Well, an earthquake and a hurricane aren't really the reasons I'm behind in my winter planning. I'm not going to say I'm lazy, exactly, but I will say that I'm a little on the unmotivated side right now. I've not completed half of what I'd hoped to by now, and that doesn't bode well for my little experiment.
What I have done the past couple of weeks:
Froze a half dozen eggs
Froze some berries
Canned some blueberry pie filling and froze the shells
Made pickles (but need to make more)
Bought extra ground beef and pork chops for the freezer
Bought a pressure canner (but haven't yet opened the box)
By this weekend I was supposed to have canned some soup and tomato sauce, but I haven't yet. I lost my master plan, but I know I was supposed to can and freeze some additional vegetables as well. I also should have made and frozen at least one quiche.
I've discovered that freezing eggs is annoying. I've broken an ice cube tray trying to get the eggs out of the tray, so I'll have to see if there's another way. If I have to use a knife to get eggs out of an ice cube tray again I might prefer to just not have eggs in winter.
Last weekend I was out of town, and although I've had a few extra days off for vacation, I haven't really felt like doing anything (probably because constant rain sucks away my energy). Next weekend I'm going on a church retreat, so I won't get much done then either.
I'm either going to have to start working on things during the week or have a really full weekend sometime soon. That'll happen sometime in October, maybe.
Suggestion on the egg-freezing thing: Popsicle mold? I know we have one that makes fairly small popsicles. The eggs might still stick to the mold, but there would at least be a stick/handle to help pull them out with.
ReplyDeleteAre your ice-cube trays the flexible plastic kind? I know I have some (somewhere in a box) that can be twisted to make all the cubes pop out at once. The put the still-frozen cubes into freezer bags. Maybe that's what you were doing that broke the tray :) I've never tried eggs, just water, juice, and assorted mashed-up-cooked-vegetables.
Also look at products marketed as baby food-freezing trays to see if any of those designs are any easier to deal with. They're generally intended for about 1 or 2oz portions, which may (or may not) work out for the eggs.
Or line the ice cube trays with plastic wrap before filling (though the inevitable wrinkles in the plastic wrap would make getting them back out kinda tricky too).
We also have a bunch of small tupper-ware-type containers that are meant for salad dressing or dip. Each one would hold 1 or maybe 2 eggs. I used to use them to freeze toddler-sized portions of baked sweet potatoes, which the kids would eat for a snack. Then you could run one portion under hot water to loosen the egg from the sides to remove (or thaw directly in the container) without them being attached to an entire tray of eggs.
I have plastic ice cube trays that are supposed to twist and pop out the cubes, but it doesn't work. After I destroyed one ice cube tray I discovered that it doesn't take long for the egg to melt enough to get them out, but again, that was only after I destroyed one tray. I'm not sure if I'm going to buy another one and try again or try something different. I wasn't able to buy eggs at the farmer's market last time I went so it was sort of a moot point.
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