Ode to the deep freezer

When you turn 33 you ask for a deep freezer for your birthday.  Because you're just. that. cool.  But let me tell you something, I love our deep freezer.  Initially we wanted it to be able to freeze fruits and vegetables while they were in season to enjoy all year long.

But now it has also been a great tool for cost savings.  Often I will make a double batch of a recipe and store the second batch in the deep freezer for another meal. This saves because you are buying the ingredients in bulk and actually using the entire bunch of parsley or whatever.

I spent some time researching what freezes well and educated myself in understanding how long items are good once frozen.  Here is good resource if you are interested in doing so as well.

The trick too is to actually know what is in your deep freezer.  So back to the spreadsheet I went.  I have a spreadsheet on our computer and review it before I meal plan for the week.  The good Lord knows we aren't interested in a week full of frozen meals so I try to dedicate one dinner a night to using up items in the deep freezer.

The deep freezer also allows us to buy more in bulk.  We shop at Costco for bulk items and appreciate their options for organic and fair trade food (and Starbucks brewed Kirkwood coffee).  In case you cared the items I always buy bulk for the deep freezer are - organic chicken, chocolate chips, butter, whole bean coffee and bagels.

The last thing I will say about my love for the deep freezer is it allows us to not waste as much.  While there are five in our family - one is on breast milk and one is picky as all get out so often times the portions a recipe calls for can be too big for our family.  After we have it as a few rounds of leftovers we can always deep freeze the rest making us feel like good stewards of our resources.