Freezer Sessions 2019...

This is good to know. Thank you!

I was sitting on the fence for about two years regarding the Instant Pot. I wasn't sure about a pressure cooker and I do like the crock pot. I saw that I could use it as a crock pot if I wanted and that's what sold me on finally taking the plunge and asking for it as a gift. I've been slow to learning it but I thought I'd try things out when I have extra time in the kitchen to make mistakes. I will update with any freezer meals that I make using the Instant Pot.

 

Will be following this, as I too am still on the fence about an Instant Pot. Will have to do a bit more research before going ahead and buying one as they are quite expensive here. Maybe a gift for Christmas.

 

Added a container of stewed apples and 1/2 an iced ginger cake to the freezer. Will be nice for desserts over the next few months.

Do any on you have a 'spreadsheet' of what you have in your freezers? How do you record what you have stored?

 

I do write down a list every few weeks. I have items stored in cloth shopping bags. A red one has meat in it, green one is pizza crusts and shredded cheese, blue one hold bakery items and the tan one veggies.

 

Diedra, that is a great idea. One of my goals this year is to utilise the outside freezer better and as it is a chest freezer it gets disorganised very quickly. Will want to look into this more.

 

Yes, they are quite expensive. There were sales going on for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. I started to track prices on them in July. Amazon had a good sale on it during their Prime Day. I had it in my cart that day but still couldn't hit the buy button at that point. LOL!

 

I like the color coded cloth bag idea! I try to keep all similar items in the same grocery bags to pull from the chest freezer. Did you make your bags?

I don't have list of the items in my freezer. I do label the date and the frozen item. Sometimes I'm super specific if I'm planning to use that item for a later day. For ex. the freezer bag might say: 8 March 2019; 3 cups of shredded chicken; Youth Group chicken dish; Part 1 of 2; This helps when my family is getting food out of the freezer for me.

 

Here's some photos from my small chest freezer

 

Wow Diedra! I would've ketp my chest freezer if I had organized it like that

 

I hated finding something in the freezer before I started with the bags. I had an upright freezer in the side by side refrigerator and I hated it. Was fine if everything was totally flat but other wise things just fell out. Might have worked if I had tried small cloth shopping bags for storing things.

 

I really like the way you organized it. Our freezer is a hand me down from my grandmother. It had one shelf when we got it. Did your freezer come with two shelves or did you buy one? I never even considered getting a second shelf until now.

 

It only had one. I ordered another. It was a little pricy but well worth it.

 

Diedra, I have freezer envy. Thanks for the photos it gives me some direction to head. I love having the second freezer just don't like how it is organised.

 

I finally opened my instapot and made refried beans for my 1st attempt and it was a success. Made an all day process in the crockpot happen in less then 2 hours tops from start to finish. After that I made turkey stock in 1 1/2 hrs. That also usually takes mutliple hours to cook down. No idea how I'll feel about it with meat, but time will tell. I like to stock up on homemade beans in the freezer for Mexican food nights, so this will help make that happen for sure.

 

Michelle, nice that you have had a few successes already

 

Tetris is a perfect way to explain getting things out of the freezer!!

 

Wow! What a neat chest freezer. Mine never looked like that lol. I have a upright now. I find it so much easier for me to use. I currently have some plastic dishpans that I stack like items in. I try as much as possible to freeze my stuff flat when I vaccum seal. That is some times a challenge though. My husband is suposed to be ordering me another shelf. Hopefully will have it by fall.....
I keep looking at the instapot. i don't know if I would use it that much and where to store it. If I didn't like it I could give it to my son, I guess. Have to think about it some more.

 

I made a 32 oz. bag of rice using the instant pot. The pot could have held more water and rice but I didn't have any more. Next time, I'll increase the amount I make at once. One third of the rice was for dinner tonight and the other two thirds were frozen. While the rice was cooking, I browned a family size pack of ground beef on the stove. I used one third for dinner tonight and the other two thirds was frozen. I will update with how the frozen rice turns out the next time I have it for dinner.

 

Jaymee got us an instant pot and Allen has used it several times. The meat is so tender and it does cut down on the cooking time. We have always used a crockpot and pressure cooker for cooling.