I also very much miss 2ManyDiversions - she was always so kind and encouraging to me, not to mention inspiring.

I've been clearing out my refrigerator freezer, ever since my garage freezer stopped working, and so I have very little in there, but I have made a bit of space. I have to keep ice trays there for when the ice maker stops working temporarily.

Normally at this time, I buy cantaloupes or other melons, cut them into cubes, and freeze the cubes to make instant sorbets in the blender, but I have not done that for a while. If I had cherimoya, I would freeze that.

I'm with Lars right now, trying to clear out my big standup freezer so I can clean it out good and start filling it with frozen summer produce items. I'm moving items from the freezer in the garage into the smaller kitchen freezer under the fridge, and then slowly moving things out from there as I prepare them for meals . . . unfortunately this is a painfully slow process as hubs and I don't eat that much. I seem to have an inordinate amount of tortillas to use up. I already made one batch of enchiladas and fajitas is on the docket for this week . . .

As for freezing, I just froze two batches of green beans. They couldn't wait for the freezer to get clear.

If it counts as a frozen treat, I made a couple batches of fruit crisp topping to have on hand in the freezer.

Fruit counts since that has been my harvest focus recently. Just pitted 3 lbs of cherries, 2 lbs of blueberries, 10 lbs of rhubarb....1/4 sheet pans to the freezer, then into zip-locks. Same with cherry tomatoes. I have a cantelope and baby watermelon that may need the same treatment. Now the raspberries. All frozen fruit we can't get to fresh are excellent frozen and waiting. Future popsicles or cubes, smoothie.

I can sympathize with fridge/freezer troubles. Just as the freezer was thinning, like every year late June/July, and ready to accept spring/summer harvest....our kitchen freezer stopped working a couple weeks ago. A Saturday mid-morning. We were packed for a weekend out of town but were waiting out some heavy thunderstorms. I keep the kitchen freezer rather light, but it holds the higher quality proteins for the rotation for the next couple weeks choices. Dual compressors so the fridge was fine. Bummer, then canceled the trip. The only bright side is we gave it a thorough cleaning and went through things that needed tossing. I'm a trouble shooter with the help from the internet. After a good thaw it is now working fine. If we had left for a couple days....a shame and waste of expensive good food. I do try and play the game of not storing too much frozen that cannot be used in a reasonable amount of time. We have a small 3 cubic ft commercial freezer un-plugged. Nice to have that back-up....it was a free-cycle. Use it once/twice a year for parties. Bags of ice, flash freezing stocks....handy in disasters, lol.

My recent freezer obsession is preserving herbs. Year after year falling for bloggers. Went down that rabbit hole this morning. BullCarp.

This is Thai basil, hissop, mint, cilantro, celery leaf....frozen in avocado oil. Not convinced it will give me what i want. (Fall/winter spring rolls). Maybe a bit dumb since i grow micro herbs year round but i have so much at the moment that will go to seed soon.

Recently back to frozen juices. And ice cubes of fresh ginger, lemon, fresh turmeric, spice and pepper...adding to my iced green tea...overwhelmed with harvest i'm off the popsicle game for now. Work has a full insane fresh juice green bar every morning...beet, celery, kales, ginger, termeric, all fruits you could think of...now peas and beans in season.

I'm freezing excess ripe bananas in hopes of actually using them to make frozen smoothies. Our freezer is tiny, so I rather envy those with so much room. Once a bit more space opens up, I will make fruit juice popsicles.

& oh dear, sleevendog. Your story reminded me of something that happened to my sister. While they were away for a month, the power went out and there was nobody to turn the breaker back on so they came home to a refrigerator filled with horror. She said she began trying to clean it, then gave up and just bought a new fridge. There were maggots, among other things...

Ew.

The other popsicles I made this week were condensed, seasoned, chicken bones/feet broth which is interesting because it's so gelid and low-water that there's no ice or even crystals. And rainbow chard and skin-on peaches. . I had been worried that the latter was too sweet, but frozen it's less sugary tasting and more peachy. I first tried this combo last year, and they're really good together. There's just a little water in it to make the blender go. The color is beautiful. It was green in the blender but has gone very, very dark and almost purple-ish. I was worried but these turned out better than I'd thought!

I have a lot of lemons--but that's year round--and a lot of tarragon unless the gardener whacks it back. All my herbs are year round. I should dry some tarragon for the whacked back days, but I don't need it. I have a jar of Penzey's.

All your stories of freezing all these fruits and herbs are very interesting! But I still haven't used up the lemon juice cubes I froze a few years ago. As it is, I have some meats that came still frozen and got thrown in the freezer which I need to actually use... I was starting ti use some of the cooked food I froze last year for in case they'd be needed, but with the current news, I think I'll wait awhile longer.

I miss her too.