Maximizing Your Freezer Space

So I have a new freezer and I’ve been spending some time hugging getting to know it. I’m a little shocked that after emptying the above the refrigerator freezer into it that it is more than half full already. I think that’s pretty telling of how packed my above the refrigerator freezer was.

So here are some great tips and resources I found that might help you too.

Organization

I knew that although the freezer came with two hanging baskets the real job is organized below that. The stuff at the bottom. After reading around I discovered that those plastic crates you find in office supply stores can work pretty well. I have an 8.8 cu ft freezer and was able to fit two of these in there. I designated one of those for raw meats and the other for prepared meals. I will admit that I have a tiny bit of frost on the sides of my freezer and when I pulled up one of the crates it grated against that little bit of ice and ssshhhhiiiivvvveeerrrrrr it was like nails on a blackboard. I can still ‘hear’ it now… ssshhhhiiiivvvveeerrrrrr

I also have smaller baskets that I’m using for butter, veggies, fruits, and my specialty flours (buckwheat, barley, graham, teff) . I have room for a few more baskets and I know I’m still getting accustomed to the whole thing.

Filling it Up

My goal for the freezer is preparing those meals that will help save time in the future and storing good buys and excess from the garden.

For great tips on preserving your foods from all sorts of sources I found this site Pick Your Own it’s about pick your own farms, how to can, freeze, dry and more.

For ideas on what kinds of meals to put away I have quite a few resources, mostly books. There is this nice article to give you an idea of what you can put away.

Then these are the books I’m using for recipes.

Frozen Assets Lite and Easy: Cook for a Day, Eat for a Month: I’m like the way this books is organized. By mini sessions by meat. For example I’m eyeing the ground turkey mini session. It’s all laid out with recipes, shopping lists and preparation instructions. I never thought our menus were so light but I could work with this book.  I’m checking it out from the library.

Make-A-Mix: I don’t use all the recipes in this book but I do like the cookie and the baking mixes. I own this one.
More Make Your Own Groceries: This is an excellent book for freezer cooking and making staples. I have no idea why it is so expensive on Amazon. I own a copy. There are two editions, 1 and 2. I have both. 2 is the cover of the link and 1 has a yellow cover. They are both excellent.

Keeping Track

For keeping up on what’s inside I printed up a new sheet from my planner (yes I use Vintage Household Notes too) and put it in a sleeve. For now I taped it to the top but I’m looking at other ways to attach it. I opted for writing the ususal suspects in pen and then hash marks in pencil for how many I have going there.

I hope some of this has been a help to someone.

PICS

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