I keep lamenting the state of my freezer. I know, deep down in my heart, that it will never be “tidy” – not with me as its keeper. There are things in there that I wouldn’t even recognize had I not labelled it myself.

It’s time to do something about it.

This month, I’m doing a Spring Clean challenge. It starts with a little inventory… me, the crazy freezer archaeologist, digging through the remnants of a forgotten great idea. It ends each week with a tally of the items I was able to happily use up.

There may also be a little bit of waste-shaming thrown in for good measure. A use-it-up challenge is nothing without an accompanying food waste challenge. (You mean I can’t just empty the contents of my freezer into the trash and claim victory!?)

Wanna join in? Just leave a comment on the Stephfood Facebook page! Every week, I’ll post an update of my progress, and I’d love it if you would too!

This month, cleaning will ensue!

Delicious, delicious cleaning!

SPRING CLEANUP: WEEK ONE UPDATE

This was pretty easy, as I had LOTS to choose from. Here’s what I managed to use up.

• a bag of shredded purple cabbage (used in soup)
• a partial bag of frozen corn (used in soup)
• 1 container of vegetable broth (used in soup)
• 2 bags of cooked sweet potato (used in tagine)
• 2 cups of cooked chick peas (used in tagine)
• 5 halved apricots (used in tagine)
• roasted eggplants (used in babaghanoush)

I’m pretty happy with my progress so far. As you can see, things like soups and stews offer a great way to use stuff up. They’re pretty forgiving.

My favourite on the list – by far – is the babaghanoush. I wasn’t sure how it was going to turn out; my eggplant was roasted and frozen in 2010 (SHAME!). When it was thawing, I wasn’t even sure it would be worth trying to use in a dish. Luckily, it was in great shape and had no signs of freezer burn and tasted fine.

Until next week…