Putting Food By

In keeping with my belief that, if you're going to make a mess, it might as well be a worthwhile one, I started several cooking projects this week which ultimately resulted in, or *will* result in good food, largely from inexpensive, in-season, local ingredients.  The fact that the results included considerable savings was a pleasant bonus for planning ahead.

Half of a $7.00, 25-pound bag of onions went into our slow cookers for 10 hours one day, and we wound up with lovely caramelized onions for use in pizzas, soups, stews and casseroles this winter, frozen in small batches for ease of use.

Most of a 20 pound box of zucchini was quickly shredded in our food processor, measured, divided up into freezer bags, and will make more than 40 dozen Zucchini muffins (or a combination of muffins and Chocolate Zucchini cake!).  My zucchini plants didn't produce for me this year, but I do still have some of last year's bounty in dehydrated and pickled form, so I was thrilled to support my local Farmer's Market and grab this box of squash from their own gardens for $16.00. It's about the timing!

I had thrown a loaf of bread in the dehydrator overnight, to make breadcrumbs, and boiled ten pounds of potatoes.  The spuds made a big batch of mashed potatoes using butter and some of the onion broth sweated by the crock pot cooking process, and I left that to cool overnight in the fridge. 

The next day, onions, garlic, ground, lean pork and beef (purchased on sale), zuchinni, carrots, and spices were sautéed, and allowed to cool.  I made a big batch of basmati rice, and grabbed herbs and greens from the garden....

 

A big pile of grape leaves, sorrel, mint, oregano, and parsley - the windfall apples are being dehydrated for rabbit treats. 

 

I chopped the herbs, blanched, de-veined and chopped the grape leaves, and processed the bread into crumbs, adding dehydrated lemon slices, salt, pepper, garlic and parmesan cheese to the mix, to stretch the meat, bind the filling, and give the casserole a bit of added flavour.

 

Once cool to the touch, I combined the rice, crumbs, greens and meat, portioned it into bread pans, and topped my mini casseroles with a mashed potato crust.  At about $1.00 a portion, this made 35 servings of dolmades, in casserole form - I'm not enough of a masochist to make the equivalent bulk of actual grape leaf rolls!

These were popped into the freezer, and will be removed from the pans and vacuum-sealed for future, minimal fuss meals - and the 'trial' casserole we had last night was delicious.