Shopping My Freezer This Week

my chest freezer "after"
foods I will need very soon (like Friday's pizza) are on top or in the hanging baskets on either side

While  I am putting a list together of what I want to stock up on before fall begins, I didn't go grocery shopping in a store this week. I've got enough milk and eggs to get through another 7-10 days.

I did, however, shop my freezers this week while I cleaned and organized them. I have a total of 4 freezer spaces, 2 fridge/freezers and 2 stand alone freezers (1 freezer is apartment size, the other is mid-sized). On Saturday I tackled the mid-sized deep freeze. Those with chest freezers understand the frustration of trying to find anything when the freezer is full. I routinely pull everything out, putting items on the garage floor while I search for that one needed item. 

under the pizza, my daughter's ready-meals
they had been scattered, I put them all in one box

Having had it with the frustration, I set out to organize that freezer first. I once read about a clever lady who used milk crates in her chest freezer to help keep it organized. I don't have any milk crates, but I do have lots of cardboard shipping boxes in all sizes. So, I used cardboard boxes to corral specific categories of foods. I have 2 boxes for meat, 1 for frozen vegetables, and 1 each for my daughters. My daughters sometimes buy or make foods for themselves to help themselves put together quick lunches. These individually packaged homemade foods tend to get jumbled in with the rest of the family's frozen foods. Separating them into boxes for each daughter will help them find what they want and remind them to use up the foods they already have before buying or making more.

to the left of the ready-meals is a box of frozen vegetables, easy to get to
we had 2 open bags of peas and 3 open bags of broccoli -- a pet peeve of mine to have numerous open packages of the same food

I also went through everything in the kitchen freezer this week. This is the least organized of my freezer spaces. All of the little tidbits end up in this freezer. And again, my daughters had a bunch of their own foods in it. I again, sorted out their foods and put them into small boxes for each of them. I also combined items with like ones as I found them. I had a couple of containers of frozen bananas for banana bread. I put them all into one container. I found bread crumbs and a square of cornbread. I combined those to use together when I make bread stuffing again. And I had a bunch of different types of meat fat in separate containers. I combined those into 2 containers. We'll just have to be less picky about type of meat fat used when cooking. I found a bag of marshmallows (I have no idea why we froze those) and two freezer bags with whipped cream. This stuff looks a little old, but I will try to salvage it in something.

the bottom of the freezer -- a box of meat (in the flour bag and other bag), some jugs of milk, and a bag of ice packs

I said I've been shopping my freezers. I found so many foods that were prepped and ready to throw together with other items. Foods like sliced cooked ham and turkey, refried beans, cooked rice, diced fruit, ice cream, cooked dry beans, and many others. I even found some shredded mozzarella cheese, something I was really needing for our Friday pizzas. I still have two more freezers to go. Even so, after organizing these first 2 freezer spaces, I have plenty to work with for meals and snacks, so much so I really haven't needed to go to the store for any shopping.

In addition to not spending new money at the store, organizing my freezer spaces means I am not wasting the money already spent on food. There is no savings in a freezer full of food that is never eaten.

Aw -- Children Grow Up So Quickly

It seems like just two weeks ago they were babies. Um, that's because they were.

My feathered babies have grown up and left the nest. But here's a photo of them just two days before leaving. The photo is dark, taken from indoors looking through the window at the basket. The birds are in silhouette, with the mother bird in the center and two of her four chicks reaching up for a tasty bite of a worm on either side.

I'm sad that they're now gone. They left a nest dug into the soil inside the basket. I'll have to remove the nest and clean up the soil before replanting that basket. 

What a joyful stretch of days we've had with our bird friends!