Organized Freezer

I don't know if you remember, but a couple of weeks ago I talked about organizing my freezers - both the side by side in the house and the one outside in our garage.  Well, I never posted pictures of the project - so I thought I would do that today.

This is a picture of all the stuff out of the freezer inside the house.  Now, you can't tell from this picture, but when we did the house remodel I wanted a farm sink - so, we got a HUGE one.  There is a lot of stuff here - and before I couldn't find anything.  Which meant, when I went to the grocery store, I just bought more of what we already had OR I would think I had something and I would get ready to fix it and, you guessed it, I really wouldn't have what I needed!  ERRRRRRR!

This lead to the decision to stop the madness and organize the freezer  (imagine a deep voice and an echo sound effect).  So, what do you have to do to organize your freezer, you might ask.  The first thing is to measure the shelves in your freezer - not just the height between the shelves but also the width of the shelves and the depth.   Then you can take a trip to the Dollar Store with your measurements.  Since I had two freezers to organize I decided I needed six plastic baskets.  You really need to buy plastic to hold up to the cold -  believe me - don't try wicker - it won't be pretty. 

Okay - now I have purchased my baskets and I've emptied my freezer - now what?  Well, you have to decided how you want to organize your freezer - by meals or by category.  I decided by category.  So, in the freezer in the house each self/basket holds a type of meat - chicken, beef, pork, and the wire basket on the bottom (that comes with the freezer) holds things that are too large for my plastic baskets (whole chickens, turkeys, etc.)  Of course, the top shelf holds my dh's ice cream (and where I do my flat freezing before being placed in the baskets).

The outside freezer holds my fruit, breakfast foods, overflow meat, vegetables, and bread.  There is even room for a couple of milk jugs with water for the cooler when we go out on the lake.

Now, I'm pretty satisfied with the ways this turned out - As you can see the outside freezer has a couple more wire shelves than the inside freezer - but it all works out.  Also, I don't know if you can tell, but I always freeze stuff flat first then put the food in the baskets standing upright - easier to find.  Especially when I precook things like chicken and hamburger meat.

Well, let me know what you think - I would love to hear some feedback on my little freezer redo!  Then we will see what I do with other areas of the house!

For other ideas try this blog:

http://goodcheapeats.com/