The Great Freezer Caper Is On! 6WS

I know there are new readers to this blog, and I need to explain 6WS.  Short for Six Word Saturday, as you see from the button in my right column, it's just a bit of fun, where my header is six words only, but does reflect where I am at this point. And some commenters even respond in six words, very skilled of them.  If you want to do a 6WS on your own blog, click on the button, and it will take you to the right place to proceed from.

So, as the days lengthen, and since I've signed up for another year's farmshare, it's time to be serious about what's in the freezer.  Already prepped the same day as picked, chopped, sliced, made into sticks and so on, in many summer frenzied afternoons, all the veggies are ready to cook with.

And remembering I also have a cache of prepped vegs in the freezer next door (!) I need to get busy on my own freezer.  I've made a lot of soup recently, and wanted something a bit different.

So here's today's Zucchini Stick/Red Bell Pepper/Onion bake, flavored with curry leaves you see resting on top -- they'll be removed before serving -- and a big sprinkling of lemon zest, also from the freezer, shake of Parmesan, kosher salt, red pepper.

I'll bake it at about 380 for half an hour, give or take.

The poundcake went over well with both friend and me, and will be dessert.  It was also, toasted, breakfast this morning, with lovely Vietnamese coffee.  Felt quite Viennese. Son missed out on it up to now, because car trouble changed all his plans for the evening and today.  But I'll save some for him.

Update on the Lost and Found: the slippers turned up, wedged underneath and high up, behind the skirt at the front of the sofabed, no idea how they managed to climb up there, invisible to eye or hand during previous searches.  But now they're home.  The bag of beads is still MIA.

Cold Day Cooking

Also known as catching up on vitals.  Here's bread dough, ready to rise for a while, using white wholewheat, ap flour, lentil flour and split pea flour, using the basic recipe from Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day, but as you see, with major adjustments.  Not before time for baking, out of bread of all kinds.

 This nonstick finish gives the best crust ever, a Jacques Pepin tip, and you mix and bake the bread in the same container, always a plus.  And once baked, bread removed, the pot just needs to be wiped.


And here's a quart of yogurt working magic for the next seven hours at the end of which bells will chime on my Ipod, and I'll wonder wildly why there's a church service going on on a cold Saturday night before I remember it's my alarm.

And here's lunch, well, two lunches

a veggie bake with broccoli, finely diced red bell pepper, with an egg beaten with fresh-ground pepper, kosher salt, drop of milk, few chunks of sharp cheddar, poured over, baked at 375F for about 15 minutes, or whenever you remember to look in. Always fun to eat colors, as well as being a nutritious advantage.

So the bread and yogurt will do their work for me while I eat my lunch, this bake being two meals for me, followed by the rest of the yogurt I bought as a starter, having forgotten to keep some of the last batch.

Freecycling, a.k.a. comedy tonight!

Today's lunch, and tomorrow's, is yet another Mystery Veggie Bake Thing.  

The dish is from a freecycle, and the veggies are chopped red and green bell peppers and green beans, mixture of two eggs, some chunks of sharp cheddar and excellent deli ham, with black pepper, kosher salt, drop of milk, poured over. Big chunk of basil pesto laid on top, not spread about, then a big twig of curry leaves lying on top of the lot.  385 degrees F. for about 25 minutes. Then remove the curry leaves, they having already flavored the food, spread around the pesto right before serving.  Very nice food. The ham was expensive, but bits of it have appeared in several meals, adding a nice sharp flavor.

On the subject of freecycling, I received this box of about 50 magazines today via freecycle

 
This will provide me with a bit of reading material to go along with a cup of tea for quite a while.  Then as I read each one I'll recycle.  Except for the ones I keep to teach paper beads with, which I'm scheduled to do for my embroiderers' guild this fall.

Freecycling is a comedy of errors at times, with more than its share of flakes, charmers, generous people, greedy people, a whole spectrum of human nature connected only by their interest in keeping items out of the landfill and into better homes.

Such as the gentleman, I use the term advisedly, who, when he received a lot of good items from me and found out they were part of   a friend's estate, offered the family the use of his time and his truck to get stuff moved anywhere they wanted.  He explained he's free at weekends, and can be called on to haul for the family, because he knows what it's like to do this work.

And the man who collects useful items and drives them to poor parishes in the city to distribute to people working fulltime who are still struggling.  Rarely takes anything for himself.

And then there's the lady, not the correct term here, who arranged to pick up a box of items, came in my absence and picked out the two or three best items, left the rest for me to deal with again...yes, she's on the 'don't even ask me' list now! likewise people who don't show and don't explain.

And the lady who asked for something that had already been spoken for, and emailed several times telling me how hard her life is and how this would have "brightened my day".  Wouldn't hear it when I said over and over, sorry, it's promised already.  Got back yet again to say well, you're very unfair!

And the occasional person who fails to realize that telling the taker to pick up their items "on my porch" that they need to know exactly which porch, nay,even which town.  Otherwise are they expecting a house to house search?

And the people who, when you post Pending Pick Up, meaning spoken for in Freecycle parlance, promptly email requesting the item.

Then there are lovely people who are so grateful when I rescue fine handwork and rehome it for them, or put old items into use again.

The other great fun about freecycling, aside from moving on old items to happy people and receiving items I will get a lot of pleasure from, is discovering streets and neighborhoods I've never been in.  I did that this morning, and did a detour coming home just to join up several places I was familiar with to see how they related to each other. So there's that!

Now I have to make a little cup of tea before my neighbor hauls me out to help him with his garden planting and planning, and read a mag or two..