Makin' space!

I am in the midst of attempting to use up food. Luckily the weather has turned cold and rainy, which gives me a great opportunity to make some hearty dishes that use the items I need to get rid of. Those are:

Probably 25 percent of what's in my freezer right now, in order to make room for the Thanksgiving turkey, which we'll buy in another town and bring home to the freezer for a week or so. So the frozen 2014-15 harvest of carrots, chicken broth, onions and other items that I can use to make dinners now will get used quickly, to pick up a little freezer space in the chest freezer out in the garage. I won't completely decimate my stores of the above-mentioned items, just use enough up to create some space for a turkey.

And speaking of turkey, I actually got a summons for Jury Duty the week of Thanksgiving. This could throw such a wrench in the works I'm refusing to even think about it at this point. Keep your fingers crossed for going on stand-by, with no trips to the courthouse necessary.

I also have a LOT of tomatoes hanging around the pantry at this time (I know, "hanging around" makes it sound like they are loitering on a  street corner, smoking cigarettes and harassing passers-by). But the truth is, I actually still have canned tomatoes on hand from 2013. Those, obviously, need to be used NOW....and ideally should have been used last year . That's because your water-bath canned goods should be used within 12 months of the canning date, but since I was the canner and know how careful I was, I'm comfortable doubling that time. But no more than double.  As 2013 was a banner year for tomatoes, we'll be having quite a bit of tomato-based recipes in the days to come, like this goulash (above) I am making for tonight. 

To riff, in a very respectful way,  on The Book of Ecclesiastes, there's a time to can and a time to eat; a time to store and a time to draw down your stores. A time to raid the freezer and a time to fill it. 

It's eating and drawing-down-the-stores time here at the homestead. Yum.