Help me mods . Phone incapable.
I put food in the freezer. But i have no management. I like shopping everyday for the next meal . Just vacuumed sealed meatballs and soup .
Freezer purgatory. Please put in the correct thread .
My answer - I try to. There are some things that linger for years. But, so far, all have been fine. But, we go through fits and starts here. I do make an effort to label and date everything.
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I fail more than I succeed. I make too large volumes/quantities.
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I label containers, and keep a spreadsheet of what’s in the freezer (in/out). I try to keep a discipline of meal planning, with a reliance on what we have in storage. I don’t always win, but more often than not I do, and thus manage mostly to rotate out the old while in with the new.
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I do best when I keep a list, otherwise I forget and stuff gets lost.
List wherever it’s most useful for you – mine is a note on my phone (sync to computer), but you can stick one on the fridge / freezer if that’s more useful for you.
Label everything!
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We do. Living in a place where hurricanes and the resultant power outages threaten us for six months of every year, we have a policy of finishing everything in the freezer by the end of June. From then through Thanksgiving, there’s very little in there. This past summer, we took a 5-week road trip and completely cleaned out the fridge, too (except condiments and things in jars that wouldn’t spoil in a power outage).
We learned this particular lesson in 2021 when Hurricane Ida hit and our power was out for 11 days. We ended up loading up a huge cooler with the wildly excessive contents of our freezer, evacuating to a condo in Panama City Beach, and cooking for three days so the food wouldn’t to go waste. We re-froze all the cooked food there and hauled it back to New Orleans. We were eating off that for months afterward!
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Thanks.
I’m horrible at using up frozen cooked turkey, stews, duck fat, egg whites , bananas, homegrown veg, homegrown berries, frozen bread, random leftovers and broth. I ultimately throw at least 90 percent of it out.
I am good at using freezer jam, frozen cookies, home-made baked beans, ginger root , dumplings and pierogis.
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I may have a better FTR (Freezer Retrieval Quotient) than 10%, but not by a lot.
The pitiful thing about my practice is that, despite excellent preservation and labeling, my daily preference/spontaneity rarely jibe with what I’ve frozen.
Other than things that are very versatile components (e.g., pulled pork or smoked corn), I just need to cook in smaller quantities and not just chuck leftovers into the 'fridge or freezer.
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I hear you.
Yes, especially ice cream.
We are avoiding the problem by rarely make more than what’s needed for dinner and perhaps something to take for lunch the next day
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Everything that goes in the freezer will get used. We are generally good about labelling and dating. We are not sufficiently organised to keep contents lists/spreadsheets but we do periodically audit the contents. The next couple or so weeks will see us plan meals round the freezer contents so that we make space for new Christmas stuff. When we make casseroles, we will usually do double quantities - eat one, freeze one. And single quantities (if we’ve been greedy first time out) get defrosted for lunches or when one of us is wants something the other doesnt like - as tomorrow when I’m having a pheasant for dinner - a bird herself isnt keen on.
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I have a chest freezer that gets really cold but it needs to be defrosted, which is something I avoided for years (8?). One, because I had no idea how, never had a chest freezer, only used frost free attached to refrigerator. I finally defrosted the freezer when I realized it was losing usable storage.
Defrosting the freezer turned out to be easier than I thought, using a hair dryer and spatula. It’s about 5 cubic feet, and took maybe 15-20 minutes. I was thinking hours.
In any case, yes I found a bunch of stuff that was either useless, a bad purchase in attempt to save $ or a failed food project. i had to dump about 10 lbs. What did I learn?
Don’t buy bulk and freeze it unless you’re sure.
Don’t keep the freezer packed because it’s hard to see stuff and you don’t always want to unpack it.
Label stuff, at minimum a Sharpie with date and content.
Waste pisses me off….so stop doing it.
Modern refrigeration and freezers have literally changed the world…for good and bad. The good are many like long term storage, moving product safely, easy fast frozen food. The downside, easy fast frozen food (Hotpockets, etc) and storing food too long that leads to waste.
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Generally yes, but there are some things that don’t get used up that I should throw out sooner than I do.
I have a semi-regular grass fed meats delivery that often includes sausage and ground beef in every order, and I just don’t eat that enough so it will often sit in my freezer longer until I go on a binge to clear some of that out. But I do get through most of it (when it’s too much, I will give some to my sisters or bring to a family cookout). I also do separate semi-regular seafood orders, and to maximize on shipping I do order about 1 month to month and a half’s worth of seafood. This stuff I always get through, but between the two, it does fill up my freezer quickly. Add in a few Costco trips in between, and my freezer is often 2/3s full year round.
When something gets really lost in the freezer that I forgot about, I will toss it out. Or it’s the rare frozen leftover that I know I won’t reheat and eat, but I don’t freeze leftovers after.
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We used to have a similar problem with an online supplier. At first we used to buy their “mixed box” which was always seemingly good value for money. Now, with a different supplier , we can order exactly what we want - a bit pricier but actually better value for money.
There was a similar issue with the weekly organic fruit & veg box. There was the final straw when, for the fourth week running, there was kohl rabi - perhaps the most pointless veg known (IMO of course).
Everything that I put in the freezer we eat. Sometimes, however, Mrs. ricepad will freeze stuff that she doesn’t want to go to waste, and when I pull it out, I think, "WTF am I supposed to do with this?? For example, we have about 2 cups of lemon zest in a single frozen block. That’s a LOT of lemon zest.
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I’ve gotten pretty good at dialing in the amount of food we eat, so there’s rarely any leftovers. If there are, they are generally eaten within a few days.
My PIC is a bread hoarder 
, but that tends to survive quite a while in our chest freezer, and we do eat quite a bit of bread. Our 1/2 lamb share often lasts a good half year in our freezer, and I do try to keep a list Ă la @LindaWhit with the contents (frozen ravioli, shrimp, ginger & garlic, etc. etc.).
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Eventually. I have vague plans for the torch ginger. Maybe I’ll just make assam laksa again.
