We let our upright freezer go when we downsized to our current house, figuring that because we retired we would no longer freeze lunch-sized portions to take to the office (yay!). Now I have just the freezer in the kitchen fridge, and the freezer in the beer fridge in the basement. No ice-maker in either. One such freezer would have been too little space, two is working out just right.

Downstairs I keep longer-term bulk items such as butter, home made chicken stock, frozen veggies (mostly store bought), cranberries, nuts, and frozen swai (fish fillets similar to tilapia). Oh and ice cream that I don't want DH to find and eat too quickly.

Upstairs is more of a mix. Right now you'd find several bananas (awaiting banana bread day), two packages of nuts that were on sale, a bag of ice cubes (we use ice very seldom), a can of orange juice concentrate, a half-can's worth of coconut milk, a half-recipe's worth of oatmeal cookie dough, a few mini-loaves of my sourdough bread, and maybe some other stuff if you dig all the way to the back. Also we keep a small section set aside for trash: things that would be rotten and yucky if kept out until trash day, so we put them in a grocery bag and freeze them -- stuff like meat wrappers, or bones left over from stock-making. No ice cream because it's winter.

We have a lower freezer, on a frig. Frozen: 3 Rib eye steaks, 2#'s ground turkey, 4#'s organic sausage, 3#'s grated cheese, loaf of Black Forest bread, hamburger & hot dog buns, hot dogs, 1# hamburger, 3#'s shelled walnuts, 1# rapid rise yeast, brown sugar, a dozen home made breakfast burritos(I made 24)

The meat, BF bread, nuts & cheese, I just purchased yesterday.

My freezer is a bottom drawer and it's filled with ribs, chicken, meatballs from Gordon Foods, ham slices, hot dogs, Hamburg patties, homemade spaghetti sauce, rhubarb, blueberries, homemade banana bread, packages of frozen vegetables and fruits. My goal for the next few months is to "start eating at home" and not waste so much. Plus my cupboards are full as I tend to go overboard as winter is coming on!

We have a side by side in the kitchen. We have a very old 'fridge/freezer on the top "beverage" appliance downstairs by the pool table. We have an upright downstairs.

Upstairs are bags of vegis, ice-cream and lunch left overs for DH. The beverage freezer holds cold packs and beer steins. The upright has meat/large batch left overs/butter/ two dozen bags of bananas waiting for bread making day, soup bones, carcass for turkey soup, frozen raspberries and apples from our garden waiting for pie baking, quick bread loaves waiting for breakfast when offspring are home.

I still have both homes, one here in MA and one down in CT. I also have two stand-alone freezers in addition to the two fridges (one is a chest, the other an upright). There is only the minimal down in CT, basically overflow that I know won't fit up here quite yet. (The upright which is down in CT will move up here soon, but the regular fridge there will be sold with the home.) Currently, here in MA is the chest freezer and the freezer that is associated with the kitchen fridge, and they are packed.

I buy meat from local farmers and getting a discount from buying whole sections is worthwhile. I also raised up 7 chickens (six were roosters) that were also put into the freezer.

Right now, most of a quarter of a cow, most of half of a pig, half of a lamb, about 4 remaining chickens in various parts, a smoked duck, four packs of smoked bacon my brother sent me, several packs of frozen veggies (mostly spinach or broccoli or an Indonesian mixture of rice and veggies/seasonings), one eel, 1/2 pound of scallops, about three quarts of home canned tomato sauce (that didn't seal properly so I froze them), a small half-loaf of someone else's homemade loaf of bread, some chicken feed in lard, soft corn taco shells, a couple trays of ice, leftover bones and such from various critters that I plan to make into bone broth.

I might have missed something there.

We have a freezer-on-top fridge in the kitchen and a good sized chest freezer in the basement. Upstairs is mostly random leftovers, ice packs and bait. In the door are jars with sesame seeds, nuts, flax seed and some random stuff.

Downstairs, the freezer really needs to be cleaned out. I know there are a couple of turkeys that belong to my friend. She buys them on sale and I store them to keep the freezer fuller. Also coffee, flour, cheese, random fish that DH has caught, black beans that I cooked from dry, cornmeal, a pound of yeast, rice, bulk spices, tortellini, and milk in 2-cup jars. Also several 2-liter bottles of water, frozen for ice packs in the big cooler. And I think a bag of ice that got opened but not used.

We don't eat meat at home, so not much of that. And I let my Costco membership drop, so no large boxes of anything.

OH, and half of the cheesecake left over from Christmas. That won't be there long. :)

Lordy, Lordy. I have a jam-packed freezer. Ravioli from Costco along with Tortellini, two quarts of marinara, a turkey, baby back ribs, pecans, walnuts, (big bags from Costco, minestrone soup, Manhattan clam chowder, chicken soup, mushroom soup, shrimp, egg rolls, meatballs, chicken breasts, hamburgers, spinach, broccoli, puff pastry, snickerdoodles, chocolate chip cookies, almond cookies, salmon, chicken pot pie filling, beef tenderloin.......and that's just what I can think of off the top of my head. Next week is suppose to get cooler so I am going to make some pea soup to add to the mix.

The basement upright freezer is currently holding just coolers. We emptied and defrosted it this year and with just two of us and DH doing more of the cooking and preferring fresh meat, we don't justify the operating cost anymore. I'm trying to justify the Costco membership, I just like going there!

The side-by-side in the kitchen holds a box of Thin Mints and ice cream sandwiches, a pizza (always an "emergency pizza" for when we just don't want to cook),

homemade chicken broth (we freeze it in ice cube trays and store it in ziploks) ,

a few bags of SteamFresh and other vegetables,

bag of Golden Crispers fries,

shrimp (I may as well toss it, DH can take it or leave it and since he cooks now, it doesn't get made),

cooler packs,

French onion soup from Costco. DH was traveling and DS is home for a bit, and he loves French onion soup and asked for it.

mini-quiches, the boys always asked to bring them to school for "Pi Day" (March 14), club potlucks, French Day, etc. and they make a nice little lunch for with a salad, or surprise last-minute appetizers.

a plastic container of chili, must be from before Christmas; I'll bet it will never get eaten

******

I really don't like the side-by-side though the clear Fridge Binz really help. When the kids were younger I couldn't have had just that, I really needed the basement freezer (especially when I was a room parent or "band mom"). But at my parents' empty house I had an epiphany: they have a nice bottom-freezer fridge, great drawers, I'm thinking of asking my dad if we can swap. It doesn't have a water dispenser or ice maker though: I've gotten spoiled.

just a top of the fridge freezer. Left overs, and meals for one ready to heat up (I make these myself), some frozen veggies and a container of home made ice cream. I am lucky to be able to walk to a grocery store within 5 minutes, and don't need to keep lots of stuff on hand. I let them do it. :)

PS, I forgot, I bought a turkey roast, that I plan to cook this week.

Only have the bottom freezer of the fridge. Chopped spinach, green beans, peas (why, I don't know. we both hate peas except right out of the garden), tomato puree, 1 lb of shrimp, about 1/2 dozen one cup containers of chicken and beef stock, a big hunk of suet for the birds, a pork tenderloin, some chicken thighs, polenta, flour, a couple of pounds of sausage that a friend of ours made, ice cube trays, ice packs, a package that I think is lasagna (DH is bad about marking things), and another package that could be almost anything. Pulled the last container of my chili out of there last night and found several unmarked containers of ?? (tomato based somethings). I think there is one cup left of my homemade enchilada sauce (boy, is that stuff hot!) in there too. Sounds like it's time for both a purge of unidentifieds and restock of some big batch cooking. Sigh.

I have a bottom freezer fridge. The upper shelf carries ice, ice cream, Eggos. The lower basket carries good intentions. I also have an upright freezer in the garage, with additional food that I try to remember.

My new house (still being fixed up) has dual Sub Zeros, and I’m really looking forward to trying to use the freezer more wisely. Wide and shallow, everything will be easily visible and accessible. My hope is that frozen meals, and portioned and frozen meats, will make fast food and pizza runs less a part of our life.

Oh boy. If I started to list precisely, I'd be here all morning ;0) And I haven't inventoried the upright freezer in the mudroom lately - it's due for its 6 mo defrosting. So, from memory -

Bottom mount freezer in the kitchen. It has ice (ice maker), ice cream, Trader Joe's lemon bars (about 5 boxes), some filled pastas, a few assorted vegetables like riced carrots and brocolli, and pork roast that I'd bought and realized I wasn't going to use right away, just dropped it in. Nuts for baking purchased in bulk. There's more, I'm sure.

In the mudroom upright, one huge ham and about 3 Costco half hams, couple of ham bones. 3 beef prime rib roasts purchased on sale. Many chuck eye steaks packaged for two. Kielbasa that a friend makes every year (pork, and tons of garlic). Two or three whole chickens. Maybe three turkey breasts. A shelf full of frozen wild blackberries. Frozen roasted hatch chilies. Boxes of jasmine and brown rice (3 minutes in the microwave, done). Butterflied breaded shrimp. Salad shrimp. Homemade spaghetti sauce, soups. Diced rhubarb. Couple of bone in sirloin pork roasts. Couple of bags of Bertolli premade stirfry. More vegetables. Tomatoes waiting to be sauce. More. It's jammed full. When we moved, I left my huge upright thinking I could downsize comfortably to 18 cubic feet, new and energy efficient. It's barely big enough.

During the winter in my deep freeze freezer there are several boxes of chicken thighs and chickenbreasts. Frozen whole beets and several other frozen veggies. About 10 zucchini casseroles. Two dog food bags.

In my fridge freezer I have all of my spices, frozen fruit, some frozen veggies, several Frozen homemade single meal containers and frozen uncooked shrimp 2 large packs full. I also keep my brown rice and rye flour in the freezer along with extra bread.

In the summer when all the winter food is gone there is room for all of my wool blankets and wool clothing in the deep freeze. We buy more fresh during the summer so our fridges are full more than our freezers then.

The freezer on top of the frig, which is used for most-often used stuff and odds and ends.

A chest freezer in the spare bedroom. Homemade frozen soups, chicken stock, spaghetti sauce, butter.. Home-made bread. Meat (chicken, roasts, hamburger, pork chops, etc etc)

I've always stocked up when things are on sale and I haven't broken the habit yet.

Just last week our local butcher had chicken leg quarters on sale for .79 lb. They often have thighs and drumsticks on at .99/lb. Prices like those, I stock up.

Currently I'm trying to eat out of the freezer and get it whittled down.

Read what TVQ1 wrote but sub my name in there. I have one large upright freeze, 2 small chest freezers and the freezer from the kitchen fridge and the freezer from the basement fridge. All the freezers are full of various meat/seafood and veggies. There are no store bought meals in there, but there is one shelf that is homemade dinners for poofing. Most of my soups are on the shelf, canned. One chest freezer has San Marzano tomatoes in it for sauce making that I never got to as they came late.

Ready meals are:

sliced beef for dips or Italian beef

1/2 pork roast with stuffing

turkey breasts

oxtail stew

short ribs

sauerbraten

bean soup

veggie soup

pulled pork

Meats/seafoods are:

shrimp

scallops

tilapia

salmon

whole chicken

chicken breast and thighs

steaks

brisket

pork chops

pork roast/loin

ground beef and pork

beef tongue (Thanks Annie!)

several beef roasts

a half ham

All this and I am sure more for 2 people and a dog. Everything has been run through the food-saver machine. I buy on sale and hate shopping. I refuse to run out for one item. If the famine or recession comes, I am good. Iknow that this week pot roast and cabbage rolls are going in.

I only have the refrigerater freezer. I have 2 sirloin tip roasts, 3 chicken leg quarters, bag of wrapped pork chops cut from a big piece of loin, thick peameal bacon chops cut from a roast, bag of Kirkland chicken breasts I bought Friday, 4-4 cup bags of blueberries I picked, 4 cup bag of frozen sour cherries I picked and pitted, orange juice, buttermilk powder, corn meal, bag of frozen corn, bag of frozen petit pois, 2 lbs butter, oats, lemon and lime zest, chopped green pepper I cut up this morning, 2 Tenderflake pie shells, box of Tenderflake tart shells, bag of coconut, cold packs, 2 boxes of boil in the bag kippers, ziplock bag of skinless boneless chicken thighs, a few 90 calorie frozen yogurt bars from Costco, a few popsicles. 2 pieces of homemade lasagna, container of lobster bisque. My cat used to run if she was near my feet whenever I opened the freezer door because something would always fall out haha. I can't remember what else is on the freezer door shelf except the cold packs. There may also be 2 pieces of homemade lasagna I made a month ago Oops I forgot, fresh pasta sheets and tortillas

I am also trying to eat out of the freezer to get it whittled down, without much success. I have an upright freezer in the garage, and it has overflow from my freezer drawer in the kitchen. I have an addition refrigerator in the garage as well, which has no freezer compartment, and it never has much in it, but I use it for overflow from the kitchen.

My upright freezer has a lot of frozen vegetables, but I keep buying fresh ones, and so they don't get used often enough. It also has frozen fish, concentrated juices (OJ, limeade), lemons and limes from my trees, bananas (for smoothies), which I use often, bread (that I get for free from a bakery that I did work for), butter, chicken thighs and/or breasts (which I do access frequently), chicken stock, various nuts, various flours, and emergency ice trays.

In the kitchen freezer drawer, I have masa and chicken chili, for making tamales. I freeze fresh masa if I do not use it in a couple of days, but I plan to defrost it this week and make the rest of the tamales. I also have grits and corn, which I use frequently.

My new house (still being fixed up) has dual Sub Zeros, and I’m really looking forward to trying to use the freezer more wisely. Wide and shallow, everything will be easily visible and accessible.

Nice! We have a built-in KA. I love being able to see everything in the freezer without the need to search.

We have a side by side fridge/freezer in the kitchen and a small chest freezer in the garage.

The side by side freezer contains frozen sour dough take and bake baguettes, English muffins, oatmeal cookies,brownies, yogurt, cheese, pork dumplings (gyoza), breakfast meats, chicken broth, spaghetti sauce, taco meat, refried beans, chili, ice cream and various specialty flours, rice,nuts, seeds and ginger root.

The chest freezer contains grass fed organic ground beef, wild salmon, wild halibut, wild shrimp, wild scallops, chicken, two tri-tips, a leg of lamb, ground turkey, lamb stew, pork tamales, flour tortillas, sandwich rolls, more breakfast meats, low sodium bacon, butter, ice cream and misc stuff.

All of the ready made food I've listed is home made by us; we rarely by already made foods. Like many of you, our freezers are full and we are not planning to buy or make anything else that needs to be frozen until we have used most of what is in the freezer.

I have a 30" integrated all freezer in the kitchen, and my old upright manual defrost with the freezer coil shelves in the garage. The latter has stock, spaghetti sauce, soups, beef knuckles, I think some bread, a cabbage, the cans for the cold tray, matzah, my freezer goo cold bag, but I think I used the last pie. I should bake. The kitchen freezer has a little soup, some grain, spices/herbs, chicken stock cubes, lemon juice cubes, pearl onions, ice cream, some cryovac ground beef I keep forgetting when I need it, a few snacks, some sliced brisket, some meat and bones being saved for soup, some stale bread for crumbs, plastic ice cubes for burns, and cold wraps, butter, and some stuff that probably needs throwing out.

Side by side with the water dispenser/ ice maker. This is really enough for us now. Not too much in it. Some pancakes, ice cream, veggie patties, bread. Little ice packs for bruises. Weirdest stuff in there is probably a ziplock bag of snow from about 10 years ago. Snow doesn’t happen that often here....

My freezer is in my tiny side-by-side and mostly contains ice packs. I think there are some pecans and some butter left over from holiday baking and a pound of bacon kept on hand for my father's visits. Oh, and some herbs that I clipped fresh and froze in olive oil for emergency use when I'm out of fresh herbs. I don't stock up on anything. If we have an apocalyptic event, we will be in the first group to starve.

LOL Elizabeth! Didn't know that!

We have downsized, both house and garden, so I don't need as much freezer space as I used to. HOWEVER....I'm getting a bit tired of cooking from scratch 6 nights a week (DH grills in the summer), so I'm freezing more meals to still have home cooked meals without me having to cook them!

So the regular indoor freezer has mostly TJ sides, frozen veges, coffee, ice, home made muffins, sausage patties....stuff that needs to be readily available.

The small upright has 4 plastic containers (beef, poultry, pork and fish) and the rest of the shelves are filled with meals frozen in foodsaver bags, tomato sauce and meat trash (meat containers and stuff that will stink if left out) We only fill a trash can every couple of weeks!

FOAS, congratulations on that new house, I hope you love it!

Freezers? Oh boy. I have a freezer on the bottom of my refrigerator in the kitchen, it has the ice maker, various gluten free baked goods including bagels and muffins, some homemade pancakes, separate bags of beef/chicken scraps and bones for stock, a bag of vegetable "parts" like celery leaves and carrot tips for said stock, a couple of packages of sliced and cooked lamb for Elery.

On the porch I have a small refrigerator that I use for cold drinks and eggs. Right now it contains 24 dozen eggs from my "girls", along with those cold drinks. I use the crisper drawers in this because everything in the new fridge in the kitchen freezes. The freezer on this refrigerator holds frozen herbs, 18 quarts of home pressed apple cider, a couple of pounds of butter and some freezer jam, as well as high temp cheese for sausage making and some "starters" for cheese making.

The pole barn has two chest freezers, right now they are full of home grown grass fed beef, some duck we raised last year, a couple dozen chickens that we raised but haven't eaten yet, and frozen corn, rhubarb and zucchini from the garden.

The garage upright freezer contains venison, pork, smoked pork products like bacon and ham, sausage, home rendered lard and some homemade liver sausage. The chest freezer in the garage has broccoli, asparagus, raspberries, pureed butternut squash, blueberries, peach slices, 30+ pounds of shelled cranberry beans, sliced poblanos and adjvarski peppers, roasted eggplant and sliced green tomatoes, all from the garden. It also contains a whole turkey, several pounds of liver, a couple of large packages of yeast from Sam's Club, several dozen unbaked cookies including sugar, molasses, chocolate chip and peanut butter, all homemade and left from Christmas, as well as a chunk of homemade gluten free pie crust, ready to roll out.

I think that's it, but I'm sure I've forgottten something, probably several somethings. I cook and bake almost exclusively from scratch although I do make Velveeta Shells and Cheese for the grandkids, along with an occasional frozen pizza. I can live easily on my freezers and pantry full of home canned foods for weeks and sometimes I do, it doesn't bother me to just sit at home for a couple of weeks and not go anywhere. It drives my husband crazy, though, so I send him to the feed store or somewhere!

Annie

Fun2B, you might want to get Annie's address in case of the apocalypse. She could fix you right up!!

You people are so organized. After the holidays, with all the comings and goings, and things getting jammed in there, I don't know what's in there. Time to do a cleanup!

What's in my freezer?? Not much :-) It is pretty tiny and the ice maker and its collection bucket take up a sizeable portion. Typically, there are a few Trader Joe's frozen entrees or other similar items, ice cream/sorbet, nuts, beakfast sausage in single serve portions, usually a spare pound of bacon and a few rolls or half a loaf of French bread.

For the most part, I dislike frozen meat, especially poultry, so seldom have anything in there other than an emergency pack of ground beef. And not much room for anything else, so hardly ever leftovers or soups, etc. There is half a recipe of chocolate chip cookie batter.....just in case I get a desperate cookie urge :-)

Good Lord Annie!!! I trust you’re all set with backup power?

We have a standalone Sub Zero freezer in the kitchen that's half empty. Our version of "fast food" - salmon burgers and fish sticks from Costco, a few packages of frozen fish, some packages of veggies, a bottle of Aquavit, and ice cubes

I now have a side by side and am old fridge with a freezer on top. I used to have a full stand up freezer which I miss. I have chicken, beef, veggies and frozen soups and meals. I try to freeze some of the meals I make so we can take a day off from cooking.

We have a side by side, which is pretty full. Recent additions are some packages from Omaha Steaks that were a gift from a friend, and one vacuum sealed package of venison steak and one of venison hamburger that a friend of a friend gave to us.

Just tonight I used a second package of venison hamburger to make a shepard's pie, or I guess since it is venison I should call it hunter's pie.

I have a small chest freezer in the basement that I inherited, and the bottom freezer in the kitchen. You know that saying that your stuff will expand to fill the available space? LOL, that is me and the freezers (and probably the influence of my mother and grandmother, who always kept well stocked freezers)

I do like having the space to store anything that I come across that is a real bargain. For example, when boneless pork loin is on sale for $1.19/lb as it was this past fall, I'll buy one, slice it down, then wrap and freeze the individual servings. Usually will share some of it with my DD. Same with any meat,fish or poultry -- like the very cheap ham and turkey from a few weeks ago, or the briskets that were on sale just after Passover. I buy only just enough to use up in a reasonable time frame though.

I keep lots of frozen fruits and vegetables too, both from my own garden and when well priced at the store. I was given a sack of yellow summer squash the other day, so tomorrow I am freezing that as well. About the only vegetables that I keep in the crisper drawers are peppers, mushrooms and carrots. My potted apple trees are starting to produce so I expect to be freezing apples along with the blueberries, cherries, kale, and tomatoes next year. I will usually have one bag of frozen ravioli, and one of turkey meatballs. I also freeze butter and nuts.

After this fall, when there were so many good sales on meat, poultry, nuts and even fish, I will not need to buy anything more other than fresh vegetables/fruit, frozen vegetables and dairy for at least 3 months.

Holy cannoli you people have a lot of food! Wow!

I have a small freezer in my laundry room with about 1/3 of a hand-raised-from-2-days-old angus cow. His name was Choco. We had Choco-burgers for supper tonight. Sometimes we have Choco Tacos. :)

Also a quart of milk and the top layer of my son's wedding cake from last year. (He doesn't have his own freezer yet.)

Does no one else freeze milk? We don't drink it anymore but like to have it on hand when our granddaughter comes to stay for a few days.

Peppi & Annie, do you have a whole house generator too?

catticus and FOAS, we do have a generator, which is capable of running the freezers as well as the pump, the lights and the pellet stove, but not the big geothermal heating system. Elery would like to get one hard wired so it just comes on instead of having to go out the the pole barn and do the list of things I have to do to get that big monster running. He did make me a list of all the things to do with the various breaker boxes, breakers and plugs, LOL, and it's a darned good thing!

Right now those freezers are pretty full because one of the people who was going to purchase half a beef backed out, and Elery shot three deer last year and another one this year, plus we had an 18 year old cow that was having some back problems and so rather than make her endure what was probably going to become constant pain, she became nearly 500 pounds of hamburger. The chest freezer in the garage is about half empty, though, and both it and one of the pole barn freezers will be empty before the weather is very warm, so I'll be down to just two full sized freezers and the refrigerator/freezers.

Remember, this is what farm families have always done. When you slaughter beef in November, you have a LOT of beef (or pork, or chicken). That has to last, though, for the entire year, until the next fall. Same with the fruits and vegetables, it seems like a lot, but has to last for a year.

Neither of my girls have full sized freezers, so they periodically come "shopping at Mom's" as they empty their small freezers and Elery's kids all are certain to bring coolers when they visit. (grin)

And yes, I'm already buying seeds for this year's garden and sorting out those I've saved from last year.

Annie

If I had to grow my own food, I'd be swapping cooking or sewing or paperwork or something else I'm good at, or I'd starve, but I sure do love reading about Annie's farm. :)

We've no freezer compartment in the refrigerator in the kitchen, which makes SWMBO unhappy, so we have a large upright freezer in the basement.

The freezer door closes with a feeble magnet rather than a hearty mechanical latch, which is no doubt intended to prevent anyone from being trapped inside. Unfortunately, that includes Mr and Mrs Frozen Potatohead. The door is easily pushed open, by frozen food carelessly jammed into an overcrowded shelf upon which an impatient adult slammed the door. It is also easily left not completely closed, by a heedless child rushing upstairs with ice cream.

We've suffered several prison breaks, where the Potatoheads escape and the rest of the Freezer Pals enjoy an expensive thawing. Each was followed by our family's version of the Spanish Inquisition where the Culprit Is Sought. Finally DS became tired of all the "j'accuse" - sensibly so, as he was often convicted and punished - and took matters into his own hands.

Now the freezer door is held shut by a long and very strong bungee cord from the handle, up over the door, to the wall behind. To retrieve frozen items, you have to force the door open against the powerful pull of stretched elastic, wedge your body between the freezer and the door, and grope around for Mrs Frozen Potatohead without slipping and being pushed into the freezer by the muscular bungee. There to flail, head stuck in the frozen pea shelf, while the rest of the frozen food makes a run for it. "Quick, before he gets up!" "Where's my cow?" "Does any one know where Marie Calendar lives?"

From this description you can guess that the freezer is pretty full. With what exactly, I couldn't tell you. SWMBO knows everything and where it is - "second shelf to the right, and straight on until bacon" - but I've no idea. I just know we keep bags of ice cubes on the top shelf.

Because, you see, we've no freezer compartment in the refrigerator in the kitchen, which makes SWMBO unhappy, so sometimes she sends me down to "get ice(d)" in hopes I'll slip and get trapped in the basement freezer while she calls the appliance salesman to bring her a new Subzero and Mrs. Frozen Potatohead lectures me "you should always give her what she wants".

Having a frozen food "warehouse" at home wouldn't work for me. I dislike frozen meat and beyond a few things in frozen form I do find okay, I much prefer buying fresh food. Most everything is "in season" all year anyway, you can usually find anything any time.

Bread, bacon, nuts, cheeses, coconut, uncooked rice, knob of ginger, a chopped up red bell pepper, assorted frozen meats, coffee beans, and premade smoothies (my concoction). There was an entire container of tiramisu last month. The month before it also held three entire cheesecakes.

Littlebug, in what type of container do you freeze your milk? We have milk delivered in glass bottles, and they will shatter if frozen. Even if I would remove milk to leave room for freezing, I still wouldn't trust the glass.

For a family of 4 who mostly eats at home, our freezer is surprisingly lean in contents. I've never been one to stock up or freeze meals, and I go to the grocery store twice a week. So in my freezer now, there are chicken and salmon, as well as frozen cheese sticks bought as snacks for the kids that have been overlooked the past 6 months (the cheese sticks, not the kids). Lunch containers are stored in the freezer overnight so they stay cold the next day. And ginger... I love the ease of grating frozen ginger.

Elmer J Fudd, that works for you, but would not work for me. I live in Northern Michigan, so far in the boonies that no cell phones work and our internet is delivered by a large antenna on top of the house, via sending of radio/sound/??? waves to their local tower. No cable either.

Because we are farmers, we produce what everyone else eats, so I'm happy to hear people say they shop regularly. However, my small town, which is 10 miles away, has a WalMart, an Aldi and a Meijer. Any real shopping involves a 100+ mile round trip to Grand Rapids.

Annie

John Liu, do you have a blog or something? I can relate to your bungee chord freezer and was streaming about your post on the foodsaver thread!

Feathers, most milk in my area is sold in plastic jugs, gallon or half-gallon size. I make sure at least a cupful is used out of a jug before putting it in the freezer, to allow for expansion. A half-gallon of frozen milk takes a surprisingly long time to thaw in the refrigerator - usually 3 days. (It's really good and cold with little ice crispies in it.)

Holy moley this picture is big! Sorry.

In the stand alone upright freezer: breads, fish/seafood, beef, peas, spinach, mixed veggies (for pot pies), the only frozen vegetables we consume, all others are fresh, berries, different flours, spices/herbs, yeast, rices, ravioli and possibly a few other things. In the pullout drawer of kitchen fridge: ice cream, cranberries, nuts, Trader Joe frozen potatoes, Trader Joe's chimichurri rice, cheeses, various chicken sausages from Costco and hash browns. In the side by side in the garage: chicken, pork, beef, turkey breasts, rack of lamb, turkey sausage, ground chicken, ground turkey, bags of fruit for smoothies.

Thank you, Littlebug, for the information!

Does milk separate when frozen? Is the flavor affected?

Nancy, no cooking blog. (I have blogs but they pertain to historic preservation and local political issues - boring stuff.)

Elmer, IME the flavor is not affected but it will separate, requiring a good shake before pouring.

I buy gallon jugs of milk and pour off into a half gallon jug that goes into the freezer. Also, especially in the winter, I try to keep a quart of that shelf stable milk that is pkg'd in those aseptic cartons in the pantry. So no one has to venture out into 5 degree weather to buy milk if I'm running low and want to make broccoli cheese or cauliflower soup.