Those of you with chest freezers who raise their own food know how it can get out of hand. We have 3 big freezers but only one of them is a deep chest freezer. It can hold lots of fruit and vegetables. So many that you lose track of what's in there.
I can tell you what was in ours. Stuff from 2007 through 2016. The freezer needed defrosting. Our meat freezers were low on meat so it was a good time to move veggies and fruit to those while we cleaned the veggie/fruit one out. I discovered all kinds of pig food in there :) Mostly fruit and squashes that were very old. The pigs didn't care one bit how old it was. I made a pumpkin soup from 2010 pumpkin, which turned out pretty yummy. We made 22 quarts of wineberry juice and strawberry juices.
I discovered we had at least 8 bags of peas; both shelled peas and snow peas, which we didn't know we had. Peas are some of our favorites.
I told you we were low on meat. Well, we're so low I decided to cook up some organs. We had pork kidneys in the freezer, because we think we should try to use the whole animal if we're going to raise them. Well, I can't say I recommend pork kidneys. I opened the bag and smelled the overwhelming odor of pee. I knew I was going to cook kidneys but for some reason I didn't expect them to smell like urine. I don't know why I was so dense. Here's what they look like before cooking. They're shaped just like a kidney bean, only larger. Inside was some white stuff I was told to remove, so I did.
I read that if you soaked them for an hour in milk with lemon juice or vinegar it would remove the urine smell/taste, so I did that. I should've known right then that this was a bad idea. I thought if I cooked them in enough butter, garlic and capers they couldn't be too bad. Putting them on a sandwich made from bread made from our own whole wheat (which we have SOOO much of in our freezer) would make it that much more palatable. Even add a little mustard. How could you go wrong, right?
We couldn't eat it. It still tasted and smelled like pee. So we ate bread with mustard, capers, garlic and butter. The dogs will get the kidneys. Baxter sampled it and didn't seem to mind the urine smell and taste.
The peas were good though.
I can tell you what was in ours. Stuff from 2007 through 2016. The freezer needed defrosting. Our meat freezers were low on meat so it was a good time to move veggies and fruit to those while we cleaned the veggie/fruit one out. I discovered all kinds of pig food in there :) Mostly fruit and squashes that were very old. The pigs didn't care one bit how old it was. I made a pumpkin soup from 2010 pumpkin, which turned out pretty yummy. We made 22 quarts of wineberry juice and strawberry juices.
I told you we were low on meat. Well, we're so low I decided to cook up some organs. We had pork kidneys in the freezer, because we think we should try to use the whole animal if we're going to raise them. Well, I can't say I recommend pork kidneys. I opened the bag and smelled the overwhelming odor of pee. I knew I was going to cook kidneys but for some reason I didn't expect them to smell like urine. I don't know why I was so dense. Here's what they look like before cooking. They're shaped just like a kidney bean, only larger. Inside was some white stuff I was told to remove, so I did.
Karen, you are a brave soul. Glad Baxter enjoyed it...
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