Blog Update!
For those of you not following me on Facebook, as of the Summer of 2019 I've moved to Central WA, to a tiny mountain town of less than 1,000 people.

I will be covering my exploits here in the Cascades, as I try to further reduce my impact on the environment. With the same attitude, just at a higher altitude!

Monday, March 23, 2009

Doomer dinner party

Well, my guests sure didn't know that we were doing a doomer dinner, they were just enticed to come over by the invite and the menu. What's a doomer dinner party? Well, Peak Oil Hausfrau suggested hosting a dinner made entirely out of food you had stored on hand.

I had so many tomatoes stored in the chest freezer from last year's harvest that I made tomato sauce out of them on Saturday in preparation for homemade pizzas. Since we had stored up olives, flour, yeast and cheese, it was the perfect compliment to the stored root vegetables that I roasted. Drinks consisted of cocktails and wine from supplies that we had stored as well.

While I was digging out the tomatoes, I noticed that we had a ton of frozen raspberries also left over, so I was planning on making a Raspberry Amaretto pie for dessert, but never got around to it, which is fine because we were too full with what we had.

So, in spite of my complaining that we would be serving peanut butter and crackers if we were to do the doomer dinner party, we really do have a lot of food stored and ended up making a fabulous blow-out dinner for my mom and my brother (who is leaving for Paris* for a month on Tuesday). I can't say it was as good as the food he'll be experiencing in France, but MREs it was not!

Ooh la la!

*And, for the record, in case you are thinking of my previous post about the carbon impact of air travel, my brother more than makes up for it - no kids, works from home, buys most of his food from Pike Place market (a few blocks away), eats local/homemade, and drives a hybrid for the few miles he and his wife do drive.

15 comments:

Farmer's Daughter said...

We're having friends over on Saturday. Perhaps I'll do a doomer dinner party, too. Depends on what we have left in the freezer.

hmd said...

Love this idea! We'll have to try it too - I need to get rid of some of the food eventually. Since we have local food year-round, we don't eat up the stuff I've preserved very quickly...

Peak Oil Hausfrau said...

Way to go Crunchy! Do you mind if I ask how you store your cheese? I've been wondering the best way to go about it. Since I don't eat any meat (except fish), I would be a little lost without cheese.

Tall Kate said...

I really love the idea of doing this on purpose -- I think I do it unintentionally, too, though, sometimes ;-)

Doyu Shonin said...

Good thing I didn't come over -- the original Pizza Monster, mmmmm!

We're between raspberry patches, and miss them. Next year, we hope!

Yes, more about cheese storage, please.

Greenpa said...

And so does your mom PAY your brother for his carbon offsetting her air travel? Hm? Fair is fair.

After all - he has to SUFFER by buying most of his food in the Pike Place Market!! The poor guy!! It's only like my favorite market on the planet. I really feel his pain!

:-)

Anonymous said...

That's a great idea! And your menu sounds great. I love it when I find out I'm better prepared than I thought I was.

And I suppose we can give your brother a pass on his trip to France. ;-)

Crunchy Chicken said...

Ah, the cheese storage isn't really much to get you all excited. Organic Valley mozzarella cheese generally has a pull date of, like 6 months, so when it's on sale I'll buy a ton and keep it in my fridge. Normally it's something like $5.00 for an 8 oz package, but sometimes Ballard Market sells it for $2 off - so I stock up.

I believe you can freeze some types of cheese without too many problems, but I haven't tried it. Anybody out there successfully freezing their cheese?

Greenpa - My mom isn't going to Paris, just my brother and his wife.

Yes, he suffers greatly with his waterfront condo across from Pier 62/63 with sweeping views of Puget Sound. He just needs to walk up the steps to get to Pike Place.

They all know him up there since he's such a foodie and so he gets special treatment. You really can't go wrong with advice from people like Nancy Nipples at the Pike Place Market Creamery. Yes, that is her real name.

Anonymous said...

Re. freezing cheese - I do it all the time. We buy cheddar and mozzerella in bulk and then immediately cut it into one-ounce cubes, and toss those into a bag in the freezer. The smaller pieces thaw faster than one giant block of cheese, it's easy to pull out exactly the amount I need each time, and best of all, when the cheese thaws, you can just crumble it with your fingers instead of having to dig out a grater. I haven't noticed much difference in taste, but we also use the frozen cheese primarily for things like pizza topping or as an ingredient in something else, so it might not be the best way to store it if you want to eat the cheese plain.

hmd said...

We freeze cheese too. Hubby mostly eats it on pizza so when I get some, I shred it up, put one cup each into a small ziplocks and freeze. That way it's already in the serving I want to make him a pizza.

Phyllis Sommer said...

so right now we're getting ready for the jewish holiday of passover. for my family (and many others) this means eating up all the food in the house because we have to get rid of everything leavened. it's so far made for some interesting meals...i'm out of yeast and almost done with the flour...

Theresa said...

I have also recently discovered how well cheddar and marble cheese freezes when it is shredded and stored in freezer bags or the like. Very handy and now I can take better advantage of sale prices.

Your doomer dinner sounds delicious Crunchy!

Unknown said...

a doomer dinner party sounds like fun. my guests would probably have to eat something with pesto sauce, zucchini, apples & appelsauce.

i might have some tomato sauce left.

Lisa Nelsen-Woods said...

I really have to read your posts a little more carefully. I skimmed it and though at first you wrote Donner Party, instead of Doomer. I could do a doomer party, put not a Donner Party. No way I'm eating THAT local!

Daniel said...
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