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Crowdsourcing Vegetable Solutions
I have reached the limit of what I can store in the freezer without attracting the ire of my roommates for taking up the freezer, although once I deplete my frozen meat pies a little more I'm going to take some amount of the frozen meat and turn it into more meat pies. (What do I have in the freezer? Several pounds of ground meat, some tupperwares full of hand pies, and a bag of frozen broccoli. Supplemented by three jars of pickled herring in the fridge.) Now, meat pies are one way of getting vegetables into a preservable form, since I never put *just* meat in there, but I can't freeze enough vegetable to manage a month's worth of vegetable matter, and I don't actually *want* to live on pickles as my only vegetable although I do have two small jars of cornichons in my supplies.
The problem is, the easily preservable things all fall into categories I can't have-- I can't have carrots or onions or beans or tomatoes or peppers. My usual vegetable matter is broccoli, eggplant, spinach, and cucumber. I need a way to get versions of these that are shelf-stable at room temp. Products I need to order off Amazon are fine for the moment while there's still time for them to take a bit filling orders.
And while we're crowdsourcing, I need a way to make pasta palatable using shelf-stable ingredients within my food restrictions-- normally I do olive oil, a grated cheese blend, and anchovies, but my cheese blend isn't stable long-term at room temp. I bought some aged gouda today which was being *sold* at room temp so I'm assuming it's safe to *keep* at room temp.
The problem is, the easily preservable things all fall into categories I can't have-- I can't have carrots or onions or beans or tomatoes or peppers. My usual vegetable matter is broccoli, eggplant, spinach, and cucumber. I need a way to get versions of these that are shelf-stable at room temp. Products I need to order off Amazon are fine for the moment while there's still time for them to take a bit filling orders.
And while we're crowdsourcing, I need a way to make pasta palatable using shelf-stable ingredients within my food restrictions-- normally I do olive oil, a grated cheese blend, and anchovies, but my cheese blend isn't stable long-term at room temp. I bought some aged gouda today which was being *sold* at room temp so I'm assuming it's safe to *keep* at room temp.
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A lot of aged cheeses don't really spoil at room temperature but do leak oil all over the place, so watch out for that. Presumably this isn't a problem for cheese sealed in wax until you cut the wax open?
Can you eat pesto? You could buy some jars of shelf-stable pesto and that might be nice.
Nuts + olive oil + seasonining can be a nice pasta topping.
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I put the cheese in a plastic bag, because I was concerned about being wrong about the room temp thing and I wanted to keep any mold it might develop from spreading to other things in the bin.
Pesto is a good idea! That will probably take me to the one grocery store in the area I *haven't* hit yet, because the only place I can think of that's known to sell shelf-stable pesto with no cashews is Pemberton's. (I have been to *all* the grocery stores. All of them.)
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Freeze-dried broccoli is a thing: https://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Lakes-Freeze-Vegetable-Snacks/dp/B07C9D1ZZW/
Dried broccoli is a thing: https://www.amazon.com/Mother-Earth-Products-Dried-Broccoli/dp/B007C7EPWS/
Canned spinach is apparently a thing. Peapod is having a 5 for $1/ea sale on "Del Monte Fresh Cut Spinach Leaf Sea Salt" (no other ingredients but water).
If you can do spinach, can you do collard greens? They're also available canned.
How broadly are you construing "vegetable"? Canned beets? Canned artichoke? What about dried fruit? Root vegetables?
Are you up to drying your own dried goods? Thoughts on dried eggplant.
I can vouch for none of this.
ETA: Oh, and someone just commented on my journal that Baby Bel cheese (which is waxed) is shelf-stable for a while.
ETA2: Canned baba ghanoush? https://www.amazon.com/Cortas-Baba-Ghanoush-Eggplant-Dip/dp/B073X4W2V3/ Ingredients: eggplant, tahini (sesami), salt, citric acid.
ETA3:
Eggplant powder is a thing:
https://www.nutricargo.com/eggplant-powder
Cucumber powder is a thing:
https://www.nutricargo.com/cucumber-powder
ETA4:
Canned eggplant pureé: https://www.webstaurantstore.com/10-can-eggplant-pulp/99950707.html
They also have canned chopped mustard greens and canned chopped turnip greens
, but only by the caseno, single cans (big cans!) available.no subject
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Inorite? I'm almost curious enough to buy some just to find out. Almost.
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Beets I can't have; canned artichoke I probably *could* assuming I had some idea what to do with it. I can't have almost any fruit or I would totally be stocking up on dried fruit right now. Potatoes I'm more thinking of as "starch".
But that canned baba ghanoush looks excellent. Probably with freeze-dried broccoli dipped in it. (Also apparently spinach flakes are a thing.)
Now that you've gotten me started on what I should be searching for, I'm a bit astonished by the sheer variety of vegetable powders out there, although cucumbers are so insubstantial to begin with that I'm kind of wondering what's left after you've powdered it.
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Thank you! This is intensely helpful-- I'm finding that anxiety is making it difficult to apply my librarian search powers to the problem of prepping, and having a starting point elucidated is useful.
You're very welcome. I figured something like that was what was going on; heaven knows, that's what's happening to me when I'm the one putting out the APB on clues I need.
although cucumbers are so insubstantial to begin with that I'm kind of wondering what's left after you've powdered it
Yeah, I'm trying to figure out how this isn't just powdered water.