Freezer Series Principle #2: Please Be Kind...

Pressing onward friends...How is your freezer quest coming along?  This is about the time it starts to get a little old, because emptying a freezer takes time, and maybe a few meals that you don't necessarily love, and maybe some meals that are, how shall we say...a little unusual.

Well today let's chat about actual freezer cleaning.  But first...a few pictures, and a few principles I've been extracting from this process.

Freezer Principle #2:  Be Nice to Yourself.

So, here's the thing.  I have three freezers.  One in the house fridge, one in a little fridge I have in the garage, and one small chest freezer.  The general plan is that I keep stuff I use all the time in the house freezer (berries, nuts, frozen packages of veggies, and all those little containers of leftovers I'm going to use up "someday".  The garage fridge freezer is for prepared freezer meals I can stack, and meat stocks and broths.  The deep freeze is for bulk stuff, like bulk beef and meat purchases, and bulk preserved items, like all those tomatoes and peppers I froze in the fall.

Now the easiest part of all this usually gets done first:  eating up freezer meals that were ready to go, and using up some bulk items (tomatoes, turkey breast, etc.) and now it's getting down to some things where I have to decide "is this worth keeping and using up" and if I decide it is, I need to make a plan and actually use it, today or tomorrow...and if not, I need to bite the bullet and throw it away.

That's where it's easy to fall into the thought pattern of "Oh, I'll just hang onto it, and someday I'll do something with it".  These are things like huge Costco-size bags of stuff that you were sure would end up saving you a ton of money, but you never made a plan to use them, and now they are a. expired, b.freezer burned, or c. a burden--you don't want to mess with them anymore. 

Prime example:  today I had to throw out a 3 lb bag of almonds, unopened.  I bought them at Costco a LONG time ago and planned to soak and dehydrate them for snacking, but shortly after that I found out that almonds were the things that were causing my throat to swell up so tight that I felt like I was breathing through a coffee stir straw!  I should have given them away, but instead I thought, "oh well I will still soak and dehydrate them for my family...", but did I?  No.  After a while they got lost, buried and forgotten about, until they became expired and too old to be of any use.  And there are lots of old packages of beef bones that come with our 1/4 beef purchases.  Oh yeah, I always think I'm going to get right on making those into beef stock...but do I?  Mmmm, not usually.  And now they are too old, so gotta toss 'em.  That's a gem I hate to waste, but often do.

So.  There are lots of things like that.  You know what?  That happens.  Don't mess around saying "oh I wish I had...", or "maybe later I will...".  Just toss them.  Yes, it's like throwing $ into the garbage, and yes, it's wasteful, but it's over and done with; don't be burdened by those things any longer.  Toss 'em.  Forgive yourself.  It's o.k., I promise.  That happens to everyone. Give yourself the same grace you give others.  Be kind to yourself, ok?  If it makes you feel any better I'll show you my pile of stuff that got tossed today. 

 

You can't see the almonds because they are buried, but you can see the leftover Halloween candy...who needs that?!?!  Why in the world would I have even kept it?  Or even bought it in the first place?  Next year any kids that come to my house are getting pencils or crayons.  And the ice cream?....ay yi yi!  That was from New Years Eve.  It definitely does not need to hang around here any longer.  The Udi's buns?  Well those are just a loss friends.  I'm not sure why we even have those...if we eat GF buns we always buy from a somewhat "local" bakery (in our home state); we must've bought these Udi's buns ages ago.  Lots of bits and pieces...leftover tomato paste, a bit of freezer burned peas in the bottom of the bag.  Yeah...a few errors in judgement reflected here.  But I'm not beating myself up...just movin' on folks.  

 

Good-bye garbage.  Hello clean freezer.



The top shelf items are bits and pieces that are still good, and they are going into a chicken fiesta soup tomorrow.  The third shelf is berries and nuts that are going to be made into baked berries (a recipe that looks scrumptious from book I have called "From Scratch" by Shaye Elliot...it involves just berries, honey, and nuts).

So after this weekend, we should have one freezer that is nearly empty, and ready to re-load with READY TO GO items (please see my previous post for Principle #1).

This freezer is frost free, so I just wipe it down when it gets dirty, no need to defrost.  However my chest freezer needs de-frosting and cleaning about once or twice a year, so I will link for you some great directions I found on Martha Stewart's website:  HERE ya go.  You can clean your freezer with baking soda dissolved in hot water (2 T. baking soda to 1 qt warm water), rinse with clean water, dry and you're good to go.

Meet you back here later for more than you ever wanted to know about your freezer and mine!