North Shore Freegan

Freezer!

2009-02-08T20:16:00.002-06:00

We bought a chest freezer today!!!

I think this will help us drop our food budget even more, I bet I could even get it to $20 a month! Today I freely loaded up; the produce was amazingly fresh!

- broccoli
- organic cauliflower
- organic bell peppers
- organic potatoes
- apples (even a fresh 3lb bag of granny smiths)
- baby carrots
- pre-diced onions
- salad
- tomatoes
- a $25 wheel of brie, sell by 2/14!
- fresh mozzarella
- sourdough rolls (I can't resist)
- lemon zest cheese
- pre-packaged honeydew tubs
- blueberries
- pre-packaged grape tubs
- a whole honeydew
- roast beef
- 2 ham sandwiches

I spent most of the day processing: chopping and steaming and freezing

Deep Freeze

2009-02-03T20:29:00.001-06:00

Brrr! Still cold! Took the opportunity to get a ridiculous amount of meat while negative 10 below. I also couldn't resist a lot of frozen bananas.

Non-food stores; RUG!

2009-01-19T13:04:00.003-06:00

After months of grocery only, I decided to hit some non-grocery (the trouble with non-grocery is it's hard to find a home for all the crap--I mean treasure!!)

I got a beautiful 5 x 8 jute rug and a commemorative wooden nutcracker from a furniture/design store.
2 toys in the box: a human anatomy figure with removable parts, and one of those paint-your-own object kits from a toy store.
4 reams of stationary from a realtor.

I've always wanted a nutcracker! And a rug!

4:45am is not a good time!

2009-01-18T06:23:00.002-06:00

I like Sunday mornings because sometimes they have put out all the bread that expires that day.

LOTS of great breads today, some misc pears and blueberries, half a bar of chocolate (where did the other half go?), 4 tubs of hummus, and I took a chance on 3 tubs of deli spinach dip that had obviously frozen.

It's been 24 below--where's the meat (since it's the only time of year I feel pretty safe about getting it) and milk?? :P

I usually go around 5:30 am so today I was surprised by the guy who empties the store trash cans in the front and picks up any stray litter. Luckily I was in the dumpster at the time and he dumped his bags around me and drove off. He obviously saw my car and I wondered if he took down my license plate or called some security number, but chances are he didn't care and thought I was a zealous store manager. There are occaisionally cars parked behind the strip mall at odd hours anyway.

I have so much bread it won't fit in our freezer. If we're up for another cold spell maybe I'll put it in a rubber maid bin and store it outside.

Lots of crackers

2009-01-18T06:16:00.003-06:00

I got 3 enormous cases of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese....CRACKERS (too bad they weren't mac and cheese!). I can see where these would NOT be a popular item!! They taste like Cheez-its and are very good! They have no expiration date stamped on them -- can I donate these to the food pantry?

I also got about 10 boxes of basmati rice mix (fancy rice a roni),
10 bags of various pretzels
10 bags of Chips Ahoy white fudge
4 tubs of peppercorn parmesan Rondele soft cheese.

See previous post on what to do with crackers!

Internet = great for Divers

2009-01-18T06:14:00.002-06:00

I just looked up:

- can we cook Turban squash? (Yes you can--not sure if it will taste good! We tried cooking jack-o-lantern pumpkin which did not taste good at all--woody and dry and blah)
- can you freeze spinach dip? (the sour cream gets funky so alas, not really. There were 10 dozen cases of it today, all frozen because it has been way, way below zero for a week now. Maybe that's why it was all in the dumpster)
- can you freeze watermelon and cantaloupe and pineapple? (yes, but cover in their own juices and eat the melons slightly frozen still).
- what recipes use up cheeze crackers? (meatloaf, lentil loaf, coating for baked chicken, quiche crust...)

Happy New Year!

2009-01-01T09:51:00.000-06:00

Very cold!

-7 party trays of pre-washed, pre-cut veggies, cheese, and turkey cocktail sausages. We repacked and froze these.
-Ore Ida tater tots
-Sweet Potato Pie
-Grapes
-Yogurt/granola/apple dipper snack thing
-Case of gorgeous orange bell peppers--not sure what to do with these because they are frozen and get soggy when they thaw.

There was lots of frozen salad and about 50 dozen roses, but they were all frozen so I left them. Otherwise, hubby would have had a nice New Year's Day surprise!!!

We now officially have no room in our compartment freezer!

Post-Christmas "Finds"

2008-12-30T16:40:00.000-06:00

We've had guests so I haven't been able to get out (I fed them all store-bought items; didn't want to deal with the squeamishness factor).

I got 20 pounds of oranges, a bunch of bananas, a deli container of mac n cheese, 2 loaves of premium bakery bread, and...

2 enormous boxes of Hallmark Christmas cards! No envelopes, but they are gorgeous--some were labelled as $4,99 each.

Most of them were the ones that you have to put a gift card or cash/check inside; I wonder if sales of these were fewer due to the economy?

The boxes were labelled "Valentine Hallmark Card display". Out with the old, in with the new!

Not 100% sure what to do with the cards; I will keep about a foot of them but either donate or try to garage sale sell the rest. Do you think people would buy cards without envelopes?

2008-12-25T08:34:00.000-06:00

Merry Christmas!

Went looking this morning hoping to find something interesting--not much out there. Last year in winter I found an enormous white poinsetta with the price tag of $80 on it.

Today I brought home maple brown sugar breakfast sausage, bagels, and texas toast. They went very well with the eggs and tillamook I got last week!

14 dozen organic eggs

2008-12-23T14:20:00.001-06:00

The eggs were 3 days past their sell by, not use by, date!