Freezer challenge - success?

Some of you may remember the freezer challenge from last year (here, here, here, here, and here!). I haven't posted anything about that recently, but I consider it an ongoing challenge to use up the things in there.

So when Jeremy said he'd be having volunteers in to help him inoculate logs, I thought this would be my chance. We have so much in the freezer! Surely there are enough beets and corn and whatever else to make dozens of pots of soups and stews and chowders.

For the first week I made borscht. That used up the rest of the cabbage we had, as well as beets from the freezer and carrots, potatoes, and onions from the root cellar.

Next I decided to make a batch of cheddar corn chowder. We didn't have any chicken broth on hand, so we dug out a bunch of carcasses and bones and chicken feet from the freezer, carrots and onions from the root cellar, and I made up a huge batch of chicken broth.




But then we started digging through the freezers and discovered: WE DON'T HAVE ANY CORN LEFT! I don't know how that is even possible. I thought we had enough to survive the apocalypse. But I guess we have been making a lot of corn chowder, corn pudding, corny corn bread, soups, etc, etc. So, somehow or other we used up all the corn!

Back to the drawing board.

And back to the root cellar for carrots, potatoes, and onions!



I decided to make some chicken soup. I sauteed a couple onions,



threw in some carrots, celery, chicken (from the freezer of course),



added the chicken broth and set it all simmering. Towards the end I added the potatoes and the rest of a box of bow-tie pasta.



And it was pretty tasty!

Now I realize what I must do (and have been avoiding like the plague for a couple years now) is inventory the freezer so I know just what the heck is in there. It seems like an especially thankless and cold job to do (especially when it's not much warmer outside the freezer than inside!). But then I had a realization: I would be willing to do it for a blog post.

Sometimes boring or annoying or tiresome tasks can be made slightly more enjoyable by the thought of blogging about them. I don't know - is that just me?