Friday, July 24, 2020

Freezing Plans and Bread

Olive oil is a food I love. In order to have a good supply, I plan to buy it and freeze it in the bottle. I will not buy large economical bottles. I will buy smaller sizes. That way, it will stay fresh and not become rancid even when it comes out of the freezer. I don't use a lot at a time or every day. But, when I want it, I want it and do not want to have to find it or purchase it.

I am planning for the covid19 to become worse and for more food shortages. I am not trying to be an alarmist, but a realist.

Right now, I have two packages of tortillas, something we rarely eat. They were cheap.  By freezing them between waxed paper, I can get out a few at a time. 

Lots of "I" sentences in this post! But, these are my thoughts and plans.

Thursday night, I thawed chicken thighs, cooked zucchini in olive oil and garlic, and heated left-over carrots, potatoes, and Bell pepper. Tommy is supremely happy. He sliced the zucchini for me. I love to have leftovers. I had a can of tuna/celery with lettuce and tomato. Oh, and some carrots.

The celery is flash freezing on a broiler pan and Bell pepper is on a paper plate in the freezer. Soon, i will dump them into bags for the freezer. The stumps of the celery heads are in a plate with a bit of water. 

The celery and peppers stayed in the freezer over night Thursday, longer than they should. But, they are in freezer bags. I have enough. There is also some chopped in the refrigerator for another tuna salad next week. 

We have made two trips to the bread store and found no bread like I like and can eat. So, the third trip we made was in desperation. Having to drive 10 miles, i think, makes bread expensive when you find none. Today, I went in even though I could see the shelves where the bread I want is displayed. I was going to get Wonder Bread (yuck). However, I saw the woman who works there sitting in the office. 

I asked her if kids being home, or lower bread production, or hoarding caused the bread shelves to always be bare. She said the breadmen were not bringing it back from the stores. I asked specifically when my brand might be there. She said to wait a second because she thought she had some. I asked for eight loaves. She said she had five, so I took those--did not grumble and was grateful! Four loaves are in the freezer. 

Four loaves are in the two 2-gallon bags that I stored in the freezer after I used the bread stored in them. So, this is not intended to be a stocking up long term deal. I just hate going that many miles for one loaf or two loaves of bread. When I had a freezer, I would buy $7 worth to get the extra bread that came with that purchase. 

Tonight, i am going to make a squash casserole. Tommy will chop the squash after I wash it. I have not had it in several years. There is more than enough, so I will freeze some squash, too. 

The store still had Suddenly Salad for $1, so I purchased another 12 boxes. Remember, this will be eaten instead of bread and only one box a month. We are set for 24 months. 

I was going to buy olive oil, but all the bottles were plastic. I want glass bottles. 

Tonight, dinner for Tommy is another chicken thigh, squash casserole, and leftover zucchini, maybe a salad of cucumber and tomato. I will not have meat, i suppose. 

11 comments:

  1. Glad you found your bread. I have noticed even on the shelves at the regular grocery store some of the breads are picked over.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anne,
      Thanks. Lots of things in the store are sparse.

      Delete
  2. I am embarrassingly childish about the bread I like. Wonder white bread or Bunny white bread,and I don't eat the crust. This week I had a balogna (baloney) sandwich with a little Miracle Whip and slices of delicious red ripe tomato. It tasted just like summertime in the 1960's to me. Not a healthy meal, but it tasted good. I will probably have another sandwich like that tomorrow, but then I will have to freeze the rest of the baloney, because I don't like to eat it that often. I wish that they made smaller loaves of bread, I never make it all of the way through a whole loaf before it gets moldy and there is no room for bread in our freezer. My husband is not a fan of white bread.

    I made pizzas with flour tortillas last week. I crisped up the tortillas in the skillet and then took them out of the skillet, put them on a baking pan and put some store bought pizza sauce, shredded cheese, and some pepperoni on them and put them in the oven until the cheese melted and the pepperoni looked a cooked. They turned out to be pretty tasty and very easy to make and a good use of flour tortillas before they get stale.My husband and I both liked them. I read somewhere that flour tortillas can be cut into strips and used to make noodles. I haven't tried that yet, but it seems like it would work.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. yes they can be used as noodles, you can also fry/bake them in strips

      Delete
    2. Chef,
      Pizza seems like the best alternate option so far...lol. I will keep all these other uses in mind. Thanks.

      Delete
  3. We don't eat much bread, I usually either freeze it or vacuum seal it. When the kids were home I had a 15 cu freezer for bread products. Don't freeze tortillas as we didn't like the texture after it was frozen.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Chesf,
      Thanks for the heads up on frozen tortillas. I will freeze a couple and see how we like them for pizza. Wow, a whole freezer almost the size of mine just for bread. Kids can put it away.

      Delete
  4. I feel the same was as you about Wonder bread. Yuck. If you can't find your favorite bread in future, check Aldi. I'm actually loving their bread (and I'm extremely picky about food).

    We love tortillas. I have to buy some every week.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ms Goose,
      It is too hard to shop in Aldi's for me. I paid $0.99 for the bread I like and that does not bother my allergies. That is a lot of tortillas.

      Delete
  5. zingermans.com in Michigan is crackers for fabulous olive oils. Go check them out, at least to get the names of scrumptious ones - many from Spain and France I recall.

    ReplyDelete

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