Pantry/Freezer meals, week 1

I made a serious effort to eat foods out of my freezer(s) this week.  My small freezer in the laundry room doesn't have much in it.  Some popsicles, some bread, a steak, and a piece of liver I bought at the farmer's market.  And a bunch of chicken stock.

The above-the-fridge freezer is a different story.  Bread crumbs, frozen fruit, frozen veggies, bread heels, and some unidentifed items wrapped in foil  (turns out, these were pancakes and cooked tri-tip, but not together).

My pantry is not much better, with rice and pasta and beans and things that I stopped eating when I went low-carb.  I've kind of drifted away from the low-carb thing, and I'm actually not feeling all that healthy about it.  Ah well, it's a process.

Last weekend I made another loaf of no-knead bread.  This time it was rye bread.  I used up some rye flour and caraway seeds from the pantry (well, I didn't "use them up").  The Cook's Illustrated bread recipe calls for beer.  I found one dusty beer a few weeks ago in the laundry room, and have been using it for the no-knead breads.  I just stick a wine cork in it and put it back in the fridge.

I also used a pound of the local grass-fed ground beef and made a stir-fry.  This stir-fry has two half-bags of frozen stir-fry vegetables, some bok-choy from the CSA, and a sauce that includes some of last year's tangerine marmalade.  (We still have a lot of that left.)

One night's dinner was chicken strips and salad.  Now, this wasn't quite the "use it up" victory that last week's chicken was, since these are from Trader Joe's, my kid loves them, and I buy them every 2 weeks as an easy weeknight meal.

One night I made pancakes.  I WAS going to make salmon cakes, but my neighbor mentioned that she was making pancakes and my son begged for them.  There was a recipe on the side of the flour bag that she recommended.  My husband was in San Diego for a one day trip (didn't get home until 7:30).  He's usually the pancake guy, so I do feel proud of myself that I made successful pancakes, with wheat germ even.  We had those with kale chips from the CSA. 
I used the salmon and made salmon salad for lunch, which I served on top of sliced red bell peppers from the CSA.  Still have a little bit of that left.
We also had pasta from the freezer with bison sausage.  I didn't take a picture of that either.  Oops!

This morning, I cleaned out the freezer some more and found a huge bag of blueberries from our blueberry picking trip, so I made myself a smoothie.  I also found some local salmon, so I'll have to do something with that.  Stay tuned!