Back to the annual eating down of the freezers

So, last week I disciplined myself and bought very little at the grocery store. Okay, the truth is it was a Walmart week and I don't buy that much at Walmart. I buy most of our groceries at WinCo because their prices are better than Walmart. But Walmart is the nearby store, so I go there to fill in gaps every other week. But I like to think that I was disciplined last week.

Here's where I find out if I have any discipline in me. This week is a WinCo week. I've been making out my shopping list with the understanding that I have a lot of food that needs being used in meals still in the freezers. So, first off, no new frozen vegetables and no more butter. Also no new fresh apples. I have 2 bags of apples still. No mozzarella cheese. I discovered we have 2 blocks of mozzarella in the spare fridge. We only use mozzarella for pizza. I had become in the habit of picking up a new block every time I went to WinCo. Due to actually opening my eyes this week, I realized we have enough pizza cheese. I'm on the fence whether to buy a whole chicken again this week. I buy a specific brand and it's a much better price at WinCo than any other store in town. And I did roast one of the three that I had just this week. So, I may buy one more whole chicken.

In previous shopping trips I've bought perhaps 8 to 9 different produce items every other week. This week, I've only put bananas (need in smoothies), carrots, and watermelon on my shopping list for produce. I will continue to use frozen vegetables. But also, we're at a point in the summer where I can harvest more and more from the garden each week. When we finish our last head of store cabbage (by the weekend), I'll begin harvesting the garden cabbage. I'm harvesting lettuce and cooking greens several days per week. I have a bell pepper ready to pick. And last night we had the first of the zucchini harvest. This is a long-winded way of saying we have a lot of both garden and frozen produce right now and don't need that much more.

So my list for this week's "big" shopping trip -- in addition to bananas, carrots, and watermelon, we need milk, peanut butter, salt, raisins, peanuts, cheddar, canned tuna, and a bag of flour. Even though I have some flour at home, I want to work up to a 30 lb supply of whole wheat, a 30 lb supply of bread flour, and a 30 lb supply of all-purpose flour. So each time I shop I add a bag or two of flour to my cart. That's a pretty small grocery list, isn't it?

For the freezer -- here's the current state of the chest freezer.

As you can see, there's lots more room at the top of the freezer, and that's with adding 6 quarts of cherries this week (on the right side). My daughters have been good about using up their own foods (in the center). And I have been using frozen fruit and vegetables from the left side. I need to make more of a point to roast pumpkin seeds. That hanging bin is full of pumpkin and squash seeds. My family really enjoys sweet and spicy mixed nuts. I think I'll try a batch of sweet and spicy pumpkin seeds and see what they think. Do you roast pumpkin seeds? Have you found a tasty way to roast them?

We've used quite a bit of food from the freezers in the last 2 weeks. Tonight's dinner used a whole chicken, a quart of chicken stock, various leftover bread products (corn bread and stale ends of loaf bread), and celery leaves. Tomorrow night I'll serve leftover chicken and gravy, plus I'll use some frozen apple chunks in spiced apples for dessert, frozen peas, lettuce from the garden, a tomato from the fridge, and potatoes with frozen rosemary.

In some ways, it has seemed like we made room in the freezer rather quickly. But when I think about all of the other frozen foods left to use up, it seems like it will take a long, long time to use it all.

What's the state of your freezer?

Yes, you can use unripe sweet cherries in pies and cobblers

Every year we battle the raccoons, squirrels, and blackbirds for our sweet cherries. We've come up with a few tricks to outsmart them, fence them out, and entice them to eat something else. But it's still a battle. 

Last year, I decided that I would pick as many not-quite-ripe cherries as I could before the critters discovered the tree had cherries. I picked, pitted, and froze enough for 11 pies. This year, with warmer weather, the cherries began ripening a little sooner, and I fell behind.

This morning I woke up to a couple of raccoons having breakfast in the cherry tree. The raccoons are really very cute. One was lounging on the lawn, feeling full and happy while his partner was up in the tree. The two of them made such a cute picture. But I do have to defend my territory. 

So after my breakfast I began picking as many underripe cherries as I could reach. I spent 4 hours picking and pitting cherries. (I think the rest of the cherries will be better as fresh eating cherries, as they're ripening quickly.) I froze 6 quarts of the underripe ones, which will be enough for 3 large pies. And I still have 7 quarts of cherries in the freezer from last year.

You may wonder if I could freeze the ripe cherries. The issue is pitting ripe cherries. Our ripe cherries are on the soft side. The pitter doesn't work well on soft cherries. In contrast, underripe cherries have a dense firmness similar to sour cherries. The pitter I have is really made for a firm cherry.

The flavor of underripe sweet cherries is mild and not as acidic as sour cherries. So I add lemon juice when making pie and cobbler filling. To amp up the cherry flavor I add a few drops of almond extract. I realize some folks don't like almond extract. I'm sure that could be left out. We had a sour cherry tree many years ago, and I baked a lot of cherry pies each summer. I've been ver pleased that I could replicate a sour cherry pie using underripe sweet cherries, lemon juice, and almond extract.

Here's the stage of under-ripeness that seems to work. When fully ripe, these cherries are dark purple. For pies, I pick them when red.

For freezing I add sugar to the containers, but I don't bother with citric acid or lemon juice, as I figure preserving the color of the cherries is not as important in pie filling.  I note on the lid of each container the quantities of cherries and sugar. Later, when I go to make cherry filling, I know what I have. I also note that each container has enough for 1/2 a pie.

When I'm turning the cherries into pie filling, I add a bit of natural red color in the way of beet root powder. About 1/4 teaspoon beet powder to 2 quarts of cherries results in a dark red pie filling and has no beet taste.

Have I shown you how I vent juicy pies like cherry pie? After the top crust is set onto the pie filling, I use a sharp knife to quickly cut 4 wide leaf-shaped pieces out of the top crust dough. This seems to be enough to vent this sort of pie and is so much faster than doing a lattice top.

We've been eating the sweeter cherries on the tree for several days now. I do feel full of cherries at this point, and I will be okay if the critters enjoy a good portion of what remains on the tree. I have several pies worth of cherries in the freezer, and that was my aim.