely to snack on celery and carrots if they are cut into bite-size pieces. I’m more likely to add green pepper to an omelette if it’s already diced – hells, I’m more likely to use my eggs to make an omelette if I have a diced green pepper to add to it.
Next, I take stock of my freezer to figure out which meats I have in there that can be turned into meals. I feel like cleaning out my freezer is a time for self-reflection when throwing out freezer-burnt muffins I made from freezer-burnt bananas that surprise-surprise DK nor I ever ate, and I make a promise to myself – during this challenge, I will eat what I make as it is fresh. I will not add more individually-wrapped “burritos” to the frozen pit to feel like I “used” up a can of black beans. Because I know me, and I know I won’t remember to eat them and my freezer will be too full for ice cream. And so I issue myself an I-love-me-commandment: Thou shall not make any more freezer muffins/burritos/pancakes/baby purées/casseroles under the guise of being economical. The exception to this commandment is soups because dang I love a good hearty home-made soup for lunch, and that is the one thing I will pull out of the freezer and reheat for myself.
Then I go through my pantry and re-familiarize myself with my impulse-Costco purchases. 12 cans of lentils? Check. 100 pounds of pasta? Check. 5000 kg of rice? Check. Canned tomatoes, canned tuna, canned chickpeas, cereal, tortilla chips, sloppy joe seasoning, granola snack bars – the list is practically un-ending.
I make a list of the ingredients I want to use up before I leave for Canada (I love lists!) and I start brainstorming/looking in cookbooks for things I can make with them.
Some ideas I’ve come up with:
- Sloppy Joe Sandwiches
- Hamburgers
- Shrimp and pea frittatta
- Pan-fried tilapia with braised brocollini
- Spaghetti squash, sausage and lentil stir-fry.
- Western omelette
- Chicken taquitos, Chicken tacos, Chicken quesedillas
- Chicken cesar salad
The thing I like about this exercise is before I started it, I was almost afraid of my fridge and ashamed of what I’ve wasted. But in going through it, starting fresh, and making a plan to not be more wasteful as we head into the holiday season, I’m actually looking forward to mealtimes again and trying these new ideas.
What about you? What do you do in the weeks leading up to Christmas? How to you eat-it-up before you feast-it-up?
Rinkydink Mum 