. . . . . to Frozen Liabilities

Thursday 23 July 2015

If all you have in your freezer is half a loaf and the remainder of the sprouts from last Christmas then you probably don’t have to think too much about it.

But freezing leftovers and/or impulse ‘bargain’ buys can of course place great strain on the capacity of a freezer and that can entail considerable management.

Freezing food in plastic containers is optimal for organisation as, while the food inside freezes into the shape of the box, the box  itself does not change shape and it is easy to take out and replace.

But if, as I do, food is frozen in freezer bags then it is a whole different matter.  The food in the bag (say, stock – never throw bones/carcases away; always boil them down into stock and then freeze), prior to freezing in a packed freezer, can take the shape of the available space and often, once removed from that space can be the devil’s own job to get back in.  Remove a number of such items and it can be a veritable jigsaw puzzle getting them all back in, if it is at all possible.

It is easy to get to a point where a load of stuff has been removed to find one specific item lower down and it won’t go back in.

A full freezer requires management – rotation of items so that older items are consumed before new ones added.  It is also important not to forget the freezer – very tempting to nip to the shops to buy something for lunch but there may be something in the freezer that would do.

And that’s exactly what happened today – some roast chicken and chicken stock from the freezer with the addition of some fresh bacon bits, mushrooms, peppers and crème fraîche made a superb pie filling which was topped off with some ready-rolled puff pastry.

Absolutely lovely, . . . . . . . or should I say ‘cool’?

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