Using it up

I was going through the refrigerator earlier this week, trying to see what we have and if I could make it through the week without doing a big shopping trip. (I certainly can. Almost always.)

I found the following things that needed to be used up sooner rather than later:

• two or three cups of cooked rice
• half a cabbage
• a green bell pepper.

I realized that I was about two-thirds of the way there to bieroc. I knew there was ground beef and sausage in the freezer, but I didn't have any bread dough, and didn't really want to make any that day. Making bieroc takes a whole afternoon and creates a huge mess - little bits of finely chopped cabbage and other vegetables and flour and dough all over the counter, (and let's be honest here, all over the floor, too) and dirty frying pans, big mixing bowls, cutting boards, knives, etc. You can probably get the picture.

I wasn't in the mood for all that, but I didn't want the food I had on hand to go to waste. That's when I had the brilliant idea to make only the filling which would produce only half the mess and put it in the freezer to be made into bieroc later.

So I did. I turned out three quarts of bieroc filling and stashed them in the freezer, all ready to be thawed and made into bieroc for dinner when I'm making bread or rolls one day this fall.

Freezer cooking is awesome.