Roxanne asked:
I really expected to see a freezer in one of your pictures. You always post about having pizza crusts, meat, muffins, and all sorts of things in your freezer. I wonder how you have room for all that if you don't have a stand alone freezer?
Hi, Roxanne!
First, remember that we are a small family (2 adults and 2 children eating!) so a "month's supply" of meatballs, pepperoni, etc. is less for our family than for a larger family, or a family with more adult eaters. :)
My freezer (on top of the fridge) is usually quite full. I keep it well-organized and stocked with things we will actually use/eat, so no space is wasted. :)
Our beef is all cooked and vacuum sealed (like taco meat, meatballs, meat for casseroles, etc.) which saves a lot of space. :) I also have cooked cubed chicken meat which is vacuum sealed (leftover meat from roasted chickens).
I can't usually fit more than 1 or 2 whole chickens in the freezer, so when I buy a new one, I take one out and put it in the fridge to thaw. :)
I do like to have some baked goods like cookies, muffins or banana bread in the freezer for Joshua's lunches. I stack the food neatly into bags and suck out the extra air. I still don't usually have more than a 2-week supply of that sort of thing in the freezer though. :)
The pizza crusts -- well, a couple of years ago we used this pizza recipe that involved a pre-baked crust [0], and I would keep 1 or 2 of those in the freezer. Then, we discovered this easy pizza method, and have been doing that ever since! It's still pretty quick, and we like the crust better. :)
Frozen pie dough, chicken broth, cooked (from dried) beans, and things like that are not regular staples of my freezer, but when I have extras of those things, I freeze them until I need them -- they don't all take up space in there simultaneously though. :)
In my freezer I also keep some nuts, 1 small tray of ice (we don't use much ice at all, as we almost always drink plain water that is at room temperature!), some dry yeast, and blocks of cheese from recent sales (blocks of cheese stack better than bags of shredded!). I also fit in as many frozen peas and other vegetables as possible.
When I said my freezer was well-organized and packed, I meant it... when taken out, the food is a huge pile on our kitchen table!! I have learned how to make the most of every inch.
And yes... at the grocery store we do sometimes choose to buy chicken or veggies and not the ice cream since we wouldn't have room for it. I think having a relatively small amount of freezer space makes me prioritize (veggies over ice cream) and think creatively (I try to dehydrate or can things when possible rather than freezing), and so far, it's been great. :) Perhaps someday with a huge garden and lots of mouths to feed, I will need a larger freezer -- but until it will save me money, I'll wait. :)
I store my cheese in the door of the freezer. I have quite a stockpile right now from the last time Kroger's had a sale. We bought a Kroger gift card because they were running a special promotion -- we paid $300 for the card, and it had $330 put on it to use. That very same day, we bought about $100 of beef that was on sale (to put in the freezer).