Tis the season for freezin'

I grew up in a house where EVERYTHING got frozen, nothing ever went bad. And the fact that we grew a lot of produce meant our freezer always had a hearty amount of sliced peaches, frozen lemon juice, grape leaves, okra, bell peppers, onions and when we had bulk there was the obvious frozen bread, meat and bananas.  This awesome tradition was not lost on me and as I cleaned out my fridge I saw food on the brink of spoiling and I have it a new lease on life. Our freezer already has the frozen meat, bread and bananas which is standard but we added 

Some less than stellar Brussels sprouts 

Meh okra

Half a head of cabbage 

And some sad kale

All I did was wash, dry, and slice all these gems up and bag em up tight in freezer bags, now I've got veggies on hand for soup or sauces.  Almost anything can be frozen, there should never be food going to waste, you just have to catch it in time.

Like Christmas twice a month

I realized something today... I LOVE GROCERY SHOPPING!

 Okay I've always known that but I realized something else. I love grocery shopping because I love cleaning out my fridge. I love reorganizing it and looking at my "food collection". I don't know why but it brings so much joy to my life, you would think I grew up with an empty fridge or something. 

Something so magical about it all

And what better decor is there than food? 

This fridge cleaning leads me to my next post: shit that's about to go bad in your fridge 

Share shelf

Stumbled across this awesome new movement and I am so in love with the simplicity of this idea. People leave their leftovers on shelves that have been setup on poles so that homeless people don't have to go through trash to find food.

"WHAT IS A SHARE SHELF?

A Share Shelf is a little square shelf attached to parking signs on streets with heavy foot traffic, lots of restaurants and a high volume of homelessness. People can place any leftovers they might have from eating at a nearby restaurant on them.

After the food is left behind, hopefully a hungry person who might otherwise go through the trash will take the leftovers and enjoy them so they do not go to waste. Kind of like “take a penny leave a penny”, but with food.

With a tiny bit of help from Share Shelf– people who have too much can share their excess, and others might have the opportunity to get what is left a little easier."

More info at:

shareshelfla.tumblr.com

shareshelfsf.tumblr.com

and check out 

#shareshelfla & #shareshelfsf

Restaurant review: Indo Cafe

Never thought to try Indonesian food for some reason but I had a craving for some lumpia and no time or energy to make any so yelp pointed me to the Indo Cafe close to my place, in old sac. Granted their lumpia (Lumpia Jakarta)

was more of a spring roll it was amazing and so was their sausage roll

and their lemongrass chicken which I am recreating as it was to die for!

The staff was really friendly, the food all totaled to $15 and the outdoor seating was perfect for this fall weather. Loved it.

Halloween for two

I've never been a very social person, I like my close friends and I love intimate celebrations so when given the choice to go out or stay in on Halloween I have chosen stay in 87% of the time. I like the trick or treaters and pizza and a movie, that's my party. So with just me and Dan pulled a cost-effective semi-homemade move. We usually make our dough and do the whole pizza from scratch with so many toppings the damn thing doesn't hold. This time I went to Papa Murphy's at 10:30 before their Halloween rush and ordered a family size pizza with no cheese (we know, it's sad), extra sauce, black olives, artichoke hearts and sun dried tomatoes all for $13 which is much less than ingredients would've costed then I went home and put our kitchen fridge on it which included spinach, chicken, grilled onions, jalapeños, diced tomatoes, grilled eggplant, garlic and anything else within reach. Baked that bad boy along with some BBQ chicken and okra, put some veggies on a platter and cookies on a plate and I had a very happy husband at the end of the day.

I love okra cooked any and every way. I cut the tops and the tips off, put them in a bowl and coated them with olive oil, salt, garlic powder, chili powder and crushed red pepper then put them in the oven on 400 until they were to my liking. Taste amazing dipped in Dijon mustard.