Back into the grove of Posting...Sort of...

All right, so I'm terrible about blogging.  My other blogs agree, they don't see updates nearly often enough either.  But! I am still making an effort.

Today's topic - Freezing!

So, you've made a giant batch of lasanga, spaghetti, stew, pie, or other.  You and your sweetie won't go through all of it before it goes bad, but you don't know how to make it taste right unless you make a huge batch.  What to do with all the leftovers?  Well, before you call five friends over for dinner (which is an acceptable way to use up leftovers, but that's a different blog post), consider your freezer.  If, like me, you love to cook, and always (well, almost always) find yourself with a meal for six when you're cooking for two.  Solution?  Foodsaver, glass jars, and a little bit of canning knowledge - there are lots of tutorials out there for how to can properly, I'll let you look those up.  But canning your own spaghetti sauce means that in the middle of winter when you can't get decent tomatoes you can still have excellent lasanga.  Just saying.

Freezing is the art of knowing what things you cook will freeze and thaw well.  Pastas do well, but gnocchi doesn't (unless you have a deep freeze, which I do).  Most pastries do well if you freeze them before you cook them, some pies do fine baked and then frozen after they've cooled completely.  Cake freezes well, but whipped cream frostings don't.  Creamcheese or butter frostings freeze fine.  Cooked meats don't do as well as raw meats, but can be frozen if packed in enough liquid.  Soups do well if they aren't cream based - cream based soups will separate unless you use a deep freezer. 

A lot of this, you might guess, I've learned from trial and error.  Some of it is found online, and some cookbooks have little notes that say if thier recipies "freeze beautifully".  Remember the important things about freezing:

1.  Labels - with the name, date, and type of food.  (Martin's Special Sauce  10.21.2010  Red Pasta Sauce)
2.  When freezing liquids, make sure to freeze them in serving portions.  I use extra large muffin cups to freeze single servings of soups, then bag them into gallon ziplocks in my chest freezer. 
3.  Organize!  Keep newer things in the back, use up the older stuff quickly, don't let anything stay in your freezer for more than three years - I usually try to use up everything in two, if I can manage.  If I can't, I need to stop shopping. 

One thing that has been handy for me - and my husband - is an inventory on top of the freezer.   Wet erase markers work well, and every now and again a quick re-inventory on paper and a little bleach to clean up stained sections works great. 

Most of my friends ask, so I thought I would post here what's in my chest freezer all the time.  There are a few pantry staples that you can always find in my chest freezer, almost any time you open it. 

1.  Two whole chickens. I never know when I'm going to want to roast a bird.  Especially since I've learned how to properly broil a chicken in 30 minutes.
2.  A sack of individual yeast packets.  (I buy yeast in bricks from Costco, then use my Foodsaver to make small packages that I freeze.  A brick costs about the same as a little jar from the grocery store, and makes about 100 times more uses of yeast.)
3.  4 lbs of butter.  I never want to run out of butter.  Ever.
4.  A spare bag of coffee beans.  My husband never wants me to run out of coffee.  Ever-ever.
5.  The breakfast sandwiches hubby likes.
6.  2 Beef Roasts
7.  2 Pork Shoulders
8.  2 London Broils
9.  Vodka
10. Goldshlager
11. Phyllo Dough
12. Puff Pastry
13. Frozen Corn
14. Frozen Spinach
15. One Chicken Carcass - at least - for soup making.
16. One bag of frozen pre-cooked grilled chicken strips

Those are the usuals.  Sometimes there are a few pork ribs in there, or lamb chops I found on sale, or a turkey breast, or something else interesting.  The bottom drawer usually has stacks of frozen leftovers - I think I'm down to a bag of frozen lentil soup blocks.  I need to re-inventory.