trsinc, I too really recommend going with the "upright" freezer (with door in front). It's changed our lives, literally --- it's easy to find what I want. (If I had to dive into a chest freezer, I KNOW I wouldn't use the frozen stuff regularly the way I do --- I would find it a hassle to dig out what I was looking for, and the whole point was to be able to grab some veggies ready to go, or a frozen portion of a stew I'd made in a big batch, on a night when I was tired or busy.) Small ones do exist --- there's a second-hand appliance place nearby where I've occasionally seen one. It's definitely true that it costs much more than half the price of a big one for half the size, but if all you have room for is small, look around --- it can be found. (What we ended up with was a small full-sized one.) As for containers, I do use freezer bags, for things that don't "flow" to fill a container (fruit, veggies, meat) --- like you and others, I re-use them, though anything that's had raw meat in it I either toss or rinse with a bleach solution. For soups and stews and things, I did experiment with using canning jars, and I found that it took care --- in my fridge's freezer it works fine, and on the shelf in my upright freezer that is just a wire shelf it works fine, BUT jars that I put on the shelves that have cooling tubes in them (three of the four shelves) sometimes had the bottoms break off. Rather than worry about what shelf to use, I mostly go with plastic containers of various kinds. I reuse yogurt and cottage cheese tubs (though I have a strict rule of ONLY keeping one kind of container --- the 2- and 3-cup ones that take all the same size of lid, because it makes me crazy not to be able to grab a tub and lid that fit easily --- again, for me a lot of the joy in freezing stuff is in making my life easier). inexpensive ones are a good compromise between pricey Rubbermaid containers and use-just-a-few-times bags. I have some of the new(ish) Ziploc containers (Glad also has a line of them, and there are no-name ones too), meant to be tough enough to reuse and put in dishwasher, but inexpensive enough that it's not too bad if they get ruined or given away. (I loved the hilarious commercial they had where they "tested" them in freezer, microwave, dishwasher --- and wood-chipper. ;-) ) And I have two sets (given to me) of as-seen-on-TV freezer containers that came with a supposed "easy store" spinny thing, which was a piece of @#*!, but the conatiners are fine, and again, I like that they come in different sizes but *all use the same size of lid*. When I put up something, I try to put it all in one kind of container --- again, this helps me sort & grab at a glance (I know the blue-lidded ones are all chicken stock, the yogurt tubs are currently all chili, the Ziploc ones are either broccoli soup or Mexican Pork Stew, etc.). And I have pricey Rubbermaid containers, which I try to keep out of the freezer so they are available day to day for leftovers in the fridge. One general tip: given the choice, go for containers with a SQUARE cross section rather than a ROUND one. I do use some yogurt tubs, as mentioned, since they are free and a useful size, but generally I find it amazing how much more room one can make use of when things are SQUARE so they fill the space more fully. Happy freezing, and good luck! Z

I am absolutely not making this up. There is a restaurant chain called TadÂs Steak in NYC. They serve steak dinners for a very reasonable price. I have not been there for a long long time. I am not sure what are they doing now. I ate there many times when I was a student. Only place I could afford to eat steak. A good piece of steak, large baked potato with sour cream, and a good size piece of garlic bread, all for $1.99 (may be $8.00 todayÂs money). The chain was successful. Then TadÂs Steak came up with this insane scheme. They started a few restaurants with this unusual idea. The dinning area had many large glass fronted freezers like in a supermarket. The customers would pick out a variety of frozen meals and return to their tables. Each table sat four customers, and there were two microwave ovens on each table. The customers would operate the microwave ovens to heat up their own meals. I donÂt think the restaurants lasted more than a few months. I wonder why this TadÂs expensive venture failed so miserably. dcarch

I make my sons "Mom's Meals" for part of their Christmas present. Usually I do a batch of enchiladas then put 2 or 3 enchiladas and sauce in each freezer container. You can make chicken enchiladas or ground beef with black beans, finely diced onion, and cheese. Another thing I make is a chicken and stuffing casserole: 1 (3 pound) whole chicken (cooked in water, meat removed) 8 ounces dry bread stuffing mix 1 (10.75 ounce) can condensed cream of chicken soup 1 (10.75 ounce) can condensed cream of celery soup 1 1/4 cups chicken broth (from boiling the chicken) 1 cup evaporated milk Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Layer the deboned chicken meat in a lightly greased 9x13 inch baking dish. Sprinkle stuffing mix over the chicken layer. In a large bowl mix together the soups, broth and evaporated milk. Stir well. Pour this mixture over the stuffing mix, making sure it gets to the bottom of the baking dish (poke around with a fork to let it saturate into the bottom layer). Bake in the preheated oven for 35 to 45 minutes, until it starts to bubble in the center. Can be frozen before baking as everything is already cooked. I served this at an office lunch yesterday and it is very tasty - I think it will freeze just fine. Chicken Crunch Casserole 1 cup chopped celery 1 tablespoon butter or margarine 3 cups cubed cooked chicken breasts 1 1/2 cups cooked rice 1 (10 3/4 ounce) can cream of chicken soup, undiluted 3/4 cup mayonnaise (NOT Miracle Whip) 1 (8 ounce) can sliced water chestnuts, drained (Cut each water chestnut slice into quarters if you prefer them in smaller pieces) 1/2 cup sliced almonds 2 tablespoons chopped onions salt & pepper TOPPING 1 tablespoon melted butter or margarine 1/2 cup crushed corn flakes Directions 1In a skillet, saute' the celery in butter until tender. 2Remove from heat and add the next 8 ingredients. 3Spoon into an ungreased 2 1/2 quart baking dish. 4Combine melted butter& cornflakes. 5Sprinkle on top. 6Bake 350 degrees F for 30 minutes.

Wow, they look so much better filled with food! Mine would never look like that - I would open up that big clunky freezer drawer and it would be - EMPTY!!! (Probably everything I store in the freezer would fit in the two auxiliary drawers inside.) Which is why I ended up going for the Frigidaire top freezer after all. I was in PC Richard this afternoon placing my appliance order (great sale this weekend!). The salesman had already written up the GE Profile bottom freezer model, but while he went off to talk to the manager for a minute, I checked out the refrigerators again. That drawer is so massive. I have so little frozen food. Plus the GE Profile was *literally* twice the price of the Frigidaire. I've had a top freezer all my life, I'm comfortable with it, I wouldn't know what I was missing by not having a bottom freezer. And what if I ended up *hating* the bottom freezer?? After spending $1400 on a refrigerator!! I switched the order to the top freezer. And got to feel virtuous that *something* in this renovation actually came out on budget. :-) Thanks, everyone, for your comments!! They were absolutely helpful. I'm just a wimp. :-)