Filling the Freezer - New Idea

I found a new idea about using magnets to indicate what's in the freezer. So, I got some of the business card magnets, cut them in half and added tags for everything in the freezer. To make it easier to find things, I used pictures and words on the tags and color-coded the letters (red for beef, blue for chicken/turkey, etc). There are multiples of each magnet depending on how many of that item is in the freezer.

Our check of the freezer inventory to make magnets let us know another cooking day is in the near future! Keep an eye on the blog for more info - I'm hoping to give a day-by-day plan of how we do it. This will be the first cooking day in our remodeled kitchen (more cabinets, more counter space and more floor space in the kitchen).

Filling the Freezer - Pictures (Part 7)

Isabelle helping out by feeding Elinor
Mike working hard
Lots of meals on the way
One of many loads of dishes for the day. You can see our new cabinets that my dad built for us on top. the new ones are in now and the floors are soon to follow.
Megan was also a big help.

An attempt to keep Elinor out of the kitchen

A failed attempt...

When she wanted in, I put her on my back and carried her around for a while. She eventually fell asleep while on my back so she stayed there for her nap.

Filling the Freezer - Packing the Freezer (Part 6)

Just getting started...

If you cook in the winter time, you can pre-cool (or pre-freeze, if you're lucky) the food before you put it in the freezer. In the summer time, you have to watch how fast meals are going in the freezer so you don't overload it too fast. Hard dishes (plastic and glass) stack better but take up more room. The container depends on the dish, but we use plastic freezer bags (get the One zip bags for easier filling, freezing, and thawing) for many things. When you put the bags in the freezer, lay them flat to freeze, then you can stand them up like books on the shelf.

Some other things to watch out for in the freezer

• If you have an upright freezer, make sure the food doesn't "sink" between the bars in the shelves and freezer around it.
• Clean out the freezer before you get started, ideally the week or two before you are planning your cooking day. Use up everything in there before you add new dishes.

Next (Part 7)

Filling the Freezer - Recipes (Part 2)

Here are the list of recipes from our December cooking day. Our portions are for a family of two adults and three young children. This cooking session left us with ~60 meals in the freezer plus a few side and breakfast items. To make a meal we add salad, fruit, and/or veggies.

• 3 - Barbecue pork
• 3 - Barbecue meatballs (purchased frozen meatballs and made the sauce)
• 3 - Lasagna
• 18 - Spaghetti sauce (~6 bags for spaghetti, the rest went into other recipes)
• 2 - Beef teriyaki
• 3 - Baked french toast
• 2 - Breakfast casserole
• 3 - Alfredo sauce
• 4 - Baked ziti
• 6- Stuffed shells
• 3 - Brocoli ham ring
• 3 - Sweet 'n sour kielbasa
• 4 - Jerk pork chops
• 3 - Buttermilk pecan chicken
• 3 - Nacho chicken
• 5 - Parsley parmesan chicken
• 2 - Roast sticky chicken
• 3 - Sante Fe chicken
• 3 - South Sea pineapple chicken
• 2 - Hash brown casserole
• 3 - Ravirolli sandwiches
• 6 - Taco chili

This more than fills up our deep freeze and our refrigerator freezer. We left a couple of meals in the refrigerator to have that week and we sent 5 meals to another family.

Next (Part 3)