For the most part I'm a very organized person so the disarray of my freezers can drive me bananas. Speaking of bananas, I have a massive amount of bananas in my freezer. I think I might need an intervention. But I digress. Keeping an organized freezer not only saves you money because you can see what you have and use it before it turns into a giant ice ball, but it can also help you lose weight! By strategically placing you're frozen treats, cookies, muffins and other tasty goodies you can save yourself some serious calories! Or maybe I'm the only person that has so little self control that I shovel in a few frozen cookies while I'm taking out something for supper...
Let's tackle the fridge freezer first because it's smaller. This poor freezer becomes a trap for partial bags of everything that just get tossed in when I don't want to go into the garage to put it back in the big freezer. I found a few large freezer bags that only had a muffin size serving of rice left in them, which of course was so freezer burnt because the bag was left open that I could barely tell what it was. These of course went straight into the trash, along with a bag of shrimp that was equally as freezer burnt. I did however find some good things, like raviolis I made awhile back and a few partial bags of frozen fruit. The amount of bananas I found was shocking! I now have a bin in the freezer specifically designated for bananas because I have so many. I really need to get baking!
Once I sorted through everything and decided what was staying and what was going, I organized the remaining food into categorical lines. One for breakfast foods, fruit, veggies, and meat. I just kept a few things in the freezer that we use regularly and the rest made it's way out to the chest freezer in the garage. Luckily I'm almost out of Christmas baking so I have one lonely Hamantashen cookie and one piece of Puffed Wheat Cake left (Those have long since been devoured). If you're trying to watch what you eat make sure to hide these bad boys behind the veggie or fruit lines. The farther you have to dig for them the less likely you are to eat them! In the door I store a few homemade squeeze pouches for Roman, a few stray popsicles, and all my herbs that I froze from my garden this year.
Now let's head out to the garage to tackle the real disaster! I always have great intentions when it comes to the organization of this freezer but it never seems to last long. If I'm in a rush things just get tossed in and then when I need to find something I have to rummage through it all and things get even more messed up. The solution? Diaper boxes! If you have kids then you have a ton of diaper boxes, unless you managed to use them all when wrapping Christmas presents. If you don't have diaper boxes, find a Mom, I guarantee she'll be more than happy to unload some on you! I managed to fit in three diaper boxes in the bottom of the freezer, one for meat, one for freezer meals and one for fruit/veggies/random items. Right now I don't have any meals in the freezer so this box is just holding some meat. In the space towards the front of the freezer I have all my bread items, and on the bench in the corner I have some peach crisps.
So where are all the cookies I shovel into my face? When presently all the good ones (in my opinion) have been eaten, but there is a bag of jam filled cookies hiding in this freezer. I try to hide my treats amongst the bread so they aren't as noticeable. Most of my trips out to this freezer are for meats and veggies for meals so by hiding the treats with the bread, I likely won't even seen them when I'm in the freezer! I also try to position them away from the loaves of bread since that's the most common bread item I pull from the freezer. Granted there is no stopping me when I really want a cookie. Those bad boys could be nailed to the ceiling and I'd find a way to get to them! Obviously Roman feels the same way as me because he couldn't contain himself when we found the peanut butter marshmallow squares. Oddly enough he also felt the same way about a package of frozen pork chops...
So there we have it, my freezers are organized! There is something so freeing and calming about a clean freezer. It's similar to the feeling you get after you clean out the junk drawer in your kitchen, like a weight has lift and the fog cleared. At least that's what it feels like to me. Now that I can see what I have in my freezer I think it's time to use some of these items up!
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