Tossing the guacamole

In preparing dinner last night, I had second thoughts about serving guacamole from 2005 I found in the back of the freezer. See post, "What's in your freezer?"

I just now tossed the package into the garbage.

Image via Wikipedia

But I did serve two other side dishes with antibiotic-free Australian shoulder lamb chops that were quick, easy and nutritious -- Middle Eastern fingerling potato salad and collard greens with garlic.

The multicolored potatoes came in a 5-pound bag from Costco. The salad is quick to prepare, but boiling  about three cups of potatoes, which I cut up, took about 20 to 25 minutes. You could do that while the chops are roasting in the oven. After draining the potatoes and running cold water over them, I added:
 
Juice of one big lemon
Two to three ounces of extra-virgin olive oil
Cumin, allspice, Aleppo pepper and salt to taste
Toss and serve

I washed and cut up the collard greens (from H Mart), then blanched them for a few minutes in boiling, salted water. (I have found that if you don't first blanch fresh greens, spinach and similar items, they turn brown.) Using tongs, I transferred the greens to a pan in which I had heated heated extra-virgin olive oil and dehydrated garlic chips, sauteeing them for another four or five minutes. Then I turned off the fire and covered the pan to let the greens steam until I served them.

The only problem, my wife said, is that I didn't make enough. My son thought they needed salt.

What's in your freezer?

We have a side-by-side refrigerator-freezer and the freezer side is stuffed, to the point where we "lose" food that gets shoved to the back of  shelves or bottom of drawers.

I did a quick inventory yesterday and found a package of guacamole from 2005, presumably from a multi-pack I bought at Costco. I am going to serve it tonight with Trader Joe's chipotle salsa, shoulder lamb cops from Australia, collard greens and potato salad with extra-virgin olive oil, lemon juice, cumin and allspice (photo above).

This is what else I found: uncured all-beef hot dogs and bacon from Tader Joe's, spinach-cheese ravioli, lobster bisque and wild Alaskan sockeye salmon, all from Costco; coarse, red Aleppo pepper, cumin, spinach pies, meat pies and spicy lamb sausage, all from Fattal's Bakery in Paterson; potato fritters and frozen pancakes from IKEA; three or four kinds of Korean dumplings, including meat-less, from Best Dumpling and H Mart, both in Englewood; pizza and focaccia from Jerry's in Englewood, Readington Farms' antibiotic-free whole broiler and chicken parts from Shop-Rite, some Turkish borek from Taskin Bakery in Paterson, and those Australian lamb chops, from Stop & Shop.

We have a house guest arriving tomorrow and plan to serve her some of these freezer "treasures."

 See next post: "A quick bread salad for breakfast."