Jerseygirl

I always buy sliced, wholewheat, seeded bread. I just throw the bread in the freezer in its original wrapper, a plastic bag, Never had a problem. Useful if you don’t eat a lot of bread and only want a few slices. Take out the required slices and put the rest back in the freezer.

BristolUK

Ah yes, that would work because the slices you remove are not in contact with thawing ice.
We do follow that 'when needed' principle with things like ciabatta buns or bagels.

scilly

We buy extra lean ground beef and stew meat in cubes on sale, re-wrap for freezing if not using immediately. I then make large cottage pies, we eat a serving each when ready, then divvy up the rest of the pie into foil wrapped single servings, label and put into freezer bags and into the freezer. I usually get between 4 and 6 single servings for future use, depending on whether we've bought a family size special or not.

I do the same with the stew meat, make a large stew with onions and a relatively small amount of parsnip and carrots, have 2 servings that night, then divvy up in plastic freezer containers in either 1 or 2 serving sizes. I usually get 1 or 2 double servings, plus 1 single serving. When I re-heat, I add more veggies and broth plus herbs, and thicken the broth before serving.

I make a fish pie using 2 cans of wild caught sockeye salmon plus frozen peas and a parsley white sauce, topped with mashed potatoes. Again 2 servings when cooked, then frozen in foil in single servings, with about the same number of single servings as for the cottage pie.

The freezer is thus full of ready-to-heat home cooked meals.

I freeze my gluten-free breads and bagels, OH occasionally freezes his bread. I drink Soy milk, and that cannot be frozen, but we go through 2 2 litre cartons in about a week or slightly less.

BristolUK

Some very nice things can be made using what I call "cheats" but in a good way.

I usually buy the frozen salmon portions or the Aqua Star fillet packs which are cheap even when not on offer.
Scallops, shrimps or any other fishy thing, bit of onion, frozen peas or mixed veg. The sauce is made up of a jar of Alfredo, concentrated cream of mushroom plus whatever milk according to what I'm doing with it; fish pie or seafood pasta.

It will freeze, but not in this house where it's always gone within 24 hours
I should be chuffed that the others like it so much they eat it all quickly, but I don't always feel pleased.

MatiasHarding

Oh! Wow! Thanks for this life hack. TBH, we always throw away bread because it's molded, and I feel kinda bad for doing this. I remember how my grandma used to tell me that when they were kids, they had nothing to eat, and every time we threw away bread, I felt awful. I dunno if it's only me or anyone else has the same feeling?

BristolUK

It is a shame throwing away bread but on the bright side the birds get it.

Sliced bread can actually work well in the fridge too. For some reason D'Italiano (especially the sesame one) can be in the fridge for a couple of days and come out like it was when it went in there.
Others dry out a bit but are still absolutely fine for toast.

Anything that does go a bit stale can be turned into a very nice bread and sultana pudding by my mother in law.

Jerseygirl

Mum used to say ‘think about all the starving people in the world who would be grateful for that’!

BristolUK

Hello sis

Jerseygirl

DownUnder69

BristokUK, I'm not sure how this will fit into a cost of living thread, but here goes - do people in Moncton still eat poutine râpée?

More to the point, have you ever eaten it?

As a culinary experience, it quite defines any sane description. Its history is that it dates to the 17th century when the first French settlers came to Canada. In the autumn a pig was slaughtered, bled and hung in the shed (or in the house if the colon was too poor to afford a shed) and during the cold winter months, every bit of it would be used to feed the family. Along with grated potato, onion and inevitably, "saindoux" as pork fat was called then and may well still be.

My French kinfolk, usually my mom's mother (ergo my grandmother) would make these in large vat-like pots when the rels all came from Ontario and the USA for the yearly two-weeks in Kent County in July. Usually eaten with brown sugar or maple syrup, a small pinch of salt, and a luscious salad of greens freshly picked from the garden. Now and then as a special treat we had a small glass of armagnac aux pommel, lfrom an illegal still in the local forest, so I'll say no more in case some overzealous Mountie is vetting this post.

Of such unusual delicacies are my childhood memories. Along with many memorable feeds of Gould's fried clams with home cut chips from East Shediac, Trans Fats at their finest but in those days nobody cared. Also the now-legendary seafood mornay from the late great Cy's Restaurant in Moncton on payday nights.

Is good fresh seafood still easily obtained in New Brunswick? I reckon much like here in Australia, you have to pay an eyeball from your head for a kilo of decent fish. I'm told that prices for a good feed of fresh lobster are now only for the likes of Egon Musk but in writing this I hope I'm wrong.

BristolUK

Never heard of it. Plenty of Poutine around - in various forms, like butter chicken - but I had to look up the râpée part.
It always strikes me as heavy on lobster and other shellfish with salmon, "sole" and a couple of others thrown in.

MatiasHarding

Well, it's actually true that many people are starving. That's a good point about birds, but they don't really get it from a dumpster. A couple of years ago, we bought birdfeeders (I know that you can easily make them yourself, but we purchased a really cute one), and we used to put all the breadcrumbs from the toaster in there. But about molded bread, I guess you can only feed rats with that, and in the UK, you have way too many of them.

MarkG

We always put bread in the freezer unless we plan to eat it in the next few days. It's a bad idea to leave the bread in there for too long or it gets soggy when defrosted, but add some margarine or butter and some frozen cooked bacon and with a minute in the microwave on defrost you've got a bacon butty.

Back on the original topic, I'm certainly better off here than I would have been in the UK, but our house is paid off and I at least got pay rises the last few years even if they totalled about 5% less than even the official inflation figures. A lot of people are suffering if they have to rent and didn't get raises; the place my girlfriend used to rent for about $500 a month when I moved here would probably be $2,000 today.

And this city is supposed to be one of the most affordable in Canada.

MatiasHarding

We used to do frozen garlic bread this way by adding a lot of butter. I see the price for the sq. ft. in Canada is way less than in the UK, at least in London. In London, you have to pay a lot for a mortgage to live in the shoebox.