Freezer inspiration!!!

be-happy_2

Hi, yesterday I bought a second hand freezer. Very excited (sad, I know!!) as I have never had a freezer before.

I don't want to fill it just with pizzas and expensive food from supermarkets. I want it to be an MSE freezer and save me money on my food bill (there are 4 of us). My question is:

What clever ways do you all use your freezers to save you money and help you to produce homemade dinners?

I have thought of a few things to do but will be grateful for inspiration and tips!!

(My mum told me that it costs a lot of money to run a half empty freezer and that you should fill it with bread if nothing else - but considering the price of bread now, I don't think that is quite so economical!)

carriebradshaw

there's a great thread started by thriftlady on here with lots of ideas and contributions from lots of other OS'ers too,
have a read through it.

sorry can't do the short links, if a mod wants to edit feel free

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=571339&highlight=building+blocks

ashlea170706

well like others say on here batch cook all your homemade dinners if you do it and freeze them then you can get them out for another day! also you can freeze bread, milk, and if you can get to your local supermarket and get the reduced meats these are fine to freeze and take out wen you are ready to eat them! and i think you can freeze homemade cakes id say without icing! hope this helps Ashx

be-happy_2

Thanks for the replies. I have just read the freezer thread and written down lots of great ideas!!

Thanks also Ashlea, I will have a go at batch cooking and freezing as I am off work this week. Does anyone know if there is anything that shouldn't be frozen?

Telute

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/content/recipes/features/freezing/1/

This BBC good food articles has a section on things not to freeze, it mentions parsley and basil as they 'go brown' but I've never found this makes much of a difference to the taste - suppose it depends on whether you need them to look green in what you're making.

Freezing changes the texture of some fruit and veg so you might find that the frozen version doesn't have as many uses. I find strawberries horrible once frozen and can only use them whizzed up into milkshake and courgettes and aubergines tend to only be useful for stews.

Fen1

Parsley: I just buy a big bunch from the market, put in a plastic freezer bag, and straight into the freezer. I then just cut off however much I want from the frozen bunch, and it thaws in seconds. Wouldn't use it as a fresh garnish but absolutely fine in cooking, even lightly heated things like omlettes. Mine's never gone brown.
I do that with a lot of herbs, especially unusual ones from my rare visits to Chinese supermarkets e.g. bunches of Holy Basil, Thai basil. But have never tried it with standard Italian basil as always have fresh.
It might be because I don't wash and pick over the herbs before I freeze them: I'm just trusting that the freezing kills off any bugs. Have not had any touble so far!

otterspasm

I am just on the look out for a cheap second hand freezer to fill up with pork :rolleyes:
I am hoping to order half a pig from my local butchers. He will joint it up for me and make sausages/belly pork/chops etc. Buying in bulk this way means I can buy enough local, free-range pork to last us ages at just £1 a pound. About £70 in total. Fab....hope we don't get bored of it:o

ScoobieGirl

be-happy wrote: »

My mum told me that it costs a lot of money to run a half empty freezer and that you should fill it with bread if nothing else - but considering the price of bread now, I don't think that is quite so economical!/quote]

She is right in the sense that every time you open it any sapce will have the cold air swapped for warm air which will cost you money to cool. Even when it is cheap I find bread doesn't taste good after its been frozen for a while, so I use empty plastic milk bottles, stops any cold air escaping and you can make space very quickly if you manage to pick up a lot of freezable bargains!

chocolate.orange_2

Polystyrene is great for helping with a part empty freezer also. You know the type you usually throw away when you have bought a great OS time saving device such as breadmaker, slowcooker

I have a flat piece that came with my new SC that i have at the side of the freezer. When its getting low and theres room i just pop it in there.

When i had a chest freezer i found this harder but i used to have some carrier bags of those packing polystyrene chunks. They were handy also. So is bubble wrap

Ben84

Most bread freezes very well, but not for a really long time. 4-6 weeks is about the longest you can keep it frozen for, after that it becomes dry and hard. I stock up on bread during sales, but wouldn't advise getting carried away with it as it doesn't keep forever. The only exception seems to be naan bread, which keeps very well for months in the freezer. French bread however has the shortest life in the freezer.

The major savings I make from having a freezer are from buying items on sale that wouldn't normally keep, but being able to buy more to use later as I can freeze it. The other savings come from buying big packets and freezing any I don't use for later. I do this a lot with vegetables, and passata, but it could work for anything freezable, including milk and meat. BOGOF offers are better when you have a freezer and can stick the spare item in there for later.

We reuse plastic tubs from margarine and icecream to use as freezer containers.

I also save a lot of time with the freezer. If you're making something, it's often little extra work to double the recipe and freeze half for use later. I freeze lots of things, for example soups, cakes, pasta dishes and doughs. Pizza dough freezes really well and lasts a long time, so I always double that recipe. I freeze some items before baking, like pasta bake, but others like a cake or soup are frozen cooked, so this also saves some gas.