In my freezer I keep extra herbs and spices (double wrapped), grains, extra bulk yeast, nuts, dollops of tomato paste, too ripe bananas, and lemon shells for fresh grated lemon peel. If I had a bigger freezer, I'm sure I would have lots more other stuff!

Home made chicken broth - I hate it when I run out & have to use store bought.
Leftovers - ham bones for soup. DH travels alot - I freeze alot of one portion delicious main courses for myself, not exactly an ingredient. :)

kandm, how do you freeze the galangal? Sliced, grated or in chunks? I have frozen the kaffir lime leaves, after separating them into batches of 5-10 leaves and sealing them with my seal-a-meal. The Asian market I go to has bags of pre grated lemon grass frozen, but I haven't tried it yet. The grass itself lasts pretty well in the fridge, but I haven't tried freezing it myself. Do you grate it first or freeze them whole? I also buy blocks of frozen grated coconut as it's much, much easier to use than buying the nut and having to deal with it. I make my Thai Curry Pastes and freeze those in zip lock bags, pressed thin so it's easy to break off what I need for a recipe.

Otherwise, my freezer is stuffed with meats, zip lock bags of soups (I LOVE soup, so whenever I make some, I make a big batch and freeze the rest in serving sized bags), and there's also generally some fruit I picked up in season/on sale waiting for me to have time to can it. Right now there are a couple of bags of tangelos meant for marmalade and several bags of peaches that will probably become chutney.

I also keep quite a few bottles of ice...small ones for drinking and large ones for using in coolers...as well as several squares of Blue Ice. It gets so hot here in the Valley during the summer that I always find needs for blocks of ice. If I go into Modesto to shop, I take a cooler with ice for any perishables I buy, DH and I love to go on picnics and I send him to work in the morning with his lunch and drinks in a cooler as well...AND a big Coleman jug filled with ice & water as he works out doors.

I freeze galanga in slices because that's the only way the market sells it lol.

Since I grow my own beef and pork and freeze lots of fruits and vegetables there isn't a lot of room left.

I always freeze strawberries, blueberries and some peaches, I freeze pesto made from my fresh basil, I freeze the leftover chipotles when I need just one from a can to make Jessica's lime and chipotle marinade/glaze. I freeze bulk yeast, homemade bread crumbs from my homemade bread, and I freeze homemade bread sometimes. I froze slices of green tomatoes last year for fried green tomatoes and it works better than I ever anticipated, I just don't thaw them before I fry them.

I freeze the homemade sausage that Elery and I make, mostly Italian, some breakfast sausage and a few hot dogs.

I freeze chopped chili peppers for Habanero Gold and grated zucchini for zucchini bread. I never freeze garlic because the stuff I grow will store just fine for 6-8 months. I do freeze nuts but since I discovered tomato paste in a tube I stopped freezing that. I never freeze onions any more because no matter if I double or triple bag them, the freezer still smells like onion to me.

Oh, and whenever I catch too many fish to eat fresh, I freeze those too.

Annie

Lemongrass grows year 'round, and so there's no need to freeze it, once you plant it in your yard. Ginger and galanga grow equally well, but I haven't planted them yet, and so I do freeze ginger, unpeeled. I only grow ornamental ginger - the flowers look {{gwi:547755}}.

I freeze IDY (instant dry yeast) and VWG (vital wheat gluten), but I'm out of VWG right now and need to get more. I also freeze lemon rinds, so that I can use them in making chicken stock. I only get lemons from my tree about 6-8 months of the year, which is not nearly enough. I can't imagine freezing chili peppers, since I use them every day.

I freeze mangoes when I get too many from my tree also, but I use them up rather quickly. I've tried freezing herbs but haven't been successful at finding them after they have been frozen. I do freeze nuts, however, and those are easy to identify.

Lars

Lars, how do you freeze mangos. Just diced/chopped?
and that ginger plant is a beauty! I envy your ability to grow so much! But I'd rather keep my temperatures than yours. LOL

I freeze yeast, xanthum gum, whole wheat flour (because I only use it in one recipe(Honey Wheat Rolls), so 5lbs lasts a while). I freeze nuts, berries, apples, peaches oh and right now the boys have two large snow balls from our freak snow in April in the upright freezer in the garage..Imagine my suprise when I went to put bread in there. LOL

With putting a garden back in, I'll have a few more things to freeze in a few months!

Whole wheat flour, gluten, wheat germ, corn meal, baking ingredients I don't use often or wish to keep fresh longer, yeast, sourdough starter backups, walnuts, almonds, breads, veggies, berries, meats, butter, dry milk, rice and leftovers for busy day meals. What don't I freeze would be an easier question to answer. I also keep frozen water and juices or tea, to plop in my personal ice chest for day trips as well as the blue stuff.

Terri, I have been freezing mangoes whole, unpeeled. They are easier to peel when frozen and also easier to cut, since they don't drip. I used to cut them into cubes before freezing, the same way I do melons, and then I would make them into a sorbet. I forgot to mention that I do freeze strawberries, cantaloupes, and other melons - always peeled and cut into cubes. I freeze them in plastic bags with the air removed, and then they are ready for making a quick sorbet in the blender. They do need sweetening for sorbet, as well as thinning, and so sometimes I add yogurt to make frozen yogurt.

Lars

Thanks for the tidbits Lars! Good to know!

Rachel, I know gross sounding huh? LOL I use it in Gluten Free Baking..I'm not sure the specifics of why. Grainlady probably knows..It's just that 98% of gluten free recipes ask for a teaspoon or so of xantham sometimes guar gum instead, but it's my understanding that they can be used interchangably.

Oh Lars, you just did me in. I can't decide what sounds better right now - frozen mango sorbet or lemon chicken soup.

I freeze everything menationed in the original post, plus all grains, nuts, and "red" spices and dried peppers, yeast, and anything (like tomato paste or chipotle) that I can't use an entire container of quickly. We also order Portuguese sausages a couple times a year, so those get frozen. And frozen seedless grapes, apples, and bananas are my "ice cream", so I usually have a stash of those. The rest is just normal freezer stuff - vegetables and such. Even with the best intentions, I find I don't use leftovr is I freeze them, so I've given up trying. Fortunately, I don't mind eating the same thing several times in a row.

LOL right back to you, Terri! :D

From Wikipedia:
Guar gum, also called guaran, is a galactomannan. It is primarily the ground endosperm of guar beans. The guar seeds are dehusked, milled and screened to obtain the guar gum.[1] It is typically produced as a free flowing, pale, off-white colored, coarse to fine ground powder.

An ingredient a bit less alarming, at least in the abstract.

Oh heck, I love wine, and what is alcohol but yeast..er..byproduct? When you think about it, it's disturbing in it's own way. The little beasties get all excited about the availability of sugar, and they gorge...then they create..er...byproduct. Then, because they're out of sugar, and swimming in their own..er..byproduct, they die, and we humans have long and intense discussions and disagreements over what wine goes with what food.

Go figure.

rachelellen, I must admit that never before have I thought of wine as the flatulation of yeast...and now I will giggle every time I do (especially when someone gets all wine-pompous on me).

And I guess it makes sense. After all, what is honey but bee regurgitation?

Beanthere, thanks for reminding me to freeze grapes! I love frozen grapes in the summer.

I guess I'm not freezing enough stuff because I have to throw stuff out of the fridge on a regular basis. I seem to put leftovers in the fridge and expect someone else to take them out, I guess. My freezer stays fulls pretty much all of the time as well. I think that over Memorial Day, DB and I are going to do some purging - not only in the kitchen, but also in the living room and closets. We're getting a new sofa and need to clear the space for it. The new sofa will really motivate me to get rid of old stuff.

Lars

The list is long. I have two freezers and two refrigerator-freezers, which I'm convinced is just a way for me to accumulate more stuff.

Curry leaves, lime leaves, galangal, lemongrass, fresh noodles, fresh coconut and fresh coconut milk, delicate spices whole and ground - Vietnamese curry powder, pickling spice, cardamom, pink peppercorns, etc.

Things preserved from the summer garden - corn, a variety of hot and sweet peppers, roasted peppers in olive oil and garlic, roasted tomatoes in olive oil with thyme, homemade glacé cherries and strawberries, basil pesto, sundried tomato pesto, homemade sundried tomatoes with an olive oil and herb baste. Melon cubes in a honey syrup. Summer squash. Delicate herbs like tarragon. Freezer pickles (an experiment).

Boysenberries, blueberries, wild blackberries, sour cherries, rhubarb, strawberries, raspberries, plums dried and fresh frozen, walnuts, wild pecans, hazelnuts, almonds and nut flours.

Baked goods - pies, crisp topping, breads savory and sweet, cakes both bundt and loaf, cookies, dry mixtures for various recipes.

Lemon curd and apricot curd. Seeded purées for berry curds and jams. Strained grape juice for jelly.

Baking and cooking supplies - whole grains of many kinds, rices, yeast, backup sourdough starter. Butter (lots).

A few cans of juice concentrate, a few vegan wraps and healthy frozen meals for desperation lunches.

Soups, stuffed peppers, meatballs, special sausages and bacons. Elk and venison. Beef, pork and chicken. Salmon and halibut. Scallops from Costco.

Boy, I think that's it except for chill packs for the cooler and gel wraps for inflamed muscles.

Carol

Lemons and limes. Just put them in a ziplock bag and you'll always have fresh juice at the ready. You won' t really be able to use the peel as it will be mushy, but once the fruit is defrosted (I use the microwave when I'm in a hurry), the juice is fine. It works for juice oranges too.

This thread finally got me motivated to do a freezer clean out, and boy, both my indoor and my outdoor really needed it.

I found a 2 quart tub of combination seafood/chicken/sausage gumbo left over from the big BBQ we had the day before our wedding (2 years ago)...it was all frost-burnt so I had to toss it, along with some unidentifiable packages and a tray of peaches I shoved in there once when I had no time (meaning to make jam, but I forgot).

I finally went to the dollar store and bought a bunch of plastic shoeboxy things, and now my packages of frozen soups are orgainzed and I can pull one out without the rest spilling all over the floor. I also decided that I must stop making soups for a little while and use some of them up. Of course, with summer coming, I'm not going to want a soup simmering in the kitchen anyway.

Someone in this forum suggested that when one squeezes a lemon for the juice, the halves of the rind freeze well for zest later, and I have tried that...thank you, whoever it was, it works great!