It’s Freezing in here!

Last summer, we bought half a cow from the Amish. It’s great meat, no weird stuff, no extra hormones or steroids. All this is sitting in the freezer. Or, some of it is. It seems that last time someone got something out, a package of beef fell out, and stopped the door from closing. All the meat on the door thawed out. Thankfully, what was in the freezer proper stayed frozen.

Still this left us with about twenty pounds of stewing beef that we had to cook right away. So, as we were making our various stews and freezing them, it occurred to me that people don’t do this as often any more. With refrigerated trucks, greenhouses, and all, our grocery stores have fresh fruits and vegetables available for us year long. No need to make a bunch of potato and leek soup now because you won’t be able to get leeks in a month. Why spend a day canning when you can just go and buy a can of peaches for a dollar. So what if that can of peaches is full of preservatives, and there is no way of knowing what was sprayed on those peaches, or even where they were grown? It was easy, right? Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’m crazy, but I don’t really want my insides to be “preserved.” Nor do I worry so much about bugs that I like the idea of eating insecticide.

But just because I like my food to be local, and I happen to have a lot of meat on hand, these aren’t the only reasons I want to start making more food for later. With this meat, I now have tons of stew in the freezer. Now, on a lazy day, instead of being tempted to go out and get some fast food, I can just toss one of these in the oven for a while. I won’t even have to leave the house to grab a burger, or figure out how much to tip the delivery boy.