Tag Archives: storage

The freezer jumble

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I use lots of frozen vegetables since it makes cooking single servings much easier without having to waste produce. Then there are the soups that come out in large quantities so some goes into the freezer for later.  I do use zipper-lock freezer bags and store things flat, try to label everything, but it still seems that a jumble results eventually no matter how good my intentions.

Then there comes the yearly clean-out-the-freezer adventure. I have a bottom freezer on my refrigerator and a chest freezer (without any bells and whistles) on my back porch. I try to synchronize the cleaning process so that I don’t have to haul out the humongous cooler while I’m doing it. The chest freezer has to be defrosted which means it’s a warm-weather task.

My email from the Kitchn had an article that was very timely as the yearly troll of the chest freezer is imminent:  “The Best Freezer Organizing Hacks on the Internet” and I discovered the category of “freezer intelligence” that includes information on packaging and what can (and can’t) be frozen.

Even though I’m doing some things right, there were some trucs that I’d not (and probably would not) have thought of.  Some of these ideas just might help me avoid the avalanche from the under-refrigerator freezer and with organizing the chest freezer as well.

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Storing things….

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One of the problems that single-serving cooks continually face is things that change texture and colors as they languish in the refrigerator.  These are not always leftovers from the meal you cooked a week ago, or the little box you brought home from the restaurant when you couldn’t clean your plate (even though you knew then it was unlikely that you’d actually eat what was inside).  Having things “go bad” is a perpetual problem for those of us cooking for one…that head of celery, that whole head of romaine lettuce….

There are lots of tips, tricks, and suggestions that I’ve found about how to store things that plague the single-serving cooks but I’m always looking for better ways to store those bits and pieces until I can use them.   I’m always on the lookout for things that actually do work.

Ball-Mason jars for storageOne of my favorite sources for information like this is Cook’s Illustrated because they actually do experiments to find out what works and what does not.  This doesn’t seem to lend itself well to a post for each suggestion, so I thought I’d add a reference page on Storing Stuff as a place to collect information about storage methods for the things that you are likely to use as a single-serving cook.   If you have a successful method that you use as a solo cook, please post it.