State of the Freezer - 03/2011

I spent most of yesterday afternoon blanching, cooking, and bagging broccoli.  When I finished, I had 28 bags of broccoli ready to be frozen. 

Of course, the real issue was finding room in my small "over fridge" freezer.  It was already at about 80% capacity.  Considering that I had just spent 3 hours over a hot pot of boiling water while keeping the kids out of the way of the landlord' handyman, I was in no mood to play Freezer Tetris, so everything was tossed into the fridge to be dealt with this morning.

So, after everyone had breakfast, I stuck the baby gate in the kitchen door to keep my "helpers" out from under my feet and emptied the freezer all over the kitchen floor.  I sorted, evaluated, and stacked until I finally found the back wall.  Then I reloaded it all back into the freezer, stacking and organizing, trying to make room for the newest inmates. 

Surprisingly, with the inventive use of a old laundry detergent bucket and a shoebox, not the mention pulling out a bag of cooked chicken and 3 chicken broths for dinner tonight, I actually found room for everything.  Above in a picture of my freezer post-re-packing.  Crazy, huh?  See those big bags on the right?  Those are turkey bones and skin from the great "Turkey Roast" of late December.  I put those there to remind me to make broth soon.

Cross your fingers that we eat some of this stuff before it avalanches.  ;-) 

(And before anyone asks, the "cloth covered" item on the left is our "booboo bag" of frozen vegetables.  I keep it wrapped in the pillow case to remind me that it's not for food but rather for when someone gets hurt.  The frozen veggies mold around little (or big) arms and legs better than ice cubes.)