While you all have been wasting your vacation, I can look
back upon this time with a proud record of accomplishment. I
defrosted my fridge. Filled up the kitchen sink with ice.
Really full.
And -- a first -- I cleaned the refrigerator. I was amazed
at what I'd been ignoring all these years. It's kind of like
U.S. foreign policy with regard to South America, we try to
ignore it and hope that nothing bad happens as a
consequence. Once I started scrubbing away, I just couldn't
find a place to stop until it was all done!
I dumped my entire collection of Clinton-era (and first
Bush administration) vinegars and mustard. And if you
think vinegar can't go bad, you don't know very much
about vinegar!
Two conditions precipitated the crisis: I was no longer able
to fit more than one ice cube tray in the freezer, and I had
finally noticed the temperature in the refrigerator
compartment was uncomfortably balmy (from the food safety
point of view). After a few days, a good ham would develop a
sour tang that I rather liked, but I knew that it was not a
good sign.
Now that I had this yawning expanse in the freezer (to which
I was _not_ accustomed), I was inspired to an otherwise
inexplicable burst of food preparation activity. I ran 28
chicken drumsticks through my Ronco rotiserrie over a five
hour period, harvested the good chunks of muscle meat (all
now frozen in individual-size servings), and rendered the
bones into stock. I froze the stock, too, and now have
several weeks supply.
And on the same day, I overlapped this effort with cutting
up half of a big ham -- chunks of ham being frozen, and
trimmings and bone going into a _second_ batch of stock. For
the first time in my life, I've got _two_ different types of
stock in the freezer.
A problem I did not anticipate: for the first time, I tried
freezing stock in ice trays. Unfortunately, unlike ice,
stock does not freeze into a brittle solid. When I twist the
tray to eject the stock, it just kinda squeezes a little and
stays in the tray. I had to use a little knife to pry out
the stock-cubes. I wonder what the best solution would be?
Freezing a little tab or handle in the stock, to pull them
out with? Running hot water across the back of the tray?
Getting old-fashioned metal ice cube trays, the type with
the lever for releasing the cubes?