Britesea - Living the good life in rural Oregon

[Britesea]

Well, I did go a little bit overboard-- 3 deviled eggs that weren't in the original calorie count, lol

 

[Lazy Gardener]

Eggs are good for you. One of the best protein sources, and not a lot of calories. Though... there's some calories in the devil.

 

[Britesea]

Light eating yesterday, I made a soup with the hambone and some of the ham, with green beans and carrots. It tasted great! I'm almost back down to pre-Thanksgiving weight now. It was probably a lot of water weight or it wouldn't have come off so fast.

Gotta spend some time in the storage room- I'm moving and rearranging all the shelves and organizing things so there is more room and I can find things more easily. We'll take advantage of the fact that everything is off the shelf units when I move them to finally get around to attaching them to the walls, too. I have my box of orphan socks ready to pad the glass jars so they don't break if there's a trembler. I cut each sock into two or three rings- just so each jar has a buffer but I can still read the labels.

We are working our way down to the bottom of the freezer. I have almost all the meat out, and I need to freeze dry some more of the vegetables. Hopefully by next year I will be able to fit 2 tom turkeys, a hog, and half a steer in there. I have some salmon that I bought on sale (half the normal price! Wish I'd had room and money for more at the time) that I will can for storage to make more room as well.

The turkeys are scheduled for the chop next week...

 

[Britesea]

We didn't get to the turkeys because both of us got some sort of bug. Feeling better now. I got a different kind of bug and spent some time emptying the chest freezer. I found an entire box of 12 pounds of ground grass-fed beef, as well as numerous other loose meat packages like chicken, salmon, pork tenderloin and corned beef. All hiding under things like half-empty bags of frozen veggies and a huge bunch of those little freezeable bags that you get when they ship you insulin (my friend's DH is on insulin and she kept giving me the bags for use in ice chests and stuff). DH is gonna try to finish defrosting the ice sticking to the upper sides of the freezer (thank goodness it's cold today)- the bottom had been packed solid and is virtually ice-free. I'm heading off to the hardware store to pick up a bunch of "milk crates" that will fit in there. I figure if I stuff each one with a variety of meats, we can empty a crate without getting tired of one kind of protein; when it's empty, lift it out and there's another one. I can't think of any other way to keep things from getting lost in the corners. I also have my huge restaurant sized stock pot about 3/4 full of soup bones and water- gonna make a bunch of stock and can it so I have more room in the freezer.

Back to work!

 

[Lazy Gardener]

I remember reading about someone who saved her tarp like feed bags to use in the freezer. She'd label each bag for a different type of frozen goods. (beef, chicken, veggies, etc.) That way, she could reach into what ever bag she wanted to draw from at the time. I think that system would work well to plan meals a week at a time. Pull out an assortment, and transfer them to the freezer section of your fridge. I like my upright freezer b/c it's easier to see stuff. But, there's the issue of things falling out when it gets stuffed. I need to get some baskets to put on each shelf to make organization easier and prevent the avalanches.

 

[baymule]

I went to Walmart and bought plastic bins and organized the freezers. It sure makes it easier!

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[Britesea]

Got things back together in the chest freezer (I still need to go through the upright, but I did go through it and got all the meat in there). I now have 2 milk crates filled with a mixed selection of meats in each one- beef, pork, chicken, and a small amount of seafood. This way, I can just look through 1 small crate for whatever we can eat. When I've finished with the first crate, I can lift it out and bring the other one up. Then I can start filling the empty one on the bottom if I wish.

I found a bunch more salmon too- It's old, but most of it looks like it's still good- so I'll can that and save it from freezer burn before we can eat it. Any that is already burned will become dog food.

@baymule I will probably do something very much like what you have for my upright - I like that you can load it up more without stuff falling out.

 

[Britesea]

Well, I officially fell off the Keto wagon last night. Don't ever go to a potluck hungry! I started with my own keto meatballs, but that was pretty much all there was that was "allowed"... so I took small bits of potato salad and beans.... I was fine with leaving the commercially made desserts alone, as I know they will be long on sugar and short on taste. Then someone unveiled a homemade cheesecake (not keto of course)... and then I thought I'd just have a tiny bit of the luscious homemade chocolate cake (every bit as good as I anticipated) and finally a shortbread cookie. By the time I got home and calculated it all on MyFitnessPal, I was 283 calories over my limit, and an estimated carb count of over 100
This morning, I had gained 2 1/2 lbs, which I hope/wish is mostly water but my blood sugar was still pretty good- only 110. All I can think is that losing all the weight and staying off excess carbs for so long has made my body less insulin resistant. I hope that's true! However, I do feel bloated today- taking extra lemon and other detoxing foods to try and clear the sludge out. *sigh* I refuse to fall into a funk about it, because I think this is the first time I've really gone overboard in 2 years. The hardest part is that now my body is craving carbs again, so I have to resist that and get back into ketosis.

We had some spits of snow last night coming home, but today it's raining, so I think the snow will disappear soon. Apparently no White Christmas for us this year. If the rain clears tomorrow, we'll try to butcher one of the 2 turkeys- then when I've got it all fitted into the freezer/canning jars/and freeze dried bags... we'll do the 2nd one. Looks like between them and what I found when I cleaned out the chest freezer, we still won't need to buy any meat for a couple of months at least. Still need veggies though; our garden gave us some, but not all of our veggie needs.

I pulled out a package of ground beef and plan on making chili on chaffles (waffles made from just cheese and an egg, if you haven't heard of them) with a baked Delicata squash.

 

[Lazy Gardener]

Never heard of a chaffle. Sounds like a good thing to try... when my chickens get back in the nest. Until then, I'm being quite miserly with the eggs I hoarded.

 

[Britesea]

for two minis - about the size of an Eggo waffle- it's 1 egg, 1/2 cup fine shredded cheese, and 1 tbsp almond flour. And if you google chaffles, there's all kinds of variations... peanut butter cup chaffle?