Trying not to get carried away....

Soubrette

Bitsy_Beans wrote: »

But if she's only got a fridge/freezer (rather than a chest freezer already) then those with drawers etc are more trouble than they are worth and in reality hold very little.
I have a small chest freezer in my garage but could do with another one. Mine gets filled quite quickly when I bulk buy my meat etc so if I come accross any reduced bargains (mostly bread) then I've got no where to store it and have to give it to my mum to stash in hers

I have freezer envy

I only have the three drawer attached to the fridge type freezer and its always stuffed full.

We regularly take things out but next shopping trip it's stuffed full again :mad:

I have some stilton cheese in there which was on offer and I'm waiting for some broccoli to come on offer - some did but I could only buy a third of what I needed because of lack of space in the freezer - same with bulky things on offer like bread and potatoes.

I'd love a chest freezer in the garage but we'd have to put power in there first :rolleyes:

Lucky you OP

Sou

EssexHebridean

I bought a whole lamb when we got our second freezer! Sorry - I should re-phrase.....We bought a second freezer so we could buy a whole lamb....! We were previously in the "small freezer under the fridge" camp......

pavlovs_dog

the best way to fill it on a budget woul be to hit the supermarket late to pick up yellow stickered bargains. I always find these to be best if the supermarket will be closed or trading on restricted hours the next day (sunday night, before a bank holiday etc)

pavlovs_dog

also, if you take things out of bulky packaging and wrap in clingfilm or similar (don't forget to label everything clearly and include cooking instructions to avoid playing freezer surprise) then you can fit a lot more in. recycled plastic boxes from the take away stack well, so we always keep these to use in the fridge/freezer.

csarina

I am shortly going to have a 'second' freezer in that the house we are moving into has a fridge freezer built into the kithchen so my fridge freezer is going into the garage........I am running down fridge and freezer just now. Will have to wipe out the new one and re-freeze it as it has been switched off for some time. In the past I had 2 freezers, one an upright with 8 drawers the other a meduim sized chest freezer.........the chest freezer was full of fruit and veg from our garden....... not we have the allotment I will be able to store more produce from there instead of gaving it away, will save me money in the long run........I was looking at a small chest freezer in Iceland the other day, it was calling to me, we have room for another one in the garage at the side of the FF............

When I get my shopping I portion everything up and put it into ziplock bags, they are easier to store in the freezer than boxes etc........I freeze mince in a big bag and after I have cooked it portion it out to re-freeze for sheps pie, bol etc and label the bags. I get the small stick on labels from Wilkinsons 34p and each one does for 2 packets ....I cut them in half.......it would not be the first time I have put something in the freezer without a label and got a big suprise when I thawed it out!!!

looby-loo_2

Planning ahead, have you planted soft fruit bushes to grow and harvest the fruit? I still have raspberies, strawberries, stewed apple, goosebrerries, etc, form last summer.

BTW - only buy one black currant bush and use it to ake cuttings which is ver easy and you will have 6 bushes by this time nxt year!

Lil2002

pavlovs_dog wrote: »

also, if you take things out of bulky packaging and wrap in clingfilm or similar (don't forget to label everything clearly and include cooking instructions to avoid playing freezer surprise) then you can fit a lot more in. recycled plastic boxes from the take away stack well, so we always keep these to use in the fridge/freezer.

I usually cut off the label & wrap it up with the cling film around my item. I've got quite clever in leaving all the info visible :rotfl: (Takes some thinking when you have a small area to get a big label on!)

thriftlady_2

I don't cook things for the freezer, I use it as a storecupboard.

At the moment my large freezer contains;

3 cockerels

2 belly pork joints
2 blade pork joints
2 pig's trotters
2 pork hocks
2 pork leg joints
a bag of pork bones
15 pork chops

2 x 1lb mince
a bag of cooked shredded pork
3 duck legs
9 chicken breasts

8 salmon fillets
5 salmon fishcakes (hm)

chicken spaghetti bake (1 meal)

2 packs of all butter puff pastry
couple of hm loaves
3 croissants and 1 large ciabatta roll (will be used for packed lunches tomorrow)
pittas
bags of cubed bread crusts for croutons
breadcrumbs including a bag of crumbs seasoned with herbs and parmesan

large bag of cooked chickpeas
large bag of cooked kidney beans
large bag of cooked borlotti beans

lots of sweetcorn and peas
broad beans
green beans
chopped red chilies
very ripe bananas
2 tubs of stewed rhubarb
raspberries, blueberries, mixed berries (Sainsbury's had a good deal;) )

loads of little tubs of veg hash (finely chopped flavouring vegetables for soups, stews etc)
loads of tubs of chicken stock and a few of beef stock, fish stock and a couple of giblet stock
a tub of gravy

leiela

looby-loo wrote: »

Planning ahead, have you planted soft fruit bushes to grow and harvest the fruit? I still have raspberies, strawberries, stewed apple, goosebrerries, etc, form last summer.

BTW - only buy one black currant bush and use it to ake cuttings which is ver easy and you will have 6 bushes by this time nxt year!

funnily enough i have planted alot of things this year, im not much of a gardener but i figured i'd give it a go and thats sort of how the freezer came about, hubby was sick of me saying things like ... "i'd plant more, but we wouldn't eat it in time" and "oh well at least we'll save money for a few weeks, then we'll be back in the supermarkets for our veg" haha ...

We got lucky and got £600 back off the Working family's tax credit that they underpaid up about 4 years ago haha ... and although most of it is going on the credit cards he's said i could have £150 for a new freezer so i could "plant what ever the hell i liked and stop whining about having no-where to put my made in bulk meals"

Tee heee... :T

We've got a fridge freezer atm but its just got 3 dinky little draws ... not good. I sware we throw away sooooo much fresh veg etc because we don't have room to freeze the leftovers, and don't have enough space for buying much frozen veg.. but its alos things like whoopies i often can't buy them even when i see them because of limited space :mad: sooo im soo excited about finally having SPACE, and not having to make in bulk and them eat the same thing 4 days in a row haha.

I've got 6 fruit bushes, 2 raspberry, 2 blueberry, 2 black currant.. and 6 small strawberry's.. not expectig much off them this year, gonna let them really root in. But hopefully next year i'll start getting fruit and start taking cutting etc so i can expand my fruit bush empire, i have a full garden wall i want to eventually plant bushes along, i reccone from one end to the other will need about 18 ish bushes... LOADS of fruit for freeze :T and giving away most likely haha.