Food You Freeze - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

snowy · 02-06-2011, 08:15 AM

So, I am pretty frugal when it comes to food. We frequently cook from scratch around here and try our best to make our food go as far as it can. Thus, my freezer frequently comes into play, and I'd like to start a thread aimed at sharing food you can freeze--not just meals, but other things you can freeze in the interest of making the food last longer, or in the interest of reusing something for another purpose later.

Take stock. And no, Eden, I'm NOT getting into this debate again :P If I have clean trimmings from vegetables, I throw them in a zip-top gallon bag in my freezer. I save all my trimmings until I have enough to make stock. I then take the stock, pour it into clean quart containers (quart-size yogurt containers and salsa containers work GREAT for this), and freeze it.

Tomatoes. We had a surfeit of tomatoes this summer, and late too. There were too many to can in a timely manner, so I packed four quarts of stewed tomatoes into freezer containers.

Beans. Whenever I make beans from dried, I make extra and pack a quart or so of beans in the freezer. Supposedly this affects the texture, but I haven't had any problems with them. So what if they're a little more tender and prone to falling apart? If the beans are going into a soup where you want them to fall apart a bit, this is perfect--same with doing refried beans.

Soup. Extra soup always goes into the freezer, in two different size containers: a small one for an individual serving, and a quart for another dinner.

Stale bread. I freeze stale bread to reuse it in other things. Stale bread should be used fairly quickly, or else it starts getting a freezer-y taste.

Cheese. I freeze mozzarella cheese, in particular. We buy big blocks of it at the store, and don't always get around to using the second half in a timely manner, so I started freezing it. I discovered that this works really well, especially if you are going to shred the cheese. Freezing actually makes the cheese easier to shred with my KitchenAid shredder attachment.

I'd like to freeze lasagnas, but my freezer is stuffed with enough food already. I don't have room to freeze a whole lasagna. Maybe I will after my first anniversary--the top tier of my wedding cake is taking up a lot of room!

Alton Brown covers some more stuff you can freeze in this episode of Good Eats:

Part 1:

Part 2:

So what do you freeze? What would you like to freeze?

bparker805 · 02-06-2011, 08:22 AM

This may be a no brainer, but I watch the stores for sales for pork chops or boneless skinless chicken breasts. When I get them home, I clean and prep for the freezer. But I package them up in freezer bags in meal size portions so I only have to defrost what I need.

noodle · 02-06-2011, 08:23 AM

I've frozen lasagne and it works well if I remember to spoon extra sauce into the bottom of the container prior to portioning it out. I also stick a layer of tin foil under the lid of the container because pasta tends to dry out a lot in our freezers in the South.

I freeze almost any kind of liquids that I use in cooking, broths, buttermilk, milk, apple cider, teas, etc. We always have chili and at least one other kind of soup in there. Most of everything is portioned in single servings or measured out for recipes. Something about the freezers I've lived with did not do well with bread. Everything we freeze that is not in containers gets wrapped in plastic wrap, then tin foil then in a freezer bag because of freezer burn that tends to hit with a vengance.

Oh, I looked again... I also have the non-vegan, tequila-lime cream cheese icing for the vegan margarita cupcakes I made over the summer. And some cookies. Of various kinds.

Willravel · 02-06-2011, 11:23 AM

Excellent topic, Snowy!

I have to admit that I don't use my freezer as much as I probably could (or should). I do freeze meats, and I buy frozen vegetables and fruit. I had no idea you could freeze cheeses. What kind of shelf life does frozen cheese have?

amonkie · 02-06-2011, 12:03 PM

Question - what does the frozen bread get reused for?

snowy · 02-06-2011, 12:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by amonkie

Question - what does the frozen bread get reused for?

Bread puddings (sweet or savory), panades, etc.

Noodle, I've been meaning to pick up some Dixie cups at the store, because one of the suggestions I recently read in Cook's Illustrated was to freeze pre-measured buttermilk in Dixie cups, then once frozen, put the buttermilk in a zip-top bag (ala pesto in an ice cube tray).

And will: I recently shredded up a block of cheese that was about four months old for pizzas--it was perfectly fine, and had no freezery taste. I wrapped it pretty well in plastic and then put it in a zip-top bag.

LordEden · 02-06-2011, 01:34 PM

Snowy, I swear one day I will start that debate thread about stock. I will win too

.

I do like to buy whole pork loins and break the down into one meal portions.

Speaking of stock, if you make beef/chicken stock and reduce it (say to make demi-stock), freezing it into a ice cube tray will make single pan portions that are great for making really savory sauces later on. We did that at some resturants I worked at.

Cheese wise... I've frozen them for a few weeks, beyond that they get freezer burn and start to loose flavor. I've never keep a block frozen for more than 2 weeks.

Now that I've been working on homemade doughs, I've been wanting to do homemade hot pockets. Make the dough and the filling, make 7-8 of them and freeze them. Then microwave them for a minute and then pop them in the toaster oven to crisp them. Quick, easy, microwaveable goodness without 70% of your daily sodium intake in one meal. Going to try this with homemade pizzas, calzones, and anything else that will be easy for Cinn to microwave on the go.

Pizza dough also is great to freeze.

This winter will be freezer paradise for me, I'm going to start killing tasty animals that frolic in the woods. Freezer full of deer and rabbit, which means no meat bought at the store.

snowy · 02-06-2011, 02:29 PM

In my experience, the cheese does not get freezer burn if you wrap it correctly.

Further, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension says you can freeze cheese for up to 4-6 mos. without problems, and given my experience, I'd say that's about right.
Common Food Questions and Answers from Cook it Quick, UNL Extension

Quote:

Hard or semi-hard cheese can be frozen if cut in 1/2 to 1-pound blocks. Wrap in plastic wrap and then put in freezer bags. After freezing, cheese may become crumbly and mealy, but, it will retain its flavor. It works best for cooking.

Plan to use frozen cheese within 4 to 6 months. Thaw cheese in the refrigerator. Use soon after thawing.

The cheeses that freeze best are:
Brick
Camembert
Cheddar
Edam
Mozzarella
Muenster
Parmesan
Provolone
Romano
Swiss

Blue cheeses are more prone to becoming crumbly but they'll still taste good.

The link also has a bunch of great advice on freezing other stuff.

Here's a link to a PDF from the Oregon State Extension on freezing your own fruits and vegetables:
http://extension.oregonstate.edu/cat...pnw/pnw214.pdf

jewels · 02-06-2011, 03:23 PM

I freeze the same stuff as you, snowy, and just about anything else. Except the cheese. I'm skeered 'cause my mother used to bring cream cheese and bagels on Sundays and she'd bring it frozen so it would defrost on the way, and I have memories of watery cheese. But being that you've done it, I may just try it.

Sometimes I'll marinate meats in freezer bags if I buy them on sale so they're marinating as they defrost in the fridge. When strawberries, kiwi and mangoes are in season, I slice them and freeze for snacks or smoothies.

Charlatan · 02-06-2011, 03:53 PM

We used to freeze quite a bit when we lived in Canada. We had a chest freezer in the basement, in addition to the one attached to our North American-sized fridge. The thing about living outside of North America, is that fridges are a lot smaller. I have found this in the UK, France and here. The fridge I have now, I am told, is "big". But to my eyes, it's tiny compared to a standard fridge in Toronto.

In other words, I have very limited space in my fridge let alone my very small freezer. I use it to do more shopping fresh.

That said, most Friday nights are pizza night. We tend to make extra dough and freeze it. Other than that, I don't have space to make extra batches for the freezer. When I make extra food, it us used for lunches.

snowy · 02-06-2011, 07:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jewels

I freeze the same stuff as you, snowy, and just about anything else. Except the cheese. I'm skeered 'cause my mother used to bring cream cheese and bagels on Sundays and she'd bring it frozen so it would defrost on the way, and I have memories of watery cheese. But being that you've done it, I may just try it.

Sometimes I'll marinate meats in freezer bags if I buy them on sale so they're marinating as they defrost in the fridge. When strawberries, kiwi and mangoes are in season, I slice them and freeze for snacks or smoothies.

Cream cheese is the one thing the UNL extension does not recommend freezing.

Starkizzer · 02-06-2011, 07:53 PM

Part if the reason food gets freezer burn is due to melting and refreezing and too much head space. Snowy is right about proper wrapping this will reduce your head space . My parents used to buy the giant blocks from Costco and they would last just fine for months at a time. They also stored them in the big freezer in the garage, the kind that lock. They would keep mostly long term freezer items in there. This helped with the other cause of freezer burn, the thawing and re-freezing. The more you open a freezer the more likely you are to get freezer burn due to this.

Every time you open the door to get ice, chicken for tonights dinner, etc, you are raising the temp inside the ice box causing things to warm up. You would be surprised how much this will affect food.

We look for sales on berries and freeze those to use later for, well anything. Overly ripened bananas get saved for banana bread. Frozen bread can also be used to make croutons since freezing will draw out more moisture. We buy two things of bagels from Costco and freeze one and thaw it when we need it.

Loads of stuff can be frozen, some of it will just determine what you can make with it once its thawed.

Grasshopper Green · 02-07-2011, 01:26 PM

In addition to the previously mentioned soups and bread, I usually freeze breakfast sausage as well. I clip coupons and they usually require you to purchase 2 - so I'll use one before the expiration date and freeze the other.

We also freeze home made waffles - we double the recipe when we make them and pop them in the toaster like an Eggo.

bagatelle · 02-08-2011, 03:27 AM

It would be best for the freezer and the food, if you could use one big freezer and open it rarely, just take what you need for the week to a smaller freezing unit. We currently only have one stand-alone freezer, the door gets opened almost daily.

We have homemade juice concentrates and berries frozen, ice cream of course and the meats. I freeze them in their own packages, which takes more space, I should put them in bags really.

We have dough and pastry there. I also freeze most of the bread.

snowy · 02-08-2011, 07:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Starkizzer

Part if the reason food gets freezer burn is due to melting and refreezing and too much head space.

Also, one tip to keep in mind when freezing beans and fruits in syrup: the liquid will shrink, so be sure to leave plenty of liquid on top, and only a bit of headspace. I had to throw out a bunch of rhubarb in syrup my in-laws gave us this year because they did not follow these rules. The syrup shrunk down and exposed the rhubarb to nasty freezer burn.

And I also freeze extra bananas, to the point that my old roommate still ribs me about making banana bread.

Starkizzer · 02-08-2011, 11:30 AM

^ This will depend greatly on the ratio or amount of sugar to water you have in the syrup. The more water a liquid has, the more likely it is to expand. Due to the formation of large ice crystals that form when slow freezing (which is what will happen in all home freezing cases, unless you have a rapid chiller) the space needed actually increases. Any one who has overfilled a water bottle and then frozen it will know this.

If you have enough sugar or salt in your liquid it will cause it not to freeze.

Snowy, you have caused to me to open my Food Chemistry up and refresh on why some water-solute solutions behave differently when freezing and don't always expand.

Sugar can cause tighter hydrogen-hydrogen bonding than with normal water-water bonds. This is the reason some syrups may shrink. (Least scientific explanation)

Nifty link I found for freezing fruits:
http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/foodnut/09331.html

snowy · 02-14-2011, 11:38 AM

Awesome link, star! Thanks for sharing. I gotta say, hooray for extension services. I don't know how I'd get along without them.

snowy · 05-18-2011, 06:48 AM

A piece I found about cooking and freezing lentils:

from: How (And Why) To Cook And Freeze Large Batches Of Lentils | Healthy Eating Tips - Upgrade Your Healthstyle | Summer Tomato

Quote:

Healthy eating is important, but for most people (myself included) there are two factors that will almost always trump your best intentions to eat well: taste and time.

In the long run you will not win a battle of wills against your taste buds, and if you think about it you probably don’t even want to. If you hope to build long-term healthy eating habits I suggest focusing your efforts on making the food you cook at home taste as good or better than your default, less healthy alternatives.

Convenience is also a big factor in our daily food decisions. Time is one of our most precious resources, and although I recommend eating slowly I am a big advocate of cooking simply and quickly. In fact, one of the reasons I most often decide to cook at home is that making my own food is much quicker than visiting even the closest taqueria. It is also healthier and cheaper.

On a typical weeknight, I sit down to dinner 15-20 minutes after walking in the door. Granted, I usually cook for just myself, but doubling my recipes is fairly easily and doesn’t cost much in time.

This kind of efficiency does require a bit of planning, however. My meals are typically composed of a big pile of vegetables and either beans, lentils, eggs, fish, intact whole grains, or some combination of these. Half the battle is being sure these things are in your home when you need them.

My fridge is always stocked with fresh vegetables and herbs from my weekly farmers market trip. I also usually set aside a little time each week to cook a large batch of either beans or lentils, which are among my absolute favorite foods for adding substance, texture and a world of flavor to dishes.

I’ve written before about how I make beans using a pressure cooker, but today I want to focus on lentils. Lentils are smaller and more delicate than most beans. As a result, they cook faster and don’t require as much culinary foresight (beans require an overnight soak, while lentils do not).

There are many varieties of lentils. Some are more firm and keep their shape after cooking, making them ideal for adding to stir fries and salads. They can also be used as a substitute for or addition to grain dishes. Examples of firm lentils are French green, black beluga and the most common Spanish brown varieties.

Yellow, red and orange lentils are even smaller and more delicate, which causes them to fall apart and turn to liquid during cooking. These lentils are common ingredients in soups, stews and Indian food.

Because I frequently use lentils as a last minute addition to vegetable dishes to make them more substantial, I have worked to optimize the cooking and storage for a few of the firm varieties. My preference is for the French green and black beluga, but since black lentils are harder to find I performed my experiments exclusively on the green and brown varieties.

My goal was to find the optimal cooking time and the best freezing methods for lentils. Specifically I was hoping to find a convenient method of freezing individual servings that could be stored indefinitely and used within minutes at any time, similar to my method of freezing brown rice.

Traditionally I cook lentils on the stove top in a regular covered sauce pan, but this time I also tried the pressure cooker to see if it could reduce cooking time. In each of my experiments I used 1 cup of dry lentils and 6 cups of water with salt. I added the lentils to a pot of cold water and started my timer when the pot hit the flame.

When preparing lentils, always be sure to rinse them and check for small pebbles before cooking. I do this by slowly pouring my dry lentils into a fine mesh strainer (while checking for pebbles), then rinsing them under the faucet for 30 seconds or so.

A few things surprised me during my experiments. The first is that French green lentils have a much more robust, complex flavor than brown lentils, which have a more subtle flavor and creamier texture. Brown lentils also retained more water and didn’t hold their shape quite as well as the green lentils, and took substantially longer to cook. For these reasons, I strongly preferred the green lentils in my experiments, though I would happily use brown lentils in a hearty stew or as a bed for meat or poultry.

Additionally, because brown lentils didn’t hold their shape as well, I was unable to freeze them in individual plastic wrapped servings like rice. However this method worked wonderfully for green lentils.

As you might expect, my success at freezing lentils in plastic wrap depended on how much liquid I could remove from them before freezing.

For best results, strain lentils very well using a fine meshed strainer before wrapping in individual servings. Carefully place 1/2 cup of lentils in the center of a square of plastic. Fold two opposite edges over the lentils, twist the ends and tie them in a half knot at the top, trying to avoid folding plastic into the lentil ball. To use, run the frozen ball under warm (not hot) water until you can untie the knot. Place lentils in a bowl and microwave 2-3 minutes. Stir with a fork and use.

Both brown and green lentils also froze well in plastic tupper containers. If you know you will be using lentils regularly, you can split a batch you prepare into two or more containers, keep one in the fridge for use and freeze the others. When you are ready, transfer your frozen lentils from the freezer to the fridge the day before you want to use them. Alternatively you could freeze them in Pyrex or glass containers and simply microwave when you want to use them.

I was also curious if a pressure cooker could reduce the time necessary to prepare lentils. For beans a pressure cooker provides an obvious advantage, since on a stove top they can take hours to cook thoroughly. But lentils take only 30-40 min and do not require pre-soaking as beans do. Boiling lentils requires very little attention (make the rest of your food while they cook) and cleanup is easier, so I was curious if there would still be a time advantage using a pressure cooker.

I got different results for the different varieties. For green lentils the pressure cooker did not provide much of an advantage over regular boiling. I found the optimal pressure cooker time for green lentils to be 5-6 minutes, but it takes about 15 minutes for it to pressurize (could maybe be reduced with less water) and another 5 for depressurizing after cooking. Given the extra cleanup/hassle of using the pressure cooker over a sauce pan, the 35 minutes it took to boil the same amount of lentils feels like a better deal.

Another advantage of not using the pressure cooker for green lentils is it’s possible to check the texture as they cook. With the pressure cooker I found it was easy to undercook or overcook the lentils, and the time window was very narrow. This is not ideal if you want the lentils to keep their shape for freezing.

On the other hand, the time advantage gained by using a pressure cooker for the bigger brown lentils was substantial. Brown lentils cooked completely in 7-8 minutes in the pressure cooker, bringing the total cook time to under 30 minutes. However it took well over 45 minutes for them to soften up with boiling alone.

Though I didn’t test them in these experiments, my experience with red and yellow lentils is that they cook in a pressure cooker in about 4 minutes, much faster than simply boiling. This substantially cuts the amount of time it takes to cook with them.

Summary

French green lentils were my favorite for flavor, ease of cooking and storage. They are easiest to prepare by boiling with salt in a regular covered sauce pan for approximately 35 minutes. If well strained, they freeze beautifully in either individually wrapped balls or in a tupper. They can be kept 4-5 days in a sealed container in the refrigerator.

Brown lentils take longer to cook and time is saved by using a pressure cooker. These lentils can be frozen, but do better in a large solid container than in individually wrapped servings.

Either variety stores well in the freezer and has the potential to substantially cut down on daily cooking times when prepared in large batches and used repeatedly.

Lindy · 05-18-2011, 06:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bagatelle

It would be best for the freezer and the food, if you could use one big freezer and open it rarely, just take what you need for the week to a smaller freezing unit. We currently only have one stand-alone freezer, the door gets opened almost daily.

We have homemade juice concentrates and berries frozen, ice cream of course and the meats. I freeze them in their own packages, which takes more space, I should put them in bags really.

We have dough and pastry there. I also freeze most of the bread.

Most of what is in my freezer is meat and fish.
And bird seed. The cold kills the little moth larvae.

If I have extra space in the freezer I fill it with milk bottles full of water. Once it is frozen the thermal mass helps keep the temp stable when the door gets opened and closed, or when food (not frozen yet) is put in.

Lindy

snowy · 06-05-2011, 06:34 PM

I found this piece in the Oregonian about making your own freezer burritos:
For convenience and savings, make your own frozen burritos | OregonLive.com

Quote:

Frozen burritos, are more often than not, pretty sad affairs. They meet the basic definition of food, but really, you're not tossing them in the microwave because they're good for you (or even, really, good at all).

Frozen burritos charms are these: They're cheap, can be eaten with one hand and are at the ready when you don't have time to cook.

But recently I learned of frozen burritos that are budget-friendly, convenient, and packed full of flavorful ingredients and fresh, healthy vegetables. You just have to set aside a little time to make them yourself.

Every few months, Brian Granse devotes a few hours to preparing a mass batch of these burritos (the recipe below yields 20), which he and his fiancé can grab from the freezer whenever they need. Prepping, cooking and rolling up an army of burritos definitely takes some time -- Granse can usually do it in a couple of hours -- but the time investment pays off throughout the month.

Granse developed this unapologetically inauthentic burrito to satisfy a few criteria.

Recipes included with this story: Vegetable-heavy Freezer Burritos.

First off was convenience -- as a full-time teaching assistant and part-time student, Granse wanted a good-for-you meal that could be grabbed in the morning and eaten on the go during the day. Using a small size of tortillas (versus the larger "burrito" size) yields a traditional freezer-friendly burrito that reheats in the microwave in just a couple of minutes.

Health was another motivating factor.

Yes, you're not likely to find kale, broccoli or sweet potatoes folded inside any burrito in Mexico. But they're nonetheless delicious. "I never even tasted kale before I moved to Oregon," Granse admitted, but now he sneaks the dark leafy green into meals every week.

Fresh vegetables do take some time to wash, peel, chop and cook, so prepping en masse ensures a veg-heavy meal at the ready even when you're feeling lazy.

Price was also important, especially on a student budget.

Yes, you can find frozen burritos on the cheap in most grocery stores. But if you're looking to eat healthy, the options are fairly limited. And expensive. Even using all organic ingredients (with the exception of a brick of too-good-to-be-resisted local Tillamook cheddar), Granse's burritos still clock in at under $1.50 apiece.

But convenient, healthy and cheap only go so far.

Ultimately, we cook something because it tastes good. And these burritos don't disappoint. They have a clean, fresh flavor, even after a stint in the freezer.

Sautéed onions, potatoes and sweet potatoes provide a bit of depth, beans give a satisfying shot of protein, fresh vegetables and cilantro bring on the green, and a generous sprinkling of cheddar pulls it together. Add a shot of hot sauce, and you just might not ever hit the taco truck again.

Recipe for Veg-Heavy Freezer Burritos:

Ingredients
Olive oil
2 medium yellow onions, cut into 1/4-inch dice
6 medium red potatoes, cut into 1/2-inch dice (about 5 cups)
Salt
Ground cumin
2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch dice (about 5 cups)
2 pounds broccoli crowns, washed and chopped into small florets (peel and chop stems as well)
1 large bunch kale, washed and cut into 1/2-inch strips (stems included)
5 cups drained cooked black beans (canned or home-cooked)
20 flour tortillas (standard size, not the larger burrito size)
20 squares of freezer paper, cut about 9 to 10 inches square
1 large bunch cilantro, coarsely chopped (about 2 cups)
3/4 to 1 pound cheddar cheese (depending on how cheesy you like your burritos), shredded
Tape

Instructions

To make onions: Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onions, and sauté until fully softened and just beginning to color, about 10 minutes. Remove from pan and set aside.

To make potatoes: Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the potatoes and cook, stirring occasionally, until they are just shy of being fully tender, about 20 minutes. Add more oil as needed to keep from sticking. Season to taste with salt and about 1/2 teaspoon cumin. Set aside.

To make sweet potatoes: Repeat the same process as with the red potatoes (the cooking time may be slightly different).

To make broccoli: Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the broccoli and sauté, stirring occasionally, until crisp-tender, about 5 minutes. Set aside.

To make kale: Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the kale (you may have to do this in batches as it cooks down), and sauté until softened, about 5 to 10 minutes.

To make beans: Season to taste with about 1 tablespoon cumin, and salt as needed (if the beans are canned, they will probably be salty enough).

To assemble burritos: Wrap 10 tortillas in a clean dish towel, and microwave until softened and pliable, about 1 1/2 minutes (this allows you to roll them without the cracking). If you don't have a microwave, you can soften them one by one by placing them in a hot skillet for a few seconds per side, or heating the bundle in a steamer basket above simmering water. Keep the tortillas wrapped until you're using them.

Remove a tortilla from the dish towel. If you have the counter space, you can build several burritos at once, assembly-line style, or just stuff them one by one. The filling composition can vary depending upon your taste. (Brian Granse uses about 2 tablespoons each of beans, potatoes and sweet potatoes, and about 1 tablespoon each of the other ingredients, including the cilantro and cheese.) The first burrito will help you figure out how much you can stuff in each tortilla and still be able to roll it. Take your filled tortillas, nudge the pile of filling toward one side (you can pull up the opposite end of the tortilla to shape it more into a line), then tuck the sides and begin to roll it tightly, tucking in as needed. Place the assembled burrito on a tray, seam side down. Repeat until all the burritos have been assembled.

To prepare for the freezer, place a burrito, seam side down, diagonally on the shiny side of one of your prepared squares of freezer paper. Fold in the sides, then roll to encase the burrito in the freezer paper (using much the same technique used to wrap the burrito). Seal with tape, and place in the freezer.
--
From Brian Granse

02-06-2011, 08:15 AM	#1 (permalink)
snowy Kick Ass Kunoichi Location: Oregon	Food You Freeze So, I am pretty frugal when it comes to food. We frequently cook from scratch around here and try our best to make our food go as far as it can. Thus, my freezer frequently comes into play, and I'd like to start a thread aimed at sharing food you can freeze--not just meals, but other things you can freeze in the interest of making the food last longer, or in the interest of reusing something for another purpose later. Take stock. And no, Eden, I'm NOT getting into this debate again :P If I have clean trimmings from vegetables, I throw them in a zip-top gallon bag in my freezer. I save all my trimmings until I have enough to make stock. I then take the stock, pour it into clean quart containers (quart-size yogurt containers and salsa containers work GREAT for this), and freeze it. Tomatoes. We had a surfeit of tomatoes this summer, and late too. There were too many to can in a timely manner, so I packed four quarts of stewed tomatoes into freezer containers. Beans. Whenever I make beans from dried, I make extra and pack a quart or so of beans in the freezer. Supposedly this affects the texture, but I haven't had any problems with them. So what if they're a little more tender and prone to falling apart? If the beans are going into a soup where you want them to fall apart a bit, this is perfect--same with doing refried beans. Soup. Extra soup always goes into the freezer, in two different size containers: a small one for an individual serving, and a quart for another dinner. Stale bread. I freeze stale bread to reuse it in other things. Stale bread should be used fairly quickly, or else it starts getting a freezer-y taste. Cheese. I freeze mozzarella cheese, in particular. We buy big blocks of it at the store, and don't always get around to using the second half in a timely manner, so I started freezing it. I discovered that this works really well, especially if you are going to shred the cheese. Freezing actually makes the cheese easier to shred with my KitchenAid shredder attachment. I'd like to freeze lasagnas, but my freezer is stuffed with enough food already. I don't have room to freeze a whole lasagna. Maybe I will after my first anniversary--the top tier of my wedding cake is taking up a lot of room! Alton Brown covers some more stuff you can freeze in this episode of Good Eats: Part 1: Part 2: So what do you freeze? What would you like to freeze? __________________ If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

02-06-2011, 12:03 PM	#5 (permalink)
amonkie Drifting Administrator Location: Windy City	Question - what does the frozen bread get reused for? __________________ Calling from deep in the heart, from where the eyes can't see and the ears can't hear, from where the mountain trails end and only love can go... ~~~ Three Rivers Hare Krishna

02-06-2011, 03:23 PM	#9 (permalink)
jewels Eponymous Location: Central Central Florida	I freeze the same stuff as you, snowy, and just about anything else. Except the cheese. I'm skeered 'cause my mother used to bring cream cheese and bagels on Sundays and she'd bring it frozen so it would defrost on the way, and I have memories of watery cheese. But being that you've done it, I may just try it. Sometimes I'll marinate meats in freezer bags if I buy them on sale so they're marinating as they defrost in the fridge. When strawberries, kiwi and mangoes are in season, I slice them and freeze for snacks or smoothies. __________________ We are always more anxious to be distinguished for a talent which we do not possess, than to be praised for the fifteen which we do possess. Mark Twain

02-06-2011, 03:53 PM	#10 (permalink)
Charlatan Getting it. Super Moderator Location: Lion City	We used to freeze quite a bit when we lived in Canada. We had a chest freezer in the basement, in addition to the one attached to our North American-sized fridge. The thing about living outside of North America, is that fridges are a lot smaller. I have found this in the UK, France and here. The fridge I have now, I am told, is "big". But to my eyes, it's tiny compared to a standard fridge in Toronto. In other words, I have very limited space in my fridge let alone my very small freezer. I use it to do more shopping fresh. That said, most Friday nights are pizza night. We tend to make extra dough and freeze it. Other than that, I don't have space to make extra batches for the freezer. When I make extra food, it us used for lunches. __________________ "My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars." - Old Man Luedecke

02-06-2011, 07:53 PM	#12 (permalink)
Starkizzer Hi floor! Make me a samwich. Location: Ontario (in the stray cat complex)	Part if the reason food gets freezer burn is due to melting and refreezing and too much head space. Snowy is right about proper wrapping this will reduce your head space . My parents used to buy the giant blocks from Costco and they would last just fine for months at a time. They also stored them in the big freezer in the garage, the kind that lock. They would keep mostly long term freezer items in there. This helped with the other cause of freezer burn, the thawing and re-freezing. The more you open a freezer the more likely you are to get freezer burn due to this. Every time you open the door to get ice, chicken for tonights dinner, etc, you are raising the temp inside the ice box causing things to warm up. You would be surprised how much this will affect food. We look for sales on berries and freeze those to use later for, well anything. Overly ripened bananas get saved for banana bread. Frozen bread can also be used to make croutons since freezing will draw out more moisture. We buy two things of bagels from Costco and freeze one and thaw it when we need it. Loads of stuff can be frozen, some of it will just determine what you can make with it once its thawed. __________________ Frivolity, at the edge of a Moral Swamp, hears Hymn-Singing in the Distance and dons the Galoshes of Remorse. ~Edward Gorey

02-06-2011, 08:22 AM	#2 (permalink)
bparker805 is KING! Location: On the path to Valhalla.	This may be a no brainer, but I watch the stores for sales for pork chops or boneless skinless chicken breasts. When I get them home, I clean and prep for the freezer. But I package them up in freezer bags in meal size portions so I only have to defrost what I need.

02-06-2011, 11:23 AM	#4 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	Excellent topic, Snowy! I have to admit that I don't use my freezer as much as I probably could (or should). I do freeze meats, and I buy frozen vegetables and fruit. I had no idea you could freeze cheeses. What kind of shelf life does frozen cheese have?

02-07-2011, 01:26 PM	#13 (permalink)
Grasshopper Green ...is a comical chap Location: Where morons reign supreme	In addition to the previously mentioned soups and bread, I usually freeze breakfast sausage as well. I clip coupons and they usually require you to purchase 2 - so I'll use one before the expiration date and freeze the other. We also freeze home made waffles - we double the recipe when we make them and pop them in the toaster like an Eggo. __________________ "They say that patriotism is the last refuge to which a scoundrel clings; steal a little and they throw you in jail, steal a lot and they make you king" Formerly Medusa

02-08-2011, 03:27 AM	#14 (permalink)
bagatelle Psycho Location: Europe	It would be best for the freezer and the food, if you could use one big freezer and open it rarely, just take what you need for the week to a smaller freezing unit. We currently only have one stand-alone freezer, the door gets opened almost daily. We have homemade juice concentrates and berries frozen, ice cream of course and the meats. I freeze them in their own packages, which takes more space, I should put them in bags really. We have dough and pastry there. I also freeze most of the bread. __________________ Life is...

02-08-2011, 11:30 AM	#16 (permalink)
Starkizzer Hi floor! Make me a samwich. Location: Ontario (in the stray cat complex)	^ This will depend greatly on the ratio or amount of sugar to water you have in the syrup. The more water a liquid has, the more likely it is to expand. Due to the formation of large ice crystals that form when slow freezing (which is what will happen in all home freezing cases, unless you have a rapid chiller) the space needed actually increases. Any one who has overfilled a water bottle and then frozen it will know this. If you have enough sugar or salt in your liquid it will cause it not to freeze. Snowy, you have caused to me to open my Food Chemistry up and refresh on why some water-solute solutions behave differently when freezing and don't always expand. Sugar can cause tighter hydrogen-hydrogen bonding than with normal water-water bonds. This is the reason some syrups may shrink. (Least scientific explanation) Nifty link I found for freezing fruits: http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/foodnut/09331.html __________________ Frivolity, at the edge of a Moral Swamp, hears Hymn-Singing in the Distance and dons the Galoshes of Remorse. ~Edward Gorey Last edited by Starkizzer; 02-08-2011 at 12:09 PM..

02-14-2011, 11:38 AM	#17 (permalink)
snowy Kick Ass Kunoichi Location: Oregon	Awesome link, star! Thanks for sharing. I gotta say, hooray for extension services. I don't know how I'd get along without them. __________________ If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau