Organizing the Freezer

Freezer Cooking. 

Wait.  What?

Cooking in the freezer?  Isn't that an oxymoron?

No, I'm not a moron.  Freezer cooking is cooking large batches of food with the purpose of freezing it.  Why?  So that when you have a busy night, or don't feel like cooking, or want to bless someone with a homemade meal (death in the family, new baby...) you have something prepared.  

Freezer meals are not just soup and chili.  You can freeze yummy casseroles (think about what you find in the freezer section of your local grocery store).

I have been freezing meal for over a year and LOVE having something on hand for a quick dinner.  Life happens, but when we are short on time I don't always want to run by Jack in the Box.  A homemade, fully cooked, frozen meal is my go-to.

But if you have 30 meals in the freezer, how do you know what to grab?  How do you know what is in there?

I had seen a post (Pinterest?) where someone used a dry erase marker on the lid of the deep freezer.  Great idea!  I tried it.  

Problem 1 - too much food in the freezer, not enough space on the lid to write everything down

Problem 2 - it didn't wipe clean.

My solution - a simple notebook.

I need details!  I want to know what is in there, how much, when it was put in, and have room to record the same item several times (if I buy 5 whole chickens, I want to record it 5 times).

This works much better.  You can see that some of the first items don't have dates, they were in the freezer before I started this, and I hadn't dated them (oops).

This works great for us because the kids can read what is there, scratch off what they take out and even hubby can easily see - without digging - what is available.  

I did take the back cardboard and tape it to the lid of the freezer.  This way I don't have to worry about my book walking off.