This is always a great time to make soup stock. Roast the meat and some fresh onions and then simmer for 2-3 hours in a stock pot with the veggies and water to cover. Then you won't feel so bad about throwing out items with freezer burn and you'll have some wonderful stock to boot!

LOL Iris, I can hear her too!

What is it with fridges and freezers? I am forever putting things away to use in something else and by the time I get around to it I have no idea what I'm looking at!

I never toss vintage meat, I always morph it into a stew, stock or soup. Vintage veggies are a bit trickier because you gotta do them ,when you gotta do them, 'cause slime does not work well in much.

I need to remember more often that most veggies will freeze quite well and can be used in a soup or casserole. So I need to do a beter job of freezing right away and not hide them in the crisper for "tomorrows" dinner.

Then again I probably would end up pitching from the freezer....and I hate wasting food. Really I do, it's so wrong.

Atleast you had a choice..LOL The last time I had to clean it was because some littlepeoples...left the door open!

But it needed it and I felt so much better once I got over the inital shock of waste...but sometimes..it just has to be done!

I need a bigger freezer. I organized mine recently, but I still seem to put more in than I take out. I just don't like taking things from the freezer, but lately I've been putting away things for lunches to take to work for both DB and me.

Lars

I'm very guilty of saving things by freezing and then eventually tossing them in the garbage. Usually because I have no idea of what it is or what I was thinking I'd do with it. Then there's the stuff that I thought we'd like and when I tell Kim, she say's "I don't really like that". Like the mahi-mahi that has been in there too long.

I have been trying to use from the freezer the last few weeks, I'll be doing the cleaning real soon.

Nancy

I feel your pain. It feels awful to waste things. That feeling, combined with the overall work of the process really makes cleaning the fridge/freezer a terrible event for me! I save leftovers, and never finish them. Right now, my fridge is so full, I can barely get the door shut. I'm sure much of it is produce that is passed its prime from my juicing craze. I do seem to eat the meat usually! Never finish pasta. In the freezer, I have four different kinds of ice cream, all half finished. 2 freezer burned, but I keep them anyway. Why? I did throw away the Blue Bunny Cinnamon Roll ice cream a few weeks ago... I didn't like it from the start... why it spent three months in the freezer instead of going straight in the trash is beyond me. I threw away some green cheese... maybe it was cheddar! Cleaning the fridge/freezer is always a dreaded adventure. It does feel good to get everything organized and the shelves wiped down. Sometimes, I even take the crisper drawer to the bath tub and wash it out. Right before the sludge in the bottom comes to life.

I had an ex that used to use cottage cheese, sour cream, and margarine tubs to store the leftovers in. He had huge house, many cars, and a salary to match, but refused to buy real plastic ware! Finding the *real* item was always a trying event. I remember one time, I went for the sour cream. I opened green bean cassarole that his mom had made 2 Thanksgivings ago, stir fry from who knows when, and something fuzzy that I thought was a pet before I found the sour cream. Even worse, one time I went straight from his house to work. We had spaghetti the night before, and I wanted to take some in for lunch. He gave me his nicest china to take it in... an old I Can't Believe It's Not Butter tub that had been washed so many times most of the writing was gone. Didn't even have a matching lid... he gave me the lid to a old sherbert tub! That's not the funny part... when we talked on the phone that night, he actually asked me to wash the "dish" and bring it back to him. I'd already thrown it away... I started laughing so hard that I had to end the call!

Yah yah yah....you know me...if it hasn't been frozen for at least 5 months it's not worthy of the garbage pail!
And more than onec....more than twice I have made "freezer soup". One time it was green....chicken, green beans, peppers, broccoli, onions, garlic,baby lima beans....all cooked and properly seasoned.....and it was wonderful!
And then there was the purple stuff..ham, kidney beans, red cabbage, tomatoes, onions and.."other stuff"...and it was even better.
Cream of freezer soup....the best!
Linda C

I feel your pain also. I've gotten very, very good about not throwing away - just makes me sick that I spend that money on food to just throw away.

Linda C is right in some of the frozen & old stuff makes for the best soups. One of the best beef/chicken/vegetable soups that I ever made was from a clean out. I couldn't even write it up as an exact recipe but used the leftovers, spiced it up and cooked away on the stovetop. YUM!

Invest in a vacuum packaging system and you don't toss those vintage freezer items. I have cooked meats that were in the deep freeze for more than 3 years and they were perfect.

I defrosted my big freezer last Sunday and took inventory. Everything is listed in a spreadsheet, what it is, what shelf it is on and how many I have. I have also divided up my freezer into sections. Bottom level is for veggies, next is pork, chicken and fish, 3rd is beef and breads and the top is for ready made meals. It sure makes finding items alot easier. And the only thing I tossed out was some pre-historic zip bag of what I think was leftover rice.

I grow herbs every year. I freeze a lot of it, but then I can't remember which is which. This year I promise to label the stuff I freeze.