OS help to fill my chest freezer please?

Kitchenbunny

I first got our chest freezer just before our wedding, and as we held the party at our place in the form of a BBQ, it didn't take long to fill it up. That said, not many people ate a great deal, so the meat that had been cooked was chopped into manageable bits and put back into the freezer. At the moment it isn't overly full as I have been running it low with a view to defrosting it, but I do need to inventory it. My favourite things to put into the chest freezer are:

Homemade ready meals - i.e., bulk made lasagnes, pastitsio, moussakas, curries, etc., divided into individual portions and labelled to stack neatly.
Homemade desserts - i.e., individual crumbles or chocolate mousses and sometimes cakes, labelled as above.
Tubs of frozen vegetables and fruits - Any time I see something on a decent offer that I know I'll use in the future I buy it and freeze whatever I don't use for a later date.
Loaves of bread - either homemade or whenever there's a decent offer on.

People know to save me their plastic tubs from takeaways and I'm always on the look out for things I can freeze. I'd find it really hard if I had to give up my chest freezer!

KB xx

HoneyBee83

I've been looking into buying a chest freezer.
Im a single working mother and far too tired at the end of the day to cook from scratch every single evening so i bulk cook the usual things: cottage pie,lasagne,veggies,leftover stew etc but my freezer isnt very big. Will be taking notes from this thread I fancy cooking some new dishes and freezing them too.

Raksha

JulieGeorgiana wrote: »

As for snacks for your husband, I make scones for my boys (I butter and jam them before freezing) and also Rock Cakes freeze very well.

I find twinks hobnobs freeze well as a 'raw' batter and you just defrost, flatten and bake!

In costco you can get frozen raw cookie dough in ready to bake individual cookies. I haven't tried it, but surely there's nothing to stop you open freezing dollops of Twinks hobnob dough (I have bought an old fashioned 'icecream/mashed potato scoop for this purpose) and baking what you need at the time......

valk_scot

I almost empty my freezers twice a year ...there's no point in buying tons of food then just keeping it ad infinitum imho. November and May are good months for this, so you have extra capacity for Christmas cooking and again for summer produce when it's cheap. I fill them up again with "home made ready meals" (sounds nicer than leftovers!), whoopsied meat, bags of diced mixed fresh veg ready for soup making, grated cheese (mixes for gratins, pizzas etc), pizza dough, bread dough, crumble topping, HM tomato sauce for pizza etc, fruit sauces for ice cream, stock or bones for stock, HM ice poles for the kids, HM beefburgers, some good vanilla ice cream, frozen peas and sweetcorn and (shoot me now) frozen chips. I don't just use the freezer as a store for cheap stuff, I use it to save time and effort. I can almost always generate a day or three's worth of meals out the freezer in minutes to accomodate unexpected guests or (more usually) hordes of teenagers.

As for bread and milk well, it's bulky and where I live it's not worth the effort or space to freeze. I keep bread flour or frozen dough and UHT/dried milk instead.

CH27

I've only got a small freezer at the moment & am seriously considering getting a chest freezer to enable me to do more bulk cooking & to take advantage of offers.

SnowBelle_2

I was given a freezer last year to go in my garge it's old and dented but freezes like a demon!
I buy mince (lamb & beef) on whoopsies and make my own burgers using a £3 home burger press, they are so good as you know exactly what goes into your burgers.
I bulk buy bread from a market stall and bag it up in slices of four to save it going stale
Also do the same with value crumpets for a change from toast
I freeze milk ( I use mainly) skimmed so it still lasts at least four days after de-frosting
I buy a sack of potatoes from our local farm shop for £4.50 and make mash,cottage pies etc to freeze.
@rozmister....Would love your fishcake recipe it sounds deee-licous!
X SnowX

mummyroysof3

hubby has agreed i can get one so will be reading this with interest, just in the process of pricing them up

SnowBelle_2

mummyroysof3 wrote: »

hubby has agreed i can get one so will be reading this with interest, just in the process of pricing them up

Hi,Check freecycle or local free papers there always seem to be some in our local ones,you can re-spray it if it looks shabby.
Obviously if it's too old it won't be economical electricity wise, but it's worth a look.
HTH

artichoke

what do you like to eat?

i use cheap cuts of meat and make curry (with chicken thighs) or curry with lamb shoulder taken off the bone...

and i eat one portion and freeze the rest .. in plastic boxes stockpiled when we used to buy curry..

or buy meat direct from the farm in large quantities - i have 3 lambs and 2 pigs in my chest freezer at the moment...
i could not live without my chest freezer - but i dread powercuts!

art

ragz_2

Thanks everyone for all the replies and ideas. I've managed to 1/3 fill it already (10 loaves of bread but half of that at least will be gone in a week) and am hoping to get hold of some large lumps of animal to freeze... also hubby has promised to try harder to get some bunnies next time he's out shooting so they can go in there too.