Is your freezer a graveyard?

Morning Glory

Morning Glory

Obsessive cook
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This post from @Herbie made me think about this. I'm completely disorganised when it comes to the freezer. I tuck things in when it looks like they might go past their 'sell by' date, forgetting to label them - or not exactly forgetting but more 'can't be bothered'. I have items which I have problems identifying unless I defrost and taste them! And I have some lovely ingredients which I can't bear to throw away but which have been there for over three years. Examples of the latter:

Shell-on large king prawn
A rack of lamb
Some venison

I only know they must have been there that long because they are in the original packaging. There are other 'mystery' items which have quite possibly been there much longer.

I could go on. What about you? Are you super organised with everything labelled including the date you put it in the freezer or is your freezer a graveyard for forgotten food?
 
The deep freeze was getting that way, sorry beginning to get that way, until we moved house. We then had to have a campaign of eating things that had been in the freezer, were now in the coolbox and were defrosting

There were one of two interesting meals in the first week after moving in. The curry sauce turned out to be tomato soup that hadn't been pureed yet. And the Thai green curry was exactly that. It wasn't the sauce we expected. It was a vegan Thai green curry I'd made back at Christmas only it proved too hot :)pepper:) to eat it in exceptionally hot :)heat:) weather, so we'd frozen the remaining 4 portions in 2 lots marking it up accordingly. When we got it out we just assumed I'd forgotten or simply run out of space to include the word sauce because usually I freeze the excess sauce and we add it to fresh veg at the time...

It isn't that I don't mark things up , I even date them :)angelic:), it's just we make assumptions at a later date :whistling:...
 
My wife is pretty religious about rotating things in the freezer and refrigerator. So we don't really have that problem. Occasionally something will slip by us though and we'll catch some leftovers that we had Frozen that have been there for a few years. Recently a container of spaghetti sauce
 
It can also depend on which TYPE of freezer that you like.

For my next one, I want to get a small upright one. I'm tired of digging to the bottom for stuff, as with a chest freezer!!

Some of those "graveyard" items can be used to make some fantastic decedent delectables, such as soups, stews & casseroles. Almost the same as if you did that with leftovers from the fridge. :wink:
 
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I find stuff in my chest freezer that I can't identify and don't know how it got there.
The only way to identify it is to thaw and cook.
Sometimes it works out OK but other times it ends in the bin.
 
Moving house is a really good way of emptying the deep freeze!
It's still empty. It's still turned off. I haven't had the hours in the day yet to clean it out inside, so for now it remains off! Oh well. It's a graveyard of types. It's now living in the garage. I can't see us visiting it anywhere near as often as we used to unless I can find it a home in the mud room.
 
Well, I don't roast whole turkeys any more, so why buy one? They take up a lot of room! So I buy turkey PARTS instead. I buy small roasts & whole small chickens. I also love a good steak now & then.

But I still need a 2nd freezer to help avoid the over crowding of the fridge's freezer. Especially now sine I make my own ice cream. :wink:
 
Something I remember with amusement is once in March finding a packet of chocolate digestive buiscuits in the freezer. Upon enquiring how they got there my wife recalled a hot day some two years earlier when, after returning from shopping, she decided that the buiscuits may have melted in the heat of the car so she put them in the freezer for a quick cool, and totally forgot about them.
 
SatNavSaysStraightOn said:
Moving house is a really good way of emptying the deep freeze!
Click to expand...
I was going to say that when you first posted it! Moving is also a great way to clean up clutter in the rest of your house. :whistling:

To be honest, I'm much more worried about things getting pushed to the back of the refrigerator, and finding them once they've evolved into a higher life form that wants to kill me. Usually, it's my vegetable drawers, which are always jammed full of all manner of things.

In my case, my freezer almost always has three uses:

1) The rest of my family eats frozen dinners and pizza and such. They eat some of the food I make now, but still rely on that for meals.
2) "Prep" storage for things I plan to make.
3) With the weather getting warmer, I'm going to make a frozen treat...this time, a granita or sorbet.

In the second category, I almost always have bags of beef, pork, or chicken that I've cut into chunks in preparation for grinding (for sausage and such). I almost always have a plan for these, so there aren't many surprises.

I also use freezer storage if there's a phenomenal deal on something I plan to make a lot of in the somewhat near-term. Sirloin was available for cheap at Kroger, so I bought a lot of it. I put some into the beef bourguignon I made earlier in the week, and some was ground to make burgers.

I also have some ginger that I ground and froze in tablespoon-sized portions (using a candy egg mold).
 
Master Cutler said:
Something I remember with amusement is once in March finding a packet of chocolate digestive buiscuits in the freezer. Upon enquiring how they got there my wife recalled a hot day some two years earlier when, after returning from shopping, she decided that the buiscuits may have melted in the heat of the car so she put them in the freezer for a quick cool, and totally forgot about them.
Click to expand...

:laugh: Did you defrost and eat them?
 
Master Cutler said:
Something I remember with amusement is once in March finding a packet of chocolate digestive buiscuits in the freezer. Upon enquiring how they got there my wife recalled a hot day some two years earlier when, after returning from shopping, she decided that the buiscuits may have melted in the heat of the car so she put them in the freezer for a quick cool, and totally forgot about them.
Click to expand...
at least it wasn't the car keys :whistling:
 
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