Wednesday, April 20, 2022

Procrastination, Parties and Preserving Food

My world has been crowded with events and procrastination has been at the top of my list of things to do. Blogging has been tapping on my shoulder and I have felt guilty but ignored it rather successfully.

First I lost my upright freezer and at least half of the contents.   It was an old freezer that we had purchased from a neighbor when they moved. The rest of the food was given away or re-frozen in my now super packed little freezer below my refrigerator.  The lesson learned is that:

1.  I freeze way too much stuff for two old people. One could say this is depression-era syndrome but I am NOT that old.
2.  I bake too much stuff for us to eat and all that baking isn't healthy eating anyway.  I split it into smaller bags, but all have to be frozen.
3.  Hubby processes all his tomatoes into dried tomatoes and thinks we can go through tons of that in one year.
4.  Hubby makes huge batches of freezer jam...and jam is not all that healthy either.



This drawer above to my refrigerator freezer now only closes if we mash everything hard!

We bought another upright freezer (delivered today) and I moved it to the basement instead of the garage where the other freezer was plugged in.  The new freezer is about 60% the size of the old freezer and I am sure we will fill it fully in no time!!


Hubby wanted to invite our neighbor ("Martha Stewart") over for an oyster dinner.  She told him she had never eaten broiled oysters(!)  Hubby invited her that very day and said he would do all the planning and cooking and I would not have to worry.  Needless to say, he got to talking and talking to our guest and I had to cook everything except the oysters which he put in the oven to bake for about 8 minutes before he realized he had not turned on the broiler!  The meal went well in spite of all the craziness.  She is super polite and a perfect politician.  (Never having eaten a broiled oyster after living in this state most of her life. Ha! ) 


I had apologized to her that we did not have seafood forks for the oysters.  We probably could have used the crab forks, but we enjoyed the oysters and store-bought veggies and cake and the meal went pretty well, although I felt out of my depth in the hostess department.

A few days later I came home to find on our front porch a small gift bag filled with tissue paper and these: 
 

She seems to have the perfect hostess gift for any occasion.  I do feel a little intimidated that for every one thing we do for her she responds with at least two things!

Along with the above events are the Master Gardeners' activities, which are in full swing with lots of meetings and planning.  That crowds my calendar and I am trying to get out of much of it.

And the cherry on the "Too Much to Do" cake for this month was my daughter-in-law and son's baby shower.  I helped my daughter move chairs and tables and helped with menu planning and shopping and brownie making, etc.  It was outdoors and for 40 people.  She and her husband - ever the host and hostess - did the games.  The crowd were people in their 40's so it was much more different than an age 20 baby shower.  It went very well, I was in charge of photos and we were not entirely exhausted when we delivered all the chairs and tables back to my daughter's neighbors throughout her neighborhood.  Early afternoon the weather was lovely and then it turned a bit cold.


Today I am supposed to pay bills and exercise.  Sigh.  I think I will read blogs instead.

21 comments:

  1. Sorry about your freezer hassle. Check the local food shelf to ask if they take frozen food. Many do have freezer units.
    The parties sound like fun, despite the work that goes into them.

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  2. Lots of adventures! I didn't know oysters required special forks. In spite of what ads describe, my Dad always said that a freezer doesn't save you money by stocking up on food, it's just more convenient. That looks like a lovely outdoor party; what a good idea! Linda in Kansas

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  3. The hubby who says he will do the work and then spends all his time talking sounds familiar.
    We went to Costco this morning. Then I had to divide and repackage pork cutlets and salmon. Those and the frozen blueberries and shelled walnuts and coffee beans are now on the shelves in the old upright freezer in the garage. There is a chunk of rhubarb cake that I need to serve to someone. I bake very little anymore because we really shouldn't be eating baked goods much anymore.
    Freezers are very convenient, but it's easy to stick it in and then forget about it. The muffins I made from a bunch of bananas that got away from me are yummy and great for pulling out one or two at a time to heat in the microwave.
    That baby sgower sounds like quite a production!

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  4. Old habits are difficult to break. My freezer...which is situated at the lower level of my fridge...is chock-a-block. Too much food for one person, and two cats!! When I make a stew or similar I always cook enough for more than one meal, freezing some for future meals. That's sensible planning for one person, in my opinion...and, in your case, for two.

    I know I always have more than enough food on hand...it was how I was brought up, We may not have had a lot of money back when I was a kid, but our cupboards were always full, as were our stomachs! :)

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    1. This was similar in my home. Not a lot of money, but enough food.

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  5. Another step closer to a newborn grand baby. Yay!

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  6. It sounds like you've been very busy and mostly handling it all very well. It tired me out just reading about it all! :-)

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  7. Losing a freezer is so difficult. As you know, they get overfilled very fast.

    Having lived all my life in south Louisiana, i have never had grilled or raw oysters, either. The idea never appealed to me and now i'm vegetarian.

    Best wishes to your family, i pray the new addition comes just on time and healthy and brings much happiness to you all.

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  8. We, too, have a separate freezer for two people. I don't know why ... but at least we have plenty of ice cream!

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  9. You are certainly a busy lady. The oysters look delicious and so big. Entertaining has become harder for us each year that we grow older. WE prefer to go out for lunch with friends instead of entertaining.

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  10. It is so easy to get behind on blog reading. I am behind and won’t properly catch up.

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  11. Well having lived for some time in Whitby, oysters never passed my lips, though Paul always bought a couple at the fish shop and ate them immediately. It looks like a good shower party, I suppose the little one got plenty of presents.

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  12. I confess to sleeping all morning. G has been consolidating the medicine candidate's twenty boxes of band--aids into four. He seems to have come up one land's end flannel sheet short tho. No freezer here. We obviously are terribly short sighted.

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  13. We don't have an extra freezer which limits what we can freeze. We must eat stuff before freezing more stuff. I make my own tomato sauce also stew some for freezing. It's all gone before the next season. I don't care for raw or fried oysters but my friends convinced me I would like them grilled and they were right. I get behind reading blogs and I used to try and go back and catch up. Now I just start with what's current and let the ones I didn't read go unread.

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  14. I have friends who are "Martha Stewarts" and it is very embarrassing when I only feed them Schwan's Frozen foods.

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  15. My spare refrig. with freezer space died a few years ago. I decided not to replace it and will rue the day my kitchen refrig. dies and I won't have a backup place to put my packed frozen foods as I've had to do in the past. Oh, well! Many years ago I accidentally ordered raw oysters in New Orleans when we were on our high school senior trip. I think I might prefer trying them broiled as you described.

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  16. Never have considered eating oysters--just can't go there. We don't have an extra freezer, but I'm another one who packs stuff in the freezer until it screams "Stop!" LOL BUT, I did take out the frozen leftover chicken noodle soup the other night and defrosted it. I couldn't remember if it was good when I froze it or not -- it was delicious!

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  17. We have a chest freezer on our patio, which seemed fine until it accidentally got unplugged. Luckily not a lot in it at the time

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  18. We bought chest freezer for the patio, which was great until its plug got pulled by another project. Thank goodness not much was in it at the tiem

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  19. I keep trying to publish here but it disappears. Not sure what's going on

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  20. This is my third try to comment here and it keeps disappearing...

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