No post yesterday.  I really have a hard time getting anything done when the kids are here.  After two snow days last week, Tuesday & Wednesday were snow days this week and then yesterday they had a planned half day.  Fingers crossed that next week’s Nor’Easter doesn’t materialize so we can all get back on track!

Some background on the freezer challenge:

• I kicked it off in November and updated the status in January.
• The goal was not to stop shopping, but to use up things that had been in the freezer for a while.  I’m allowed to make new purchases and buy things to complement what I’m using up.

Items on original meat list left after January update:

• 6 packages (3-4 per pk) of chicken thighs with bones & skin
• 1 5.5-lb package of chicken thighs with bones & skin (1 meal for us)
• 8 5 packages (2-3 per pk) of boneless, skinless chicken thighs
• 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 9 packages (4-5 per pk) of thin-sliced chicken breasts
• 3 lbs chicken wings (These are probably waiting for summer smoking.)
• 3 1 3-lb chuck roasts (We need two for a meal so I’m hoping this goes on sale one more time before summer so I can grab one more to use this up.)
• 4 salmon fillets
• 4 lbs of tilapia fillets
• 5 lbs 1 lb of ground turkey (We always use 2 lbs so I’ll purchase another 3 lb pack from BJ’s to use this up.  Then everything will be fresh.)

New meat that has appeared since January:

• 5 salmon fillets (I purchased a new bulk bag because there wasn’t enough for us in the old one.  But, I plan to use these this weekend so the salmon will stay freshly turned over.
• 4 lbs pork loin chunks cut for stew
• 1 pork tenderloin
• 1 bag of beef bones for stock
• 1 package of chicken nuggets

As you can see the picture on the left is pretty organized, but the freezer on the right is where the remaining trouble is!

Obviously we still have a bunch of chicken to eat up.  I’ll supplement this with other proteins.

Ingredients left after the January update:

• Partial BJ’s bag of sliced almonds
• Partial BJ’s bag of walnuts (I have used some of these, but there’s still about half a bag left.)
• 7 1-cup packages of blueberries (these are ones we picked and I froze in vacuum bags)
• 9 basil-in-chicken-broth cubes
• 12 bags of egg whites, mix of 4-ct and 8-ct
• 3 8-oz blocks of cream cheese

Clearly I used next to nothing in this category, probably because we were sick for most of February.  A lot of these will be used for desserts which don’t make the top of the list when you’re sick.

Miscellaneous items left after the January update:

• ½ box of popsicles (these are waiting for summer)
• 13 7 loaves of banana bread
• 18 17 servings of butternut squash ravioli (I might be off on this count as I didn’t remove everything from the freezer, but its a lot.  These will be lunches for me.) I did eat a few, but I obviously didn’t count them all because there are still this many left!
• 2 loaves of gingerbread

I did slightly better here, but most all of these need to go before summer as they won’t get eaten then.  Obviously the popsicles can wait.  And, a few of the butternut squash ravioli would be fine.  But nothing here will age really well.

I’ll do a final update in June before we switch to the summer diet.  I better be done with all the meat (except maybe the wings) and all of the miscellaneous (with the few exceptions mentioned) by then!

Next week I’ll update the pantry situation, although nothing there is nearly as critical as the freezer was.