Cooking Fresh Food - breaking the jar/can/bottle habit...

**briggsy's girl** · February 15th, 2009, 06:30 PM

we've been doing really well with this. had HEAPS of fresh home made stuff frozen in meals in the freezer (from spag sauces down to vegie soups with fresh stock) - then the bloody fires hit and we lost everything from the power being out so long. we've got fresh veg coming in daily, so we're slowly going to build it back up, but to get stuff in the freezer in a hurry, we'll have to resort back to jars off and on for a while

DH has been fantastic at working with me to get to this point though. we were talking about making spag bol last week before going away, and that we needed jars to make it - and neither of us could remember if we even HAD jars in the cupboard....

we've been making a very tasty base sauce with tomatos (fresh), onion, bit of garlic (minimal as i've been suffering reflux with the ms), zucchini (they're going nuts at the moment) and multicolored capsicum. to make it go further we just add more tomato - makes a fantastic chunky sauce on it's own over pasta (or with steak yummmm!) or can be blended down to make a smooth sauce for using in a spag bol with extra added veg. IF we dont' have quite enough of this to go through the meat we're cooking up (we usually cook a kilo of mince at a time) we will add a jar of plain spag sauce just to make sure it's not dry - but we've only done that once lately...

have started coming up with our own curries as well - can't get them to come out the same twice in a row, but always delish!

spent yesterday blanching and freezing veg from our garden too...

**Astrid** · February 15th, 2009, 07:37 PM

Been doing so much better starting with Christmas, having a productive veggie garden helps so much. Basically, it is there so we use it the best we can, which sometimes is not easy as the garden is only new and there is a bit of mismatch with what comes through. Made a nice pea and ham soup with the leftover ham leg from Christmas that we froze down for later use.

Made a pav for Australia day, so we decided to make a nice mayo with the egg yolks. Both were a hit with everyone. Making more effort to make biscuits and cakes for the family (even though I am trying not to eat food like that myself). Sometimes I am thwarted by my pantry not having an ingredient, but that is slowly changing. Making my own rissoles more often now, but I do admit for grabbing chicken jumbos from Lenards to keep in the freezer, will need to experiment with my own version.

Just need to get the sausage parts for the Kitchenaid and we will have a go a our own sausages

BG - what a pain losing all that food in the freezer

**briggsy's girl** · February 15th, 2009, 07:50 PM

BG - what a pain losing all that food in the freezer

yeah something of a PITA seeing we bought over $500 worth of meat just before Christmas, about $200 of veg from the markets same day, spent the next two days cooking and completely filled the freezer with meals

the big dog is loving it now though - he is getting all the meals. it was all frozen when we got home, but pwer had been out on 40degree+ days so it's just not worth the risk...

**christy** · February 15th, 2009, 07:50 PM

ohhhh Astrid!! That's exciting about home-made sausages!!!!

I was thinking (as DH made the 5 minute chocolate cake for visitors..) about how we have few packaged things except for lunches for M at school. I have yet to get enough homemade things for M for lunch. One day a week she takes hummous (homemade) and carrot sticks and rice cakes with her sandwich. And another day is vege muffins with her sandwich, but still she needs more snacks and stuff.... being dairy free is difficult for snacks and trying to not use package ingredients.

**Astrid** · February 15th, 2009, 08:07 PM

I find that homemade biscuits are eaten so quickly. I think next time I might need to bake up a couple batches (and hide one) so there is something for the end of the week.

DH had everyone jealous at work one day as he rocked up with silverside, parsley sauce and veg for lunch. Sauce was homemade of course with our own parsely

**christy** · February 16th, 2009, 02:40 PM

Astrid I actually make a double batch and freeze half the dough for my biscuits for later! That way I don't have to make them twice. I have choc chip cookie dough in the freezer as well as the biscuit part of jam drops for later....