Around the Kitchen Table: What's in your Freezer? Plus 4-Book #Giveaway

VICKI DELANY: Here in winter climates, we’re slowly coming to the end of the cold season, but it will be several months more before lovely fresh local produce is in the fields and the stores. Time to drag out the last of the canned foods and the frozen meals we put up last fall.

I do a small amount of freezing and canning. I usually make some sort of tomato chutney or chilli sauce, some pickles.  I make soups, mostly tomato or butternut squash and have a recipe for pasta sauce with peppers and eggplant and tomatoes that’s a real standby.  I freeze whole tomatoes and they’re great for tossing into a soup or pasta sauce, although when unfrozen the texture is dreadful. Berries are good to put in the freezer and enjoy with your cereal in the cold winter months.

Here’s my recipe for the eggplant pasta sauce I make a lot of when tomatoes are in season and enjoy all year.

Mystery Lovers' Kitchen: Eggplant Pasta Sauce from Vicki Delany #CanadianThanksgiving

Here it is, all these months later, ready to be made into a warming winter dinner.

What about you? Do you make use of your freezer to see you though winter? Or do you rely on your local supermarket? Do you live in a climate that doesn’t have the long winter months?

 

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 LESLIE KARST: A couple years ago, Robin and I bought half of a heritage Duroc hog from a local farm and had it parted out and packaged to our specifications. But before we did so, we had to buy a chest freezer in which to store all the meat. (The pork was amazingly delicious, by the way. I still have the two hocks, which I swear I’ll finally cook this year.) 

The pig only took up about half the freezer, and I didn’t believe I’d ever fill it up completely, but it didn’t take too long before I had. Homemade turkey and chicken stock takes up a fair amount of room, not to mention the breast from last Thanksgiving’s free turkey (I made the legs, thighs, and wings into confit, which is long gone). But since I’m too lazy to do “real” canning, it’s also packed with frozen apples and pears, chutney and jam, and blanched green beans (not to mention blocks of butter and yes, Marie Callender’s pot pies from Costco.)

 frozen turkey stock

Time to make a pot of soup! (Here’s a fool-proof recipe for homemade meat stock that I learned in culinary arts school.) 

 

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MAYA CORRIGAN: Basil plants thrive in our garden, so every summer we make several batches of basil pesto to freeze in small containers. They don't take up as much room as Leslie's pig, but there are more of them than any other single item in the freezer. 

I just counted 19 of those pesto containers in the freezer drawer of our fridge, and that's three months after we made the last batch. Here's the recipe for freezer pesto that we've used for decades.

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LESLIE BUDEWITZ: Whoa, Maya! Serious pesto envy here. Basil's a container plant for me, so I usually manage just a few pints for the freezer, but we do love snipping a few leaves for Caprese salads, tomato pie, and other savory treats in season. We had a long, warm fall, and while the basil came inside as protection against chilly nights, it actually thrived and even continued to grow well into December, which is a first. 

Like Vicki, I love freezing whole tomatoes. We also grow strawberries and get quite a few bags of sliced berries, 2 cups to a bag, for a burst of summer flavor mid winter. I love small, tender zucchini, but I've been known to let one or two grow a little larger, then grate and freeze it, again in 2 cup portions, for winter cooking. These classic Zucchini Muffins freeze beautifully -- I had one this morning with my cappuccino! (And yes, you can freeze, thaw, and bake with the grated zucchini and freeze the muffins again.) And this Zucchini Butter Pasta is seriously easy and yummy. 

I think I just figured out dinner, even if the deck where this photo was taken is now blanketed in snow!

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MADDIE DAY: Yes to freezing summer produce to enjoy all winter! I grow blueberries, and it wouldn't be fall without eight to ten quart bags of frozen berries ready to pop into muffins, pancakes, and cakes when it's cold outside. This Blueberry Pound Cake is smooth and delicious.

I also plant several basil seedlings every year and make pesto when they are in full leaf. I still have a half dozen jars in the downstairs freezer. Turkey and chicken stock after boiling down carcasses? Check. A freezer door full of Girl Scout cookies (mostly Thin Mints)? Check. Add the odd quart container full of stew or soup from a big batch ready to pull out for an emergency dinner, and that's my downstairs freezer. Upstairs has meat and butter and frozen peas and nuts and ice cubes and a miscellany of odd bits.

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PEG COCHRAN:  As a mystery writer, the mention of a chest freezer puts me in mind of something other than frozen food!  We have a refrigerator-sized freezer in the garage and it is packed. Sadly, not with home grown produce since we live in a condo.  My daughter and granddaughter live with us now and we have a lot of chicken nuggets, pizza bites, mozzarella sticks, etc. in there for my granddaughter. But we also have half a turkey hubby bought when he went to the turkey farm for our Thanksgiving turkey. We tend to eat soup and chili leftovers for lunch, but when we don't they go into the freezer for another time, like this copycat Panera broccoli cheese soup. I also have a ton of over-ripe bananas for making banana bread, muffins, etc. I also buy family packs of chicken breasts and thighs, divide them up and those are in the freezer.  Our kitchen freezer has items we want to grab quickly--pancakes or waffles for breakfast, extra butter and of course ice cream!

 

LUCY BURDETTE: Since we split the year between Connecticut and Key West, I try not to overload either freezer for fear of what would happen in a power outage. Plus, when will I learn that frozen things that don't appeal when we leave town are not going to improve six months later? Right now we have a whole organic turkey because I thought we were hosting Thanksgiving. And we have a duck for Christmas, when it turns out my sister and her hub don't like duck. Those are causing me angst!

CLEO COYLE: I smiled when Lucy mentioned the turkey in her freezer. We have one in there, too, but not for the same reason. Every Thanksgiving, when turkeys are plentiful in the stores and at their lowest prices all year, we buy two turkeys. We roast one for Thanksgiving Day and freeze the other for a tasty turkey dinner in the dead of winter. We invested in a chest freezer (not to hide body parts as Peg joked about, LOL!) but to freeze things like chicken parts and big box store extras. Marc and I will buy the price club’s strip steak pack, for example, make two for dinner tonight and freeze the rest for fajitas and steak salads. I also freeze chicken breasts, so I can just grab one and make my ONE HOUR CHICKEN SOUP when I’m feeling under the weather. This quick-and-easy homemade soup recipe is a great one for cold and flu season. Click the image below for the recipe (with a free PDF) and stay cozy, everyone! ~ Cleo

Click here or the image above for
Cleo's One Hour Chicken Soup recipe.

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KORINA MOSS: Other than the usual suspects (meat, fish, veggies), I like to buy as much corn on the cob as possible in the summer, cut it off the cob, and freeze it to use in the winter months. It's so sweet and delicious. But that only lasts me a few months past the season and now I'm back to using supermarket corn. 

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MOLLY MACRAE: Before we down-sized (years ago) we had a large upright freezer and kept it full of the usual suspects. There isn’t nearly as much room in the little freezer compartment above our refrigerator, but we still seem to keep an amazing amount of stuff in it. Three things we try to never run out of are: fresh ginger cut into useful pieces, tablespoon portions of tomato paste, and zest from oranges, lemons, and limes. 

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LIBBY KLEIN - I have a ridiculous amount of gluten free ravioli from Pappardelle's Pasta. It's a treat that I discovered in Seattle at the Pike Place Market. When I find something I like I really stock up on it. They make very quick dinners for those nights when my writing goes late into the evening because I'm trying to meet a deadline. I also have several packages of Dorot Gardens crushed garlic and ginger cubes. These are my favorite timesaver that I've fallen in love with. Packaged like flavored ice cubes, I always have garlic or ginger at the ready - which is a nice change for me from buying it and eventually throwing it away because I didn't use it fast enough. 

GIVEAWAY!

Comment on our post to win these great mysteries! Include your email address so we may contact the winner.

✨ Giveaway Prize Package ✨

TROUBLE IS BREWING by Vicki Delany 

BULLETPROOF BARISTA by Cleo Coyle

FONDUE OR DIE by Korina Moss

DEEP FRIED DEATH by Maddie Day

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Wednesday, March 5