I seem to spend a large portion of my life keeping track of food.
How much food is in the fridge? How is the food doing in the garden? Is there food in the pantry? Writing missing food down on lists. Keeping track of where that food list is in the house. What will I make for food today? When's the last time I pooped out my food?
It's time consuming. So a few days ago I figured I should do something, anything, to cut down on the amount of time I spend keeping track of food.
I did that, by ... keeping track of food.
Whenever I make meals, I often have food leftover. A lot of people with only one or two people in the household see this as a problem. They think this is one of the downfalls of cooking for one. The fact that one person can't eat a whole pan of lasagna.
Those people are stupid.
First of all, one person can totally eat a whole pan of lasagna, and the fact that you think you can't really means you think you shouldn't which proves you are a person of superior willpower. Good for you.
Second of all, a whole pan of lasagna never needs to be wasted, it needs to be frozen!
Cooking for one or two is the best thing EVER because you almost always have leftovers. And if you have even just 3 or 4 braincells remaining after a day at work you should have the mental capacity to remember to freeze the leftovers.
My one piece of advice with freezing leftovers? Do it RIGHT AWAY. Do not stick the leftovers back in the fridge, click your heels and walk away thinking "I'll take care of those tomorrow". Because you won't. They will get pushed further and further back into the abyss of the refrigerator until one day, 7 years from now you'll look behind that jar of sweet pickles to discover something that's now fur covered and has almost mastered the basics of language.
So the freezing of leftovers I've had down pat for a while. I even threw them into the same general area of the freezer so I knew where to root around if I didn't feel like making dinner.
But my method seemed inefficient. I know this because I found a container of frozen pizza sauce dated 2001 last week. (that's another tip, write the date you packaged the item with a Sharpie on your Foodsaver bag, freezer bag, mason jar or tupperware container)
So, even though it was a pajama day, I threw on my shoes and ran to the Dollar Store to pick up some containers for organizing. I pretty much blended into the rest of the Dollar Store shoppers pajama outfits.
This is what I ended up with.
In the main portion of my freezer (I have a small upright freezer in my mudroom, but this method can be used with any regular refrigerator freezer) I labelled bins for the various meats I keep on hand. Steaks, Ground beef, Chicken, Roasts.
For the freezer door I bought small plastic bins and put them in the door shelves. I have no idea what idiot thinks these door shelves should be designed like an enormous hole with a single inch wide bar holding everything in place, but as I said ... those people are idiots. Unless you have a large carton, things inevitably slip out and crash onto the floor.
The small plastic bins in the doors stops smaller things from plummeting to the earth. These door bins are reserved for seafood, pizza dough/pie dough, frozen rhubarb and a few other things.
And finally, the best part ever. I bought 3 bins specifically for leftovers or foods that I've premade. Like that famous leftover lasagna, or premade hamburger patties, or frozen pesto.
On each bin I've attached a note that says what's in that specific bin and how much. When I take something out and scarf it down, I cross it off the list. When I add something new to the bin (like I did yesterday with Curried Cauliflower Soup) I write it on the list.
Not only are my leftovers easy to find, I know at all times exactly what I have in there.
I don't mean to brag but I feel like a better person than everyone else now. I walk among the rest of you with the knowledge I am ... s l i g h t l y ... better. And with a few bins, a pen and a piece of paper you can be better too.
Want more STUFF like this?
Get my posts emailed to you daily.
Jodi T.
This is great...
But really, all I can think about now is Lasagna. My MIL used to make it for Christmas (sauce from scratch - the whole shebang) and I have NO IDEA HOW TO MAKE A GOOD SAUCE.
Help me Karen. Give us your lasagna recipe. Better yet, SHOW IT. ;)
Karen
Jodi T - One of the best lasagna recipes I've come across is the one from America's Test Kitchen (which includes the homemade sauce recipe for it). ~ karen!
Linda
I mistakenly read "Prepared Meds" on your bottom left green bin LOL (and no I don't take meds - must be my eyesight) :-)
Nancy Blue Moon
I also have a small chest freezer..when you figure out how to organize one let me know..Yours is great!!
Thera
Love it, however agree with the above re paper/pens. How about painting the fronts with chalkboard paint!!!!
And le sigh, I too have a chest freezer.
Karen
Hi Thera - I just pull the paper off, bring it 3 feet to the kitchen table and add or cross off whatever I need. Or, I bring a pencil to the freezer with me. It's not a problem. Honestly. ~ karen
Traci
This is great! Another similar idea that I've used successfully is to put a dry erase board on the fridge. I wrote "things we need" and "leftovers" on it leaving space to write underneath the headings. When I put leftovers in, I would write them on the fridge. For some reason, when everyone could read what leftovers were in the fridge they would seek them out and actually eat them instead of them going to waste as they had often done so before. Also, people started writing down things they finished off which made making a shopping list a little easier. This is great if you have more people in the house and your leftovers aren't usually enough to freeze. It kept a lot more food out of the trash!
Melissa
Well, it's official. The upright needs to go, which means our small chest freezer can fulfill its destiny as a kegerator.
Lydia
I love this Karen! But, what do you store things like lasagna and soup in? Freezer bags? I feel like lasagna would be difficult to transport without it sliding apart. I'm always throwing away leftovers after a day or so. I need to start freezing them!
Karen
Hi Lydia - For freezing lasagna I cut it into individual sized portions, place them on waxed paper on a baking sheet and freeze until solid. Then I bag them using my trust Foodsaver. Soup either goes into Ziploc style freezer bags or tupperware containers. ~ karen!
Langela
Karen, freezers are for filling and forgetting until they go bad and thaw everything and I have to throw everything out. You are so weird. Superior, but weird.
Karen
Agreed. ~ karen!
jainegayer
My freezer is a jumbled mass of disorganized food. I don't know what the h--- I have in there. And I usually am too impatient to root around in there for what I need. So right after coffee I'm on my way to the Dollar Store to buy bins and become a better person. Thank you, Karen.
Ann
My freezer so seriously needs defrosting right now. I can no longer slide the baskets in from the top that are supposed to hang from the top inside edge to hold small things. The freezer is actually pretty clean and tidy otherwise and there are probably only a few odd things that are older than 10 years in it!!
Ev
I'm green with envy! We have a small chest freezer on an enclosed porch right by the kitchen door. I hate that thing. Location great, nothing else great about it. My husband of many, many years does not like uprights, so there you go. Hats off to you Karen! Love the organization!
Debbie from Illinois
I am so glad you share your endless knowledge with us!!! Love the door baskets!!!
Vanessa M
"s l i g h t l y … better"....I'm with you, Norma Rae!
Ruth
This post resonated with me on so many levels.... I need to get out more. :-D
Karen
LOL! ~ karen
Sandy
Great idea!!
Pat
I will reinforce how important this is to keep track of the food. I am about to empty a huge chest freezer full of old food in my parents' basement. Just under the top layer which was 2011, I have come across dates of 2005, 2003. What lies beneath I cringe to think. This will be a 4 person production on a bonus dump day using a large pick up truck. They own two freezers and just kept filling them up and not using the food as fast as when they had a house full of kids. Habits are hard to break, I guess, when it comes to buying food on sale, freezing from the garden crop, etc. It is a crying shame to see the waste. Listen to Karen and organize your freezer so you DO NOT WASTE FOOD.
Jack
Excellent idea........but if next you are considering organizing your food pantry or cupboards with each category of canned food carefully aligned in neat stacks and rows or heaven's forbid, you start organizing your basement so that every tool is hanging off a peg board and screw, nut, and nail are separated, labeled and assigned to mason jars, you might want to consider the possibility of your being adopted.
Karen
Hi Uncle Jack. LOL. As it turns out, I've done both of those things on numerous occasions. The results last exactly half a day until the basement Gremlins show up and ... well then the place looks like you'd expect after a Gremlin rave. ~ karen!
KimC
I am passing this ingenious solution on to my Mum who is lucky enough to own an upright freezer! I however, will have to store that idea for now as I am a shorter person who must stick my head into the chest freezer and use my stubby arms to uselessly wade through the bricks of food just to locate a bag of peas! As much as I try to organize the food by categories my husband and kids love to keep it in more of a dishevelled state. Maybe I'll give the bins a whirl anyway until I can get my hands on an upright freezer...Costco, you say?
Karen
Costco. Yup. And when I used to have a chest freezer I used bins as well. It does make it easier because instead of pulling out 70 individual things to get to the bottom, you just have to lift a couple of bins. ~ karen!
Venesa
I adore organizing ANYTHING. I have clear plastic bins, similar to yours, that I've been using in my freezer for years, but after seeing the bins you put on the door shelves I'm on a mission to find some! Love that idea! No more early morning surprises when the frozen strawberries land on my toes!
Amy
I have a piece of chalkboard vinyl on the outside of the freezer door to list contents/quantities but I hadn't thought to add the bins - I like it!