Freezer & Pantry Inventory

The thing I love so much about Amy Dacyczyn's The Complete Tightwad Gazette is that unless you have reached the transcendent state of Frugal Grand Master, it pays to re-read this tome every six months or so. There are so many valuable tips in this book that a neophyte frugalist cannot hope to absorb them all. But that's okay, because in making the transition from spendthrift to frugalite, incremental change is the way to go. I got serious about frugality about two years ago, and while the bulk of lifestyle changes came within the first year, there are still a few tips I can implement in my life.

I posted not too long ago about having an extra chest freezer, and the importance of keeping track of what's in it so as to not to fall into the trap of wasting food. Well, it just so happens that on my most recent read through of The Complete Tightwad Gazette I found Ms. Dacyczyn's discussion of how to inventory one's pantry and freezer and develop a game plan for eating through what you've got. It helped me solidify my vague plans for clearing out some stuff that has been in that freezer too long. And now that the garden harvest is really winding down, it felt like the right time to take stock and see how we're going to use stuff up.

Ms. Dacyczyn recommends doing a complete physical inventory, which I accomplished with the help of my husband. We went through the chest freezer, the kitchen freezer, my home canned foods, and the rest of our large pantry. In the process we only discovered a few items that I had no idea were in there. I made a list and grouped foods together by type, such pork, fish, vegetable, baked goods, etc, along with their quantities. Dacyczyn wrote all this out long hand on some old computer print out paper; I put it into an excel spreadsheet.

Next I picked a timeframe for eating all this stuff up. April of next year seemed like a good terminus date, as we'll be looking forward to the first garden harvest by then. In the spreadsheet I assigned a column to each month, and distributed the foods among these next seven months. So at a glance, I can now see when each food will get eaten, and what foods we need to plan around each month. I didn't bother assigning a month for food that I have no concerns about. For instance, we have ten pounds of butter in the freezer, but I know that we'll simply go get some when we run out of what's in the refrigerator. Same goes for dried pasta, our homegrown garlic and homemade bread. So they didn't even make it onto the spreadsheet. I included only stuff that needs to get eaten up and won't be unless we specifically make a plan. For this month I added those fresh foods we've recently gleaned, harvested, or still have coming in from the garden. These need to be eaten up or stored in some way before they spoil.

To give you an idea, here's a list of this month's "accounts edible," as we call it:


Stored food:
Ham steaks, 2
Leg o’ lamb
Marinated turkey tenderloin
Salmon filets, 2

Borsch, 1 quart HG, HM
Stuffed peppers HG, HM
Stew, pork w/prunes or mahogany beef HM

Sage-cheddar biscuits HM
Bagels
Chocolate-zucchini cake HG, HM
Blini HM
Scallion pancake dough HM

Sage pesto HG, HM
Kale, blanched HG
Roasted corn
Corn cobs
Peas
Apple Butter HG, HM

Phyllo dough

Tomato sauce – 2 quarts HG
Salsa – 1 pint HG
Amy’s organic chile, 1 can
Salsa, store bought - 1 can
Canned veg – bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, baby corn
Tomato soup
Soup beans HG
Polenta
Beef stock

Fresh foods:
cream cheese
apples HG
pears G
chard HG
potatoes HG
kale HG
pumpkin HG
leeks HG
ground cherries HG

HG = (partly or fully) homegrown, HM = homemade, G = gleaned

This is just my list of what foods need to be used up, not a complete list of everything we're going to eat this month. But having both the spreadsheet and this month's list of need-to-eat foods printed out and tacked to the pantry door reminds us of what we've got and prompts me to plan our meals accordingly. The meat and fish are substantial enough to provide for leftovers; many leftovers in the cases of the meat. So I can see at a glance that I need to tackle one large piece of meat each week, and mull ideas for the leftovers.

If we should reach the end of the month without eating through all these foods, I can rejigger the spreadsheet to assign them to another month. We'll see how it goes. The obvious thing from going through this exercise is that we don't need to do much grocery shopping for the foreseeable future. We'll be concentrating on using up what we have rather than acquiring more food.

Last night we started off with a dinner of ham steak accompanied by cheesy polenta with sauteed onion and chard. It was pretty good. We're mulling the possible uses of leftover ham and cheesy polenta.

So Now You've Got a Chest Freezer

Two days ago we discussed how to evaluate the cost of a potential chest freezer purchase. Yesterday we talked about how you might or might not make that purchase a frugal one. Today we're going to assume you've run right out and bought yourself a new chest freezer. So now what? Well, as a frugal person, you naturally want to get the most out of this expensive appliance. Here's how to do it.

Maximizing efficiency

Reducing the costs to run the freezer. There are a few things you can do to slightly lower your electricity costs to run your freezer. Regular maintenance tasks such as defrosting and cleaning the coils are the chores that no one wants to do, but which really do make a difference in efficiency. Most chest freezers are not frostless. This means the food inside will keep longer because the unit does not cycle, but instead maintains a steady temperature. But it also means you'll need to unload the freezer and defrost it about once every year or two. Doing so allows the unit to cool more efficiently and lowers your electricity costs.

Be sure to follow the manufacturer's instructions on where to situate your chest freezer. My model needs there to be good airflow around it, and there are guidelines for the range of temperatures the room should be at for many models. The company that made your freezer probably did fairly extensive research on the optimal conditions for operating your new investment. So take advantage of their findings.

The other thing that helps a little is to keep the freezer full. You don't have to use this as an excuse to load it up with "bargain" foods that aren't really bargains. Ice will fill space in your chest freezer just as well as anything else. You could stockpile ice cubes for your next party, or fill old milk jugs or soda bottles and freeze those solid. You can easily add or remove sealed jugs or bottles as needed to fill up or make room in your freezer. Just remember to leave a little headspace inside the bottle for the water to expand when frozen. Bottom line is: if you have trouble keeping your freezer full of stuff that's truly useful to you, you probably bought a model that's bigger than you needed in the first place.


Organizing your Chest Freezer.

You can't benefit from, or eat, what you can't find. As an owner of a chest freezer, I can attest that organization becomes a very real issue as the freezer gets full. The new chest freezer owner invariably succumbs to the allure of all that empty space waiting be filled, and commences stocking up with abandon. Unless you get a model with some serious built-in compartments, keeping a chest freezer organized is more of a challenge than it might seem.

I tried the milk crate system and rejected it. For one thing it left too much difficult to use space outside of the crates. And for another, the cold temperatures left the crates more vulnerable to cracking. We tried keeping a written inventory of stuff going into and coming out of the chest freezer. This might work for some families or individuals, but we're just not that meticulous.

Eventually I hit on the idea of using the heavy woven plastic bags that are sold as reusable shopping bags. It's easy to fill these by theme: pork, lamb, garden vegetables, fruit, fish, dairy, etc. Generally, the tops of the bags stay somewhat open when mostly full of stuff, making it easy to see some of the contents. That way I know generally where to find things, and the handles provide a good way of pulling things out of the freezer without throwing out my back. I can grab the handles and pull out one bag at a time without having to bend and lift. Then I rummage through the bag with the freezer closed, and return that bag to the freezer when I've found what I wanted. I use easily identifiable, miscellaneous stuff to fill the gaps around these shopping bags. I have found that the regular thin plastic shopping bags aren't very good in a chest freezer; at such a cold temperature they tear quite easily on several kinds of packaging.

How you go about filling your chest freezer will depend on both your tastes and your personality. But eventually it comes down to balancing the desire to use space efficiently with practicality. In my experience, the most important habit to get into with a chest freezer is to label everything you put in there. I mean everything. You will probably do as I did and tell yourself a few times that you'll recognize this extra pie crust/turkey giblets/baking experiment when you next see it. Trust me: you want to label that stuff. Anything that doesn't already have a clear explanation - write the name and date on it. If you buy labeled fresh meat with the intention of sticking it in the freezer, you may want to put the date you froze it on the label anyway, especially if you sometimes buy meats close to their "sell by" dates. That information gives you some sense of how quickly you need to use up the meat once it's thawed. Because if you're looking at a roast that's been in your freezer for a while and is now three months past its sell by date, how long is it safe to keep it in the fridge before you cook it? Label everything. In the end it'll save you mystification, frustration, and money.


Portioning what you freeze

Thoughtful portioning is especially important with a chest freezer because a chest freezer usually runs at a lower temperature than the freezer attached to your refrigerator. So it's going to take longer to thaw a given item from the chest freezer.

I want to store foods in ways that make them easy for me to use quickly once I decide to take them out of the freezer. So I use a variety of storage methods. Soups and stews can go into plastic quart-sized yogurt containers. This leaves some difficult to use space around the containers, but it's a good portion size for a family of two. I typically make soups I intend to freeze a little on the thick side, then thin them after thawing. That way I can get 5-6 servings per quart.

I use the ice cube tray trick for things like citrus juice, pizza sauce, beaten eggs, and sometimes for pesto. Again, this is not the most efficient use of space in the freezer. But it allows me to thaw just as much of these items as I need very quickly. I've learned to portion meats the along similar principles. When I buy large quantities of bacon, I lay out a long sheet of plastic wrap, and then lay out the bacon in groups of two, three, or four slices, with a fold of the plastic sheet sandwiched in between each group. That allows me to reach in and remove only as much bacon as I want, without having to thaw the entire package at once.

Last year, the couple at Future House Farm showed off their beautiful array of produce stored in the freezer using the clever file method for ziploc bags. This consists of putting a liquid or semi-liquid food into ziploc bags, squeezing out all the air pockets, and then freezing the bags solid in a very flat shape. Once frozen, the bags can be stood up on edge and packed together like file folders. This works best when you either plan to thaw the entire contents at once (soup), or when the food will be frozen in a thin enough layer that you can just break off the amount you need whenever you need it (tomato paste).


Meal Planning & Freezer Inventory

Having a chest freezer full of food is a good feeling. But remember that you actively need to use this stuff up rather than just let it sit there as a hoard. It's a good idea to inventory what you've got at least a few times per year. If you have a lot of one particular item or items, make a note of the quantity on hand. Then keep that note in the kitchen to remind yourself to find a way to incorporate that item into your cooking at least once per week. If you've gone to the trouble of preparing ready to eat meals, keep a list of those as well. You're more likely to turn to them on the spur of the moment on a night you don't feel like cooking if you can simply look at your list and decide what to thaw. Isn't that better than just calling for pizza delivery?

Try to get into the habit of thinking about the evening meal early in the day, perhaps before you leave for work, or even the night before you cook. If you need to thaw something large from your chest freezer for use in the next 24 hours, place it in the topmost part of your refrigerator as early as possible. If your habits and lifestyle aren't going to include this much anticipation, then consider devoting one weekend per month to preparing meals that can go straight into the oven from the chest freezer. Search the web or your library for books on once a month cooking. You can find thin aluminum trays similar to pie plates in a range of sizes and shapes at most supermarkets. These are great for preparing small versions of casseroles and other dishes. And if you're careful with them, they can be washed and reused many times before they wear out.


-Whew! That's three days of talking about chest freezers. You know, when I started crafting these posts about chest freezers, I never imagined there'd be so much to say about them. I sincerely hope I've covered enough of the issues to put the chest freezer theme to bed. Onwards.