Your Freezer, Your Friend

Hopefully you took full advantage of the great prices available on turkeys with Thanksgiving, you simply cannot beat 27 cents/lb. Any meat under $1/lb is a good deal but the turkey is great because you end up with so much food and a wide variety of ways to use the meat. Given that the holiday season is upon us and you may be cooking turkey again (or some other large chunk of meat) in the near future I thought I would remind you of the beauty of your freezer. Whether you have the stand alone kind or simply one portion of a fridge/freezer combo, it is a great ally in the quest for living large with less.

For you to become acquainted with your freezer it might mean that a thorough cleaning is in order. Take an hour and see what is hanging out in your freezer that should be tossed or perhaps there are large containers only partially full that could be condensed into smaller, more space efficient ones. When you have a little (or a lot) of space available you can start brainstorming all of the ways to use it. Here is a shortlist, by no means comprehensive of things I love to keep in my freezer:
- Turkey leftovers, of course!
- Turkey fixings, if you have side dish leftovers you can make another great meal in minutes down the road.
- Bread from the bakery outlets (Oroweat in my area), at 99cents/loaf I load up on bread and english muffins once/month. Keep frozen and take out only what you need.
- Costco size shredded cheese which I have downloaded into small ziplock baggies. One baggie is approx 2 cups of cheese. Simply remove a few hours before you need it.
- I am a huge fan of the Costco size tomatoes from S&W, equivalent to about (7) 14oz cans. Usually I am making several lasagnes at a time when I open a can so I don't need to worry about storing the rest. However, if I have tomatoes that I cannot use immediately after opening the large can I simply ladle them into ziplock baggies (approx 2 cups) and freeze them laying flat. Very space efficient way to go.
- I am a huge fan of dinner leftovers as my lunch, but often I want to wait a few days before seeing the same meal again. I use Tupperware soup cups for just about every kind of meal leftover storage, be it lasagne, chili or soup. I fill the container and freeze it, then remove the night before I want to eat it. This saves lunch money too, always a plus.

What do you love to keep in your freezer? Let us know if you have any great storage tips or bulk items that keep well in the freezer...or don't, we would want to know that too. The possibilities are endless and with a little planning your freezer can be a huge asset in the war on food prices and meal planning.