Thursday, June 21, 2012

Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard...............6/21/2012

Yesterday, I finally got around to inventorying the chest freezer. All in all, we did pretty well using our frozen goods from the garden. I really thought there would be a lot of peppers left, since last year we had peppers galore. There are only about 5 small packages left. I did find a couple of packages of beans from 2009. I have no idea how I missed those before! The beans and a few packages of late snow peas from last year were tossed. The late spring snow peas were tough and we really didn't enjoy them. I was happy to find a package of celery since I thought we were about out. The frozen food from last year has been separated from this year's veggies. Now the freezer is nice and organized!

Last week I made a pasta dish with asparagus, garlic scapes and shrimp. It was one of those meals that I made up and it really turned out great!

Pasta with Aspargus. Garlic Scapes & Shrimp

Olive Oil
2 Garlic Scapes, chopped
1/2 lb. Shrimp
1 lb. Asparagus, chopped
1/2 Cup Vegetable Stock
White Wine
Butter
1 lb. Pasta
Grating Cheese

Directions:
Cook the pasta in a large pot of boiling water until al dente.

While the pasta is cooking, heat the olive oil in a large saute pan and saute the garlic scapes and asparagus until it's browned a bit. Add the shrimp and saute for about 2 minutes, until shrimp is cooked. Remove the shrimp from the pan and deglaze the pan with some white wine. Add the vegetable stock. Bring the mixture to a boil and simmer until asparagus is cooked to your liking.

Return the shrimp to the pan. Add the well-drained pasta to the sauce. Then add a couple of tablespoons of butter and stir over low heat until the pasta is coated with the sauce. Remove the pan from the heat and serve with your favorite grating cheese. This is all good with some red pepper flakes.

It was delicious!

What's been going in or out of your Cupboard lately???


34 comments:

  1. I still have to do that. I really need to clean out my freezer. I keep adding more, but I need to get the old things out first.

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    1. I've been putting the freezer off for months. I am so glad that I finally got to it. Now, I know exactly what we have in there.

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  2. I really need to get a chest freezer. Ours is tiny on the side of the fridge so not much room to work with.

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    1. Chest freezers are usually easy to come by. You should try Craigslist or freecycle. People are always getting rid of them. Ours isn't real big....just big enough for us.

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  3. Unfortunately I only have a very small freezer and yet I still manage to lose things in it. I found some curry sauce in it today from 2 years ago - silly really.

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    1. Liz, we have two side by side refrigerators. One was mine and one was "The Italian's". The freezer in the kitchen always seems to be a hot mess. I loose things all the time in that one! I guess that I should clean that one out too!

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  4. That pasta looks awesome! That is my favorite thing to do, just toss in some veg with pasta, olive oil, and cheese. Delish! I just figured out that thursday is special, but I already posted for today, so I will join next week!

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    1. Thanks TG, "The Italian" is always happy when there is pasta involved.

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  5. That looks really good. Some of the best dishes are ones you make up as you go. This looks like one of those.

    No cooking post from me. Mom was in the hospital over the weekend with congestive heart failure. She went home on Tuesday and my brother is with her. My oldest sister arrives today to take a turn. I had my turn at the hospital and couldn't have been at home with her if I wanted to be cause I have surgery today. I full plate here but not with food!

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    1. My goodness Marcia, It sounds like you have a lot going on! Please send me an email and let me know how you are doing. Be well!

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  6. The pasta looks great! My garlic scapes are ready to harvest. I organized our chest freezer a few weeks ago to get ready for this year. I have two bags of tomatoes, a bag of chopped onions, and a small bag of peppers left from last season. These will be turned into salsa as soon as the weather cools down. Then the freezer will be ready to be stuffed again.

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    1. Thanks Rachel, It sounds like you used your stores pretty well. This heat is absolutely crazy! We are supposed to have a cool front move in tomorrow night.

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  7. Robin,

    I need to remove some 1/2 gallon water jugs from the freeze to make more room for upcoming harvest. We had homemade sweet and sour chicken last night over rice. Nothing fancy and I made a chocolate cake.

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    1. Sweet & sour chicken and chocolate cake sound wonderful! You should have taken a pic so we could see it!

      I keep ice blocks that I made in the bottom of my freezer just in case of an outage. Can't afford to loose our food!

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  8. Both of my chest freezers are nearly full, and the refrigerator freezer is stuffed. I need to stay out of Costco and begin making room for all the green beans or give in and pressure can them. I'm so much better at eating up the canned goods that are right in my face visible, than I am at finding something in the depth of the freezer :-(

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    1. I keep some of our meat in the refrigerator freezer in the kitchen and the rest in the refrigerator freezer in the basement. The chest freezer is supposed to be strictly for frozen good from the garden.

      "The Italian" got some great plastic rectangular containers with lids for the chest freezer. They work great. That way I can separate things and just lift out the containers to get to stuff. When that freezer goes, I'm getting an upright. I think it would make things much easier.

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  9. Mmmm, your pasta dish looks delicious! And your post is a good reminder to me to clean out my freezer and organize it a bit. The truth is, I need another freezer because the one I have isn't really big enough, so I'm thinking of adding a small chest freezer.

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    1. Our small chest freezer serves us well for frozen stores from the garden. They aren't very pricey or maybe you can find a deal on a slightly used one.

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  10. Ugh, I have been putting off cleaning out the freezer. No matter how much I eat out of there, it still stays full. Your pasta looks great.

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    1. Thanks Jane, I guess that you better start eating more :)

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  11. This recipe sounds and looks wonderful!

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    1. Thanks Becky, It was one of those throw together recipes that turned out wonderful!

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  12. Delicious.....pasta, veggie, and seafood is one of my favorite dishes, thanks for sharing.

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    1. Your welcome Mac, your dish looks heavenly!

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    1. It was a definite hit with "The Italian"!

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  14. Sounds delicious.. I really need to try garlic scapes someday!

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    1. Garlic scapes are such a treat! I'm sure you will enjoy them.

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  15. Maybe I need a larger freezer so that I can be organized like you! lol Nancy

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    1. I'm not all that organized! Dave at Happy Acres is really organized! He keeps a sheet attached to his freezer with a running tally of inventory!

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  16. I did my freezer inventory and minor clean out about three weeks ago and it always makes me feel good to get that done for the season. We honestly did not have very much left at all, but we had just the right amount in that we landed gracefully into the fresh harvest season and pretty much ran out of freezer items as the fresh replaced it almost fully. Let's see if I can repeat that again this year! It's always a balancing act.

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    1. I'm sure you will do just fine, if Mother Nature cooperates!! Yes, it is always a balancing act. It looks like we are going to have a better variety this year!

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