Start Your Year With This Deep and Sensual Freezer Redesign
No matter how much money you have, you will find a way to spend it. The same principle applies to the freezer space. And of course the packaged freezer works better, but that’s not why I’m looking at the impenetrable wall of frozen riddles. Like most people, my freezer is the graveyard of my kitchen.
In the past, I had a small ship that was known to run a real table of frozen goods, ordered by shelves. But like so many other things in this world, the pandemic killed me, packing extra goods with every trip to the store “just in case.” But as we get closer to our two-year milestone, some of my stores are coming to an end, and to be honest, I’m just tired of living with mysterious meat.
Is organizing a freezer sexy? Sandy loam. It will also save you tons of money and help you figure out what’s next week.
When it comes to freezers, I have real champagne problems not only with your standard kitchen fridge / freezer, but also with the extra freezer tucked away in the garage. However, I would say that having an organized refrigerator is even more important if you are working with the small space provided by an average kitchen refrigerator. So let’s get started. Here are your tools:
- Transparent packing tape
- Sharpie
- Gallon Ziplocks or Vacuum Sealer
- Paper notebook
- White duct tape
- Frog ribbon
Start by emptying your chest
Start by simply pouring the water from the freezer onto the rack. This sounds simpler than it could be: some packages may be frozen together, or you may find that something in the freezer has leaked or exploded and covered most of your frozen supplies with a layer of sticky orange juice. Both problems have the same solution: wash them off with cold water. The water will dissolve the stick enough so that you can break the frozen packages by throwing them in the sink.
Once you have everything set up, start by organizing the things you’ll learn into four groups:
- Meat / seafood
- Fruits vegetables
- Additional ingredients meaning whatever you threw in the freezer for storage: butter, egg roll wrappers, extra pie dough, pesto you make every summer but never use, etc.
- Frozen meals / whatever is ready to eat
Sweep and discard any of these items that are burnt in the freezer, over-frozen, or expired. Seriously, you never use a half-empty frozen bag of corn. Leftover cookie dough that you packed last year? It’s now food for worms.
Take a look at the remaining items. Can any packages be combined into smaller packages? Are the bags still sealed? Is everything labeled correctly? Take time to repack, seal, and re-label. The marker does a great job with fresh bags, but for frozen bags, use a strip of paper, write down what’s in the bag, then laminate it with tape and place it in a sealed bag. Don’t just write what the item is – put in the date. Do not try to use a sharp knife directly on containers, it will wear off or freeze. This is why we have the frog ribbon.
Now make a list of what is written on your notebook. (Three bags of peaches, four frozen steaks, one pound of chicken wings, etc.)
Find out what’s left in your freezer
Examine what is left – what you cannot understand what it is. Here we are relying on some conclusion.
First, rinse the bags or containers with enough cold water to remove the ice. This can help reveal what is underneath. If you’re still unsure what you’re looking at, try defrosting a small piece if possible. I’m famous for tossing liters of unlabelled broth in the freezer, but you can spoon burrow in, cook a small portion in the microwave and solve the riddle. (Oh, duck fat. I knew you were there somewhere.)
If it is meat, you can cut off a small piece with a decently heavy chef’s knife and do the same. If you have a cryptic casserole or piece of dough, saw off the piece and place in the microwave. Once you figure it out, tag it, package it, add it to the list, and change the category.
If after all this you are still stumped, and nothing else but defrosting can reveal the secret, then it is time to do just that. It’s not like you’re ever going to use it if you don’t know what it is. Defrost the suction cup and use it tonight or tomorrow. Do not re-freeze meat or dairy products unless you have gone through a cook cycle. For example, if you defrost a steak and then make something from that steak, you can freeze the result. During the defrost and re-freeze cycle, everything loses its flavor.
It’s time to restart your freezer. First clean the empty freezer compartment with hot rags. If there are cracks in the plastic, cover them with white duct tape. Make sure you clean the rubber seals really well, because this is what really makes your freezer work – being able to get a good seal. If the freezer is off, take the time to order a new one from the hardware store. They are easy to replace.
Then download again. Create zones if you can, following these categories: frozen meals, meat / seafood, fruits / vegetables, and foreign objects. It seems that extraneous things always fit into the door.
Organize your freezer with a spreadsheet
If you have an extra freezer, consider which one you use each for. For me, my tiny freezer is for staging things that I use very often or intend to use. The garage freezer is designed for bulk and long-term storage. When I go to the grocery store, I load a bag of what I brought home, take it to the freezer in the garage, and supply the internal freezer with what I’m going to use this week.
Take your compiled list of everything in your freezer and upload it to Google Sheets. Use this chart to shop every week. (How often did you buy something that was already in the freezer or let something go bad in the freezer? How many nights do you wonder what the hell you want to eat?) Start with a table to figure out what is already there in your house. It will also help you shop for less.
Is a spreadsheet in the freezer a little? Maybe, but think about this: you are in the supermarket and you find yourself getting inspired to make stuffed shells since the pasta is already on sale. You reach for the ricotta but think you put some in the freezer a few months ago and you’re not entirely sure. You take out your phone, check the sheet and confirm. (Did you just get hit with oxytocin? Because I did it.)