A Cook's Best Friend. . .

So I've blogged a little before about organizing and how to best prepare foods and make it easier on yourself and your busy schedules.  I stand by my statement that a freezer is a busy cook's best friend.  In this blog I'll try to outline the best ways to use a standard freezer/fridge combo and a chest freezer, for those of us lucky enough to have one.  I highly recommend buying one for anyone looking to save money in the long run - you can usually find them in estate sales and at dent and ding stores for much cheaper.  We bought ours as a floor model at Lowe's and ended up paying at least 100 dollars less than original price.
  To start I will talk to the average home freezer.  The best trick to efficiently using your home freezer is to freeze things like soups, sauces, veggies and other small things in flat sheets. Notice the bottom shelf . . .

My personal freezer is a little sparse at the moment because we have it all in our chest freezer but think of how many servings of split-pea soup, corn chowder and marinara sauces I could stack up on the top shelf as well.  The trick to freezing things flat are good sturdy freezer safe ziplocs: with a sharpie label the ziploc with the contents and the date the food will expire (things always look the same when they're frozen so you can never tell what's in that bag!) place the cooled prepared food into the bag laying flat on your counter (enough for one night's meal)  and seal trying to expel as much air as possible.  Lay the ziploc flat on the bottom of your freezer (or on a cookie sheet if you have no flat surface) things like soups and sauces can usually stay for up to 6 months in the freezer! 
  For storing these ziplocs in a chest freezer it's good to get a plastic file crate and put it in the bottom of your freezer then place the ziplocs upright in the crate (the frozen ziplocs can be sifted through like file folders and you can easily find whatever you need).  I also recommend, as I have before, to double or triple your recipes on those nights that you do cook to quickly get your freezer stocked with extra meals.

My chest freezer may look a little crazy but everything is assorted into its requisite bin.  I chose this freezer because it had hanging and sliding baskets so things won't get buried beneath everything else.  Since we buy beef in large quantities our freezer is mostly meats, stocks, and lots of frozen summer corn.  I have bins for steaks, roasts, offal, and ground beef.  The stocks are all labeled in freezer safe containers and placed on the bottom of the freezer.

To further help me in my meal planning I create a list that I stick on the outside of the freezer that lists what's in the freezer and how many servings there are.  When something is used I just strike it off the list or reduce the number of servings listed.

This helps when I sit down on Sunday and make my grocery shopping list.  I know what I already have on hand and this way I don't buy so much at the store and spend less money in the long run.  To further help me save money I always keep my eye out for any special deals on organic meat that I can stock up on and put in the freezer - like the organic pork sausages that I bought last week for half price!  You may spend more money on a certain trip to the store one week but it will be a lot cheaper in the long run.  Happy organizing!