My chest freezer has been sufficiently spent down and happily awaiting the incoming Springdell bounty tomorrow. I wanted to mention the way that I track what is in my chest freezer (to avoid mystery items). I use this Freezer Contents List available as a free printable on the Mom’s Budget website. If you don’t currently have a way to track your freezer items, I’d definitely suggest this as an option! I personally use one list to track meats and one to track other items, it has saved many a foil-wrapped brick from freezer burned disaster. (I apologize for the shadow in the photo, my freezer closet is not well-lit.)
Today, I thought I’d take a moment to feature some of the other items in my pantry. Since we are off-season, I won’t be sharing the recipes yet, but rather will wait until the season rolls around again. This post will be more like a teaser, a trip down memory lane, and perhaps to entice you to consider preserving if you don’t already!
I have a couple of jars remaining of those delicious Springdell cranberries from the end of the Summer 2014 CSA and the beginning of the Winter 2014-15 CSA. Those of you on Facebook that belonged to both of these CSAs may recall that we were all getting creative with our uses for these little guys, as we had quite the influx! Now that the season has passed, it’s been nice to still have some of these on hand to enjoy, especially with the Springdell Chicken Harvest coming up next week! Here you see we’ve enjoyed it with a pot pie.
I dipped into my last jar of pickles, so sweet and delicious on this turkey sandwich. This is a recipe I got from Sarah a few year’s back and have been making ever since. We’ll definitely share it on here when the cucumbers come in.
For dessert, this Apple Pie in a Jar (made with last season’s apples) came in handy and was so tasty with some freshly whipped cream and crumbled graham crackers.
You can never have enough applesauce! Here is my last unsweetened jar being used in a very traditional way, as an accompaniment for seared Springdell pork chops.
The rest of the jar went into my banana muffins from Sunday’s Mother’s Day dinner. The ingredients were simply 2 cups of whole wheat flour, 1 tsp baking soda, 1/4 tsp baking powder, 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce, 3/4 cups honey, 2 beaten eggs, and 3 overripe bananas. Let me once again point out these awesome reusable silicone muffin cups!
We hope that you’ve enjoyed the peek into our pantries and freezers these past 2 weeks. We are looking forward to visiting the Springdell farm stand for some more delicious goodies tomorrow!