The One About Freezers

Tia: Hey, Monica

Amber: Hey, Monica

Tia: Welcome to Hey Monica, the podcast that helps you drop the perfectionism and make space for what really matters in your home, in your food, and in your life. I'm Tia, a professional home organizer and founder of Room For Serenity

Amber: And I'm Amber, a weight inclusive licensed nutritionist and founder of Whole You Nutrition and Meal Planning Collective. On today's show, we are talking about freezers. But first, as always, it's time for confessions. All right,

Tia: I love it. Okay, so,

Amber: today?

Tia: oh, remember the Easter baskets. If you've listened to the previous two episodes, you have known that I have had these Easter baskets on

Amber: storyline.

Tia: on the top of my fridge. So because of this podcast, I was like, "Amber is gonna hold me accountable. I gotta get those things in my garage." And may I tell you, it took me all of probably 30 seconds. It was so simple

Amber: 30 seconds slash four months or whatever we're at now.

Tia: It just goes to show that a lot of times the things that we procrastinate on are things that really won't take all that much time. We just have to just do it. It's just getting-- It's just doing it. So anyway, the Easter baskets are gone, but my confession for today is the seasonality in my house still stays off-kilter because there is this notorious chalkboard in our kitchen from the previous homeowners It was, like, chalkboard paint on the wall, and initially when I moved in, I was so excited about this chalkboard 'cause, oh my gosh, how much fun we're gonna have with decorating it for each season of the year and cute little reminders for things and such like that.

Tia: What I didn't know is this chalkboard paint is not awesome because the chalkboard markers that I purchased… Well, it's either the paint or the markers. The markers will not come off, and when I say they won't come off, you can still faintly read at the top of the chalkboard my stepson's name, and then after that, chores. So his chore list from COVID. It is twenty twenty-six now, so five, six years ago. You can still see the chore list very faintly, and I have tried with, with, like, Ajax. and a motorized scrubber brush over that multiple times. It's seeped into the chalkboard paint at this point, and then, and then on top of that faint lettering, you can also see a Christmas tree design

Amber: Sure can.

Tia: fro-probably, like, two years ago, I think. So we have this, continuous Christmas tree in our kitchen that will not come off. so I either need to repaint with that chalkboard paint 'cause we still have some spare from when the previous homeow-homeowners were here, or I need to just, sand over the entire thing and put a new coat of paint on because it is driving me nuts. It's driving me nuts.

Amber: I wonder if before, you decide you still want a chalkboard there, which it sounds like you're maybe over it,

Tia: Yeah

Amber: I wonder if you could do like a test of it on a different, like a spare board or something, and test the markers and see if it is the paint or the markers. 'Cause if

Tia: Yeah.

Amber: don't waste your time repainting it and then ending up with a new, like I don't know, turkey or pumpkin there

Tia: I know.

Amber: two years at a time.

Tia: all along, right?

Amber: Yeah.

Tia: That's a solid idea. I don't think I mentioned this in the last podcast, 'cause it may not have happened yet. I don't know. But I had some water damage in our house, and our kitchen flooring is currently all ripped up. And while the kitchen flooring is all ripped up, I should probably take this opportunity to repaint, because I don't have to worry about even putting a drop cloth down because we're gonna get new flooring.

Amber: I love it.

Tia: So I should just get on it. I should do that.

Amber: It is the time. I'm almost thinking, maybe you should sand, prime, and paint over that, 'cause if you still want a chalkboard, just, like, buy one you hang on the wall, and then if you ever don't want it, you just take it off the wall and patch a tiny nail hole instead of

Tia: Then I'm not committed to it. I'm sure, yeah. Yeah. All right, but what is your confession?

Amber: Okay, so I ha- I sort of have two today. One is a disclaimer. We are currently recording, as we've mentioned, during the summer, and it is hot, hot, hot outside right now. And so if you're hearing any low fan sounds, I just want to apologize, there is no way in the current weather that I can, turn off the AC for the duration of our podcast 'cause we're real chatty and it-- they last a long time. So apologies if there's any kind of whirring fan sounds in the back. Our software's pretty good about kind of pulling those things out, but you might hear a little bit more background noise. But my real confession is completely tied in with our topic today, which is freezers.

Amber: My freezer, technically freezers, are currently just in a state. the organization has, has left the freezers. The original organization system I had set up for the freezers worked really well for a while, but I have started using my freezers in a different way and have not updated the way that I'm organizing it. So there are times when it's… I mean, stuff is just shoved wherever it'll fit at this point, and it's a mess. It's also overly full right now, so I also need to get control around that. So I'm really looking forward, Tia, to hearing all of your freezer organization tips today because I'm in the market for some reorganizing.

Tia: You know, that's so funny because I am as well. My freezer upstairs, the one that's on the freezer/fridge combo, that one is a mess, and I haven't been able to wrap my mind around how to organize it, which I'll get into it later. and then my deep freezer is also a mess. I'm like, how do you… how do people actually organize deep freezers when they're so deep and there's… even if you wanted, like, those plastic bins, the plastic breaks over time being in the freeze- so

Amber: Welcome to my freezer.

Tia: both of my freezers are also in the market for some new organizations, items so that I'm not wasting food. And it's not, it's not even wasting 'cause freezers keep food pretty well for a long time. It's more just about wasting more money on food we already have,

Amber: Yes.

Tia: or maybe meal planning around things that we already have and then going shopping for those things, and we could have just sourced it from the fridge- freezer downstairs.

Amber: Yeah, I do agree. So let's tran- uh, transition from the confession all about the freezer into

Tia: Yeah.

Amber: all about the

Tia: Yes. Yes

Amber: like the freezer is such a great tool to help us save money, to reduce food waste, and I say to keep your wits about you. 'Cause I feel like it's just, that safe spot where you can, stash some stuff, and it just gives you a little more time and a little more breathing room, and it means you can have some stuff available.

Tia: Mm-hmm.

Amber: But if you're not careful, I think both of us are currently on the precipice of this. If you're not careful, it can turn into an icy graveyard where you just have, freezer-burned things that have been in there for who knows how long, or you didn't label something because of course I'll remember what this is, and you never do. I think that's one thing we really need to watch out for, that icy graveyard kind of feel. And so we'll talk today about some tips for freezing foods, ideas to keep it organized, how to make it really work for you instead of against you. And I categorize myself as a freezer squirrel.

Amber: So I am a person who likes to, stash away little things, whether that is to prevent them from going bad in the refrigerator or because I found something cool on a really good deal or whatever it is. I love to stash things in the freezer so that I have them available when I want them. So Tia, do you think of yourself more as, uh, your freezer being a graveyard where things just go to die and get lost, or as a treasure trove, a, a place of possibilities?

Tia: You know, I think I would see it more as a treasure trove if I did more meal planning in advance and had some really delicious, lovely dinners stashed away in there that I'm looking forward to eating in the future, but that is not the case. I do need to do better about that. Or this is just maybe not my season for that, but either way, it does t- it's more like a graveyard sadly. Because with this deep chest freezer that we have in the basement, in addition to the fact that we shop at Costco pretty frequently, we end up with these massive bags that stack on top of each other and then on top of each other and then on top of each other.

Tia: And then you don't know what's in the bottom anymore.

Amber: Yes

Tia: then if we're ever gifted something, a lot… It's so sweet. My dad and stepmom will make things for our family and then have us put it in the freezer, right? And it's like this lovely butternut squash soup or something like that. it's somewhere in there, but It doesn't appear until I'm struggling to get through the deep freezer for something else, and then I'm like, "Oh yeah, and then there's that butternut squash soup." I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, Dad and Jan, if you're listening to this podcast and you're hearing this now, but just know that eventually, maybe two years from the day you gave it to us, we will have it and we will enjoy it for dinner.

Tia: But this is why freezer organization is so important, because you wanna be able to find the things that really make your life easier and help you with your meal planning process and help you… it prevents you from wasting money on stuff you already have or that you could already be eating

Amber: Yeah, I agree. I also… Okay, so th- maybe this is a little, I don't know, fr- freezer therapy. I feel better. there's a sense of, like, safety and security when I know that I have food available in the freezer and in the pantry. I think it comes from both, a food scarcity history, including diets where the scarcity was self-inflicted, but still nonetheless gave that sense of unease. then also, we ne- we never went hungry as kids, but we didn't always have, a lot of extra income to be buying exactly what we would want to eat. Sometimes it was, make do with what's in the house. so I think being able to now be in a place where I can have more food readily available, it makes me feel good to have that, and I've just accepted that about myself.

Amber: so whether it's, if a s- a winter storm comes, I wish we had a winter storm right now, so hot,

Tia: Yeah

Amber: or it's a tight budget month. I mean, as entrepreneurs, I think we're both well aware of how income ebbs and flows or if it's just a chaotic week, like knowing that I can turn to the freezer and be able to come up with some kind of meal and, not be eating the most ran- I mean, sometimes it's kind of random, but it's not the most random thing.

Tia: Mm-hmm.

Amber: there's supplies, there's, backup. So I do think there's this, sense of safety, not unlike, some of the things we've talked about in the past. one of the reasons it can be so hard to get rid of things is because there is this sense of "Oh, what, what if I need it in the

Tia: Oh, yeah. The quintessential question, what if I need it in the future? Yeah

Amber: And I think the only thing that keeps me from this whole situation of, wanting to have food available, turning into, a hoarder s- situation is that I also get a great sense of satisfaction of using up what I have and replenishing it. So I think it's that I do like to move through the contents of my freezer that keeps it in balance versus always just stashing more and more and more away

Tia: Yeah, that's a good habit to have.

Amber: let's talk more about Costco because I

Tia: Let's

Amber: is a big part of whole freezer

Tia: Yeah. It abs-

Amber: general,

Tia: it absolutely is.

Amber: other stores

Tia: Yeah. And the fact that there are some families that have deep freezers or an extra fridge somewhere, and there are some families who do not, so I'm gonna keep that in mind too. We have a deep freezer, um, and I grew up where we had an extra fridge, but that's not always the case. so here's, here's what we do, if we buy a massive bag of chicken nuggets for our kids, we will, on our good weeks, this doesn't always happen, but on our good weeks, we will take, that huge bag and then dump some of it into a smaller bag for our, for our freezer upstairs, and then keep the larger bag down in the deep freezer downstairs.

Tia: Same thing when it comes to, the frozen fruit that we might use for our smoothies. We would decant it, so to speak, into a smaller container for the freezer upstairs and then keep the larger bag downstairs. Now, I say on our good weeks, in quotes, because so many times, as many busy families are, you have maybe fifteen minutes to quick throw everything into the freezer or fridge and then you're onto your next thing. And so this isn't, always happening. And so there's some grace there for the busy weeks. But I will say that the weeks where we do that, our life is so much easier 'cause we can find the stuff in our regular day-to-day freezer situation, versus just everything stacking on top of each other and just being super cluttered.

Tia: Not fun.

Amber: Uh, also shop at Costco, and we're a household of two adults. You have a family of four. So there's, there's some differences. It might sound a little bonkers to some people that a household of two people shops at Costco probably at least three times a month. but it's true. I do. a lot of it is because we just eat a lot of produce. So other people are like, "Don't buy produce at Costco. It's too much produce." We run out of produce, and that's the reason we're going back to Costco like a week or a week and a half

Tia: That is a really, that's a really good reason for a household of two to shop for at Cost- if you're eating that much produce, like kudos to you, man.

Amber: but of course, I'm not just buying produce, and I love a deal. I love a sale. I'm very price aware, and there are just a lot of things that I like that are a better price at Costco than I can find anywhere else, or that I can only find at Costco.

Tia: Mm-hmm

Amber: in fact, I am such a Costco fan, not only do I shop at the regular Costco, I also shop at the business center because they carry some different things that I also like. So I

Tia: Wait, wait, hold up. Where's the business center, Costco?

Amber: it happens to be in Northeast Minneapolis, which is where I live, so it's actually my closest Costco is the business center

Tia: I need a sidebar here. This is, this is probably getting cut off from the episode. Well, no. Actually, no, we don't have time for that today. Let's move forward, but someday I wanna chat with you about the business center.

Amber: so I have certain things that I buy at the two different Costcos that I go to. But I find that, again, when I'm doing Costco well and really supporting the way that we eat and the way that we're shopping, I plan my Costco trips on days that I have time to come home and then break things down. So taking the, 14 links of Italian sausage that come in a package and, divide them into three separate because that's about how much we would use for any given meal that we're making. Or if I'm buying cheese, like dividing it up. for like Parmesan, I actually really love to take the whole big block and throw it in my food processor and process it to essentially like grated cheese, and then

Tia: Yeah

Amber: little half cup sized jars in the freezer. 'Cause you can just pull it out and use it right from frozen to sprinkle on top of pasta or throw

Tia: What a fantastic idea.

Amber: and then you don't end up with the, oh, that was the $20 Parmesan that's now growing mold on it

Tia: Oh my gosh, that is brilliant. Brilliant

Amber: feel like one of the ways that a small household able to take advantage of some of these things at Costco is because I do use the freezer, and I make a point of dividing stuff up. So like if I buy a pork shoulder… most of the time I at least divide it in half, if not in quarters.

Tia: Mm-hmm.

Amber: but if you don't do that before you put it in the freezer, what… You, you know, you're not gonna

Tia: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Amber: freezer.

Tia: Yeah. You're just…

Amber: frozen

Tia: there's just a frozen block of marble.

Amber: Yeah, like 13 pounds of meat just

Tia: Yeah

Amber: fro- frozen together. So like you have to deal with that before.

Tia: Yeah

Amber: so that's, like I said, on my best days, that's my goal is to be able to have enough time when I get home that it's not just shoving everything into the freezer, but actually putting it into more usable forms and quantities for the meals will tell you, the way I originally… The reason I first got a deep freeze, and it's a relatively small size deep freeze. but I got it because I wanted to order meat in bulk from a local farm, and so I needed a bigger freezer. 'Cause we really have more of a European size fridge-freezer upstairs. It's like counter depth, so it's not quite as deep. And it's a pretty small footprint, so there's just not room in that type of freezer to be able to store, an eighth of a cow or something like that.

Amber: So that was the original intended purpose of the freezer, which worked great. I got a couple of big bins that fit in it pretty well, and it was easy to separate, the meats that you're not going to use or have in excess in like the bottom layer that you don't need to access except maybe every couple of months, and then the stuff that you're working through more immediately on the top. So that worked really well for a while. But that's not really how we're shopping anymore, so these larger size bins are more annoying than anything else at this point because everything just gets lost in them. We just don't have the same… when it was all meat, it was easy to keep it organized.

Amber: But now that there's frozen broccoli, and strawberries, and blueberries, and some loaves of bread, and some tortillas, and, you know, bags of crispy chicken bites, and all of the things that end up in there, it just feels like it's a big soup of everything is just sorta swirling around inside of it, and it's not really working for me.

Tia: So I feel like your freezer situation and my freezer situation, the deep freeze situation, is pretty similar. We have a large deep freeze freezer, and it is pretty full, but I think if we organized it a little better, we would be able to reduce some of the stuff that's in there that we're like, "We've had this for years. We're never gonna use it." Not that lovely butternut squash soup, I promise. But, there's just stuff in there that we've just- we bought with good intentions we probably don't eat. But okay, I went on a deep dive because I love organizing, and I can't stand that the freezer situation has been something I haven't quite unlocked yet.

Tia: Oh, my goodness, your minds are about to be blown if you don't know about these things.

Amber: I'm so excited

Tia: Okay. There are freezer baskets that are made of wire with handles that stack. They stack

Amber: I am aware of these. I have seen some, YouTube videos where people have used these, and I'm like, "I need to take some measurements in my freezer. I think this could be my solution."

Tia: Yeah.

Amber: yet? No, I haven't.

Tia: Yeah.

Amber: of a potential solution. Tell me more about it

Tia: There's a lovely brand on Amazon, I can't think of the name right now, but we'll provide the links in the show notes, that if you go to their store page, they have organization systems specifically for small, medium, and large size deep freezers. And then they show you visually how their baskets will line up in a small freezer versus medium versus large. Of course, they always say measure your freezer first before blah, blah, blah, but it gives you a general idea, and it gives you the exact… They'll show you, like, a typical size pizza will fit in this one versus that one. So they've got tall ones that are specifically for pizzas and pizza size items.

Tia: So you can stack them vertically, not flat horizontally. And then they've got others that are a little shorter than that, that are for normal everyday, like your bags of veggies, your bags of, fruit, and the chicken nuggets that we're always buying for the kids. Um,

Amber: right. Just for the kids, never for anyone else.

Tia: oh, no, I never eat the leftovers, ever. Or even have them for lunch. No, not. No.

Amber: me?

Tia: Never, no. Gosh, they're not delicious at all.

Tia: Anyhow, so they're lovely because they're metal. They're not plastic, so they're gonna last in the freezer. They're also amazing 'cause they stack on top of each other, so you can sort by category now. You can take your meats and put them in one basket, take your veggies, put them in another, take your fruits, put them in another. Or it doesn't even have to be those, by those categories. It just has to be something that you typically would go to the freezer to grab for. So if it's snacks, it's… If it's desserts, if it's, if it's prepared meals, or if it's like Sunday meal preparation items,

Amber: I am nodding along so hard right now. I am so excited about this, because I'm thinking what I currently have are plastic bins. of them is completely shattered on the bottom. they don't have handles on the top. There's kind of indentations on the side, but it's hard with the dimensions of the freezer to get your hands in there. So the idea of having these handles on the top that also double as being able to stack the baskets, this is what I am looking for. Especially because I freeze so many things in glass jars. You can't just throw glass jars, willy-nilly into a freezer

Tia: Yeah, imagine how much more organized those, your freezer's gonna be now that you have, like, the larger basket and then the smaller subcategories within that basket. How cool is that? Oh my gosh, I'm geeking out. Okay

Amber: I think one other thing that we should point out about freezers is both of us have reach-in deep freezers, but there are standing upright freezers as well, are… I th- there's arguments for both ways. I love the reach-in because I think it holds and maintains temperature better, so stuff stays frozen better longer, so it

Tia: Yeah

Amber: with that extension of shelf life with minimal freezer burn.

Tia: Mm-hmm

Amber: upright ones tend to be easier to find things, but I also feel like you have the risk of opening that door and just like a cascade of frozen food items rains upon you because you threw something in and slammed the door closed last time and sort of forgot that's what you

Tia: Yeah. They are easier to organize for sure, because the, the shelf system just naturally creates more order. And you can, if you want to, have categories by shelf. But, I would say if I had an upright freezer, I would organize the meats at the bottom because it's coldest at the bottom. And if for any reason it ends up not working, then if anything starts to leak, it's just contained on the bottom and not getting through your entire freezer of stuff. So keep the meats on the bottom. And then, as you go up, it's warmer at the top, so keep the stuff that doesn't matter quite as much if it needs to be completely frozen towards the top.

Tia: And it said the fridge door, when I did a little research on this, the fridge door tends to be the warmest. So if you can, Try to limit that to things that you don't eat, like, ice packs or, or, I don't know, what else do you not eat that you would put there?

Amber: Right. Well, I also think it could be like things that you're going to use quickly, so you know

Tia: Oh. Yeah

Amber: s- hanging out in there for a long time. Or I also think like that's the place where you put frozen juice or like those

Tia: Mm-hmm.

Amber: Otter Pop treats where it's like you buy them at room temperature, so if they thaw and refreeze, like no big deal

Tia: things that are gonna be consumed quickly. So in our house, that would be frozen treats for sure. But the ice packs, I would love it if our ice packs had, like, a contained place to live, 'cause they're swimming around in our freezer right now, and this is gonna, this is gonna change so fast, 'cause now that I've done the research, I'm like, oh gosh, I'm so excited. There are also metal baskets that fit in upright freezers as well, and this same company on Amazon that I referenced before, they also have solutions for upright freezers too.

Amber: you know I'm ready to do a project when I'm, watching YouTube videos about it. In one of the freezer organization videos I watched recently, for somebody who had a reach-in deep freeze, thing that they did that I don't know if I would be able to maintain it enough to make sense to do it, but they had essentially like a magnetic whiteboard on the top, and they labeled it by the layers of the baskets. So they put that in layers, and then when you pull something out of the basket, you erase it, so you always have

Tia: Mm-hmm

Amber: the freezer. Which is lovely, but I think I'd be really bad about updating it when I put new things in and take things out, so it's probably not realistic for me to do. But it sure was a thing of beauty

Tia: Yeah. Yeah. That is something that I would love to be able to do myself, but I know myself enough that I would not maintain it, nor would the rest of my house maintain it. So

Amber: true.

Tia: it would go downhill really fast. It would look beautiful to begin with, and then it would become an annoyance over time.

Amber: I also have gotten into the habit with Meal Planning Collective, when I'm doing my meal plan for the week and pulling out things that I need, kinda taking a peek around and seeing what else is in there, and just making a note of it. So even if it's not on the meal plan for this week, I have a little note section at the bottom of my meal plan where I'm just like, "Oh, yeah, I have a bag of mojo pork that would probably be good to use up in the next couple of weeks, so let's keep that top of mind as we're moving through these meal plans." the tracking of inventory I think tricky. there's so many beautiful systems, but actually following through and using some of them, I, I know I just wouldn't do it.

Tia: you s- you had that you wanted to chat about cooking math

Amber: the idea of cooking math. So I think of this as if you're making a recipe or prepping components of a recipe, it usually takes very little to no extra time to double or triple that in the total time it takes to make a recipe. So examples that I use to take advantage of this cooking math. If I am making beans from dried beans, which I do on a pretty regular basis, I just cook the entire pound of beans, and then I divide it into glass jars and freeze the extras, and then one pint of beans in a glass jar is essentially equivalent to one can of beans that you could buy at the grocery store. I have that available.

Amber: I do the same thing with grains. If I'm making wild rice soup and I need to cook some wild rice for it, me you're in Minnesota without telling me you're in Minnesota,

Tia: Oh, I love it.

Amber: wild rice soup, I will cook a double or triple batch and then, store the extras in like a quart size zip top freezer bag, it flat, and then just file them away so I have cooked grains ready, and the next time I make soup, I don't have to do the whole cooking of the rice step at the same time. I can just pull it out of the freezer and use it there. I also do this with pizza dough. I usually make at least pizzas worth of pizza dough at one time. We use, one as it's made fresh, and the other three go in the freezer and get pulled out usually weekly, And then of course, there's the ability to freeze entire meals.

Amber: So if you're making a lasagna, make two. This might not work for everyone, but for my smaller household, we rarely need a nine by 13 pan of lasagna, which is

Tia: Mm-hmm.

Amber: recipe. But that e- neatly divides into two eight-inch square pans. So I will often make two smaller square pans of lasagna, tuck one in the freezer that we can have, a month or two later, and then, cook the one fresh for that day. So I save time in the future by if I'm going to be making something anyways, is there a way that I can just make a little bit more of it now? It doesn't really cost me more time now, but it saves me a whole lot of time in the future. So that's the cooking math piece.

Tia: Yeah

Amber: great with chili and soup. In the winter, I love to have this little like library of frozen soups and chilis that I can select for lunches

Tia: that sounds lovely.

Amber: It really

Tia: That sounds so nice

Amber: And when my freezers are organized, that selection of soups that are ready to eat are in the upstairs refrigerator freezer, where they're easy to access and pull out, and not in the basement deep freeze.

Tia: Yeah. Okay, how do you freeze your soups? Do you freeze them flat in a Ziploc bag so that they're easy to file vertically? Did you say that? Or do you put them in like the pint size, like plastic containers

Amber: I freeze soup and chili in glass Mason jars, the wide mouth pint sized Mason jars, and

Tia: Okay

Amber: that one serving of soup.

Tia: Mm-hmm.

Amber: I'll ser-- I'll freeze them in a quart sized jar, so it's, four cups, two servings of soup.

Tia: Mm-hmm.

Amber: but yeah, I usually use glass jars and just make sure I leave a good inch or two of head space at the top of the jar so that it can expand while it's freezing without damaging the jar. The nice thing about that is you could technically just put the jar right into microwave and heat it up in that glass jar if you wanted

Tia: It's not gonna break going from frozen to microwave?

Amber: I mean, I don't usually do it that way, but my partner does. And we've never had a problem with it. Oftentimes, if we're pulling it out the day we're going to eat it, I will let it sit on the counter for a couple of hours. I'll pull it out in the morning if we're eating it for lunch, so it's like semi-thawed around the edges before we're heating it up. but a lot of times I'll pull it out a day or two ahead of time and just leave it in the refrigerator to thaw overnight. But I just love having that. But greens I do freeze in, quart size Ziplocs and file them away. You could do that with soups too.

Amber: You just need to freeze them on a flat surface first before you're able to file them. So as long as you

Tia: Yeah.

Amber: to do that, that works

Tia: Yeah

Amber: takes up less space than the jars for sure

Tia: Mm-hmm. I bet, I bet once my deep freezer is nicely organized, I will have a lovely spot at the top where I can put a sheet pan that can be specifically there always for whenever I need to flat freeze something for easy upright storage. That would be so cool. That'd be so cool.

Amber: And there's also so many times when flat freezing or being able to, individually freeze things, so if you have extra berries or you have extra, green beans from the garden that you blanch and you want to freeze, you need to lay them out individually flat first before you put them in a freezer bag so they don't get all stuck together. So it's like you want them to freeze by themselves and then put them into a bag. And having, a pan in there where you can just kinda that stuff out on top of a piece of parchment paper and then

Tia: Yeah.

Amber: it into a bag once it's frozen

Tia: What a great idea. What a great idea. Oh my goodness. I love this. Also, another thing that I'm sure you've already thought of if you're listening to this, but if you are flat freezing and having like this lovely library of all these vertically stored things, you can then easily write with a Sharpie on the Ziploc bag, whatever the contents are, so that you can see like a library of books, but it's a library of Ziplocs, all these lovely things that you have in your freezer. How cool is that?

Amber: I love that. And also, I'm glad you mentioned labeling again, 'cause I know I talked about it at one point. We have got to label what is in our freezer. If you are making and freezing something, or have a little bit of extras, or transferring it into a new container from the bag that it came in, you must label what it is, because you're not gonna remember. You're gonna think you pulled out one thing, and then it's gonna thaw, and you're gonna be like, "Nope, that definitely was not blueberries. That was black beans." And you're going to be upset about it, 'cause black bean pancakes are not the thing that make kids happy on Saturday morning.

Tia: And you know what? We constantly deceive ourselves into thinking, "I will absolutely remember all the time and energy I put into creating this thing, and then freezing it and putting it away. I will never forget what it is. I don't have to label it." Yes, you do. Yes, you do every single time. Yes, you do. Mm-hmm. Yep. I am, I am agreeing wholeheartedly with that

Amber: okay, so the other thing that I wanted to mention in terms of, how I use my freezer, especially in terms of saving money and reducing food waste, is, this is where I'm really a squirrel

Tia: hmm.

Amber: I stash away all kinds of little things. If my spinach is starting to get a little bit slimy, will usually blanch it, which means put it in boiling water for, like, a minute to cook it, take it and put it into ice water, squeeze out the extra liquids, wrap it in some plastic wrap, throw it in a little bag in the freezer. because that saves it, and then I can use it in some, future pasta dish or egg dish or something. I've also taken spinach and just put the whole container into the freezer. I find that that works especially well if you're going to blend it into smoothies. it can just be weird little frozen leaves, and it'll just blend into a smoothie just fine.

Amber: I have, a handful of mushrooms left, I'll sauté them and wrap 'em up and throw them in the freezer. So it's like I have some little bags that are just, like, the most random bits of things. But I find that, one, I feel great because I'm not throwing food away, and two, that they work really well for things like pizza toppings

Tia: Yeah

Amber: in, a frittata or, omelet kind of situation in the future. And you just pull 'em out of the freezer, and they're just there and ready to go, and you just have these fun little bits and bobs. Or I'll freeze, if I'm not making my own pesto, which I really only do in the summer if my basil is going crazy, I will buy the Costco pesto. But it's a pretty big jar,

Tia: It is

Amber: a lot of pesto for any given recipe.

Tia: Mm-hmm.

Amber: I'll stash little frozen jars, smaller size frozen jars of pesto, and then I can just pull out a little pesto and we can have, a little pesto pasta or flatbread at a given moment without having to have had it,

Tia: That is brilliant. We have the Costco pesto in our fridge right now, and I'm gonna do that That is brilliant. I love it

Amber: never really use more than half a cup at a time. Maybe you find you never use more than one cup, like whatever it is, but I just divide out that amount that we actually use, and then it safely stays in the freezer and doesn't go bad. 'Cause there's nothing worse than thinking you have a jar of some kind of sauce, and you open it, and there's a layer of fuzzy mold on top of it, and you're

Tia: Yeah. So sad. I know. So you know what I'm already thinking about? You can have your own little dedicated freezer bin of tiny treasures.

Amber: I feel like they're such, um, of creativity 'cause it's like, well, how can I use… I didn't need that whole jar of roasted red peppers, so I stashed away a little bit. But it's going to make, my tuna salad sandwich this week so much more interesting to be able to,

Tia: Sure.

Amber: and throw

Tia: Sure. Why not? Yeah. Mm-hmm

Amber: So again, Costco, I buy most of the nuts that we use at Costco, and they're in, two-pound bags usually.

Tia: Yeah, they're big

Amber: So I will store the extras, especially of, like, raw nuts for baking and cooking, so walnuts, pecans, I store those bags in the freezer because they'll last so much longer. You don't have to worry about them getting rancid. And then I can also just have a variety available, going back to my I like to have options. It means I can have all of the different kinds of nuts and not be worrying about throwing them away because nuts, they're expensive.

Tia: Yeah. Yeah. That's a great idea. I love that. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about how we can prevent our freezers from becoming too overstocked. Because I know I'm not the only one who has come back from a grocery run, and ideally, I'd like, I, in my mind, everything was gonna fit back into its designated place in the fridge and freezer, but sometimes it just doesn't, and you have to cram it in really creative ways. How can we prevent that from happening?

Amber: You mean how do I not have to take every ice cream bar out of a cardboard box and slide them in one at a time into the cracks and crevices that are still available, for example?

Tia: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm

Amber: Yeah, how can we do that? Tia, please help.

Tia: Well, okay. The first thing would be to plan ahead in the sense that in your fridge and in your freezer, you should always have at least 10 to 15% wiggle room. It would be awesome if you could do 20% wiggle room, but let's be realistic, 10 to 15, just a little bit, because there's always gonna be an inflow and an outflow of things in your fridge and in your freezer, and you never wanna be in that position where you have this lovely food that you just purchased, but you can't store it safely in a fridge or freezer because there's no room left. Always keep a certain amount free for the surprise meal that somebody stopped by as a gift to put in your freezer.

Tia: Yeah

Amber: definitely been the person who's gotten home from Costco and been like, "Ugh, will this all fit in the refrigerator and freezer?" O- okay, this is slightly random, but it does remind me of one episode of Friends.

Tia: Hey, Monica

Amber: I, I think it was the first season. had made a bunch of lasagnas for something. I think it was a family member who was, hiring her to, cater something. So she had made all of these lasagnas. but I believe they were supposed to be vegetarian, and she put meat in them, or vice versa. And so she had, like, 12 lasagnas that she's just trying offload on people because, one, like, how many lasagnas can one, you

Tia: Yes

Amber: New York apartment consume?

Tia: Mm-hmm.

Amber: And where do you put them all? refrigerator, Monica definitely has, uh,

Tia: She had a similar… Yep.

Amber: of

Tia: Mm-hmm.

Amber: and freezer space

Tia: Mm-hmm Yep. Yep. I think also as far as just the organization not, not having an overabundance of stuff, if you have, once again, an organized space, you will be able to see your inventory so much easier, even if it's not all at the top of the freezer. If you've got this bin system and you can pull one bin up to quickly check, it's gonna take you five seconds to check versus five minutes to check what you have versus what you don't. therefore, you probably aren't gonna overbuy certain items.

Amber: I'm just thinking of all of the ways that my freezer is not like this right now, and how I am doing more of the, "Oh, will the top close securely or did I overfill it?"

Amber: And then not knowing where to look for things because I'm sticking them in all kinds of weird places, so I'm like, "Didn't we still have hamburger buns, that we can use for cheeseburgers this week, or did we use them? Where would I have put them?" And then I have to empty out the entire freezer one item at a time to get through all of the layers, and I think

Tia: Yeah.

Amber: that kills me. If I

Tia: Yeah

Amber: but it's buried, I'm more likely to just, rebuy it

Tia: I love this topic because I have needed to do this for quite some time. we've talked about breaking larger sizes down into smaller sizes and keeping the larger items in your backstock freezer and your small items in your, your regular fridge and freezer. Don't buy in bulk if you don't have the space to put all the bulk stuff. And then we've also…

Amber: if there's no room to store it

Tia: Yes. And then we've also talked about how some things we typically just keep in the freezer, we can make into smaller chunks, like the Parmesan cheese, and grate it and stick it in the freezer for later. Therefore, you can save money by buying this stuff in bulk if you store it correctly and if you can portion it out over time. Also, double batching stuff saves time.

Amber: Time and money, because you can buy the larger amount saves money, and then you save time by just, making it all at once and having it ready. Then it's like you have your own little stash of, you know, all those 90-second, green packages that you can get at grocery stores these days in the pantry section? It's like you have your own stash in your freezer of those, and it costs way less than one of those packets that you would buy at the grocery store

Tia: That's fantastic. I love it. we talked about the bins, the specialized freezer bins that you can purchase, which we will have in the show notes below. And then we talked about freezing tiny little components of meals, like the grains and the beans and the pesto in smaller little containers so that you can pull them out as you need them. also just using the freezer as a place to pause time for, spinach.

Amber: the freezer is such a great tool if you have access to one. But if you don't have the organization and you're not giving yourself the space to store things in a usable way, that's when it becomes that icy graveyard where things just get lost. So being able to have a system to store, find, and use what you're putting in the freezer is really the way that makes the freezer work for you and helps you save time, helps you save money, helps you reduce food waste. So great tool, but we need to have some of these things that we talked about today in place to make that tool actually work for us instead of becoming another place in our house that we feel guilty about and feel like, "Ugh, I just need to find a whole day to go through everything in the freezer," much like we do with, our closets, like we've talked about.

Tia: Mm-hmm.

Amber: let's shift into what's working now. Tia, what's working now for you?

Tia: All right. I, I love that this ties so beautifully into our topic of the day, but my husband and I have realized the beauty of using our iPhone Reminders app for grocery lists. It's our-- It's what we need to purchase on a regular basis. So if you have an iPhone, this works for you. But if you don't, it will not work. But the iPhone Reminders app has different lists that you can select to create, and it has a grocery list. If you choose the grocery list, it will automatically sub-categorize anything you put into that list into its specific grocery aisle for you, so that when you're shopping, you can go aisle by aisle and find what you need.

Tia: And if you share this grocery list with somebody else that's in your household that might also be grocery shopping, then you will always be on the same page about what needs to be purchased in the next grocery run and what does not. In addition to that, you can also say, "Hey, Siri, add cereal to groceries," and it will know you're talking about its own grocery list app, and so it will automatically add the things. So you can do it with your iWatch, you can do it with your iPhone. As long as your iWatch or iPhone are within hearing distance, you can always in-the-moment, while you realize you need it, say, "Hey, Siri, add XYZ to groceries," and it will be added to the list.

Tia: And then as you're going on your grocery run, You can open up your little Reminders app, and y- it's like a checkbox system, where if you check it off, then it removes itself from the list. It is beautiful. That is our grocery shopping go-to for our household, and it works like a charm

Amber: I

Tia: All right

Amber: iPhone, so it doesn't work for me, but it's great that it

Tia: sure there is an A- I'm sure there is an Android alternative out there that can be shareable between two people.

Amber: I

Tia: This isn't

Amber: I use Google Keep for our grocery list, and it can be shareable. I don't share it because I'm a control freak. but it does have the check mark thing, so it checks things

Tia: Yeah.

Amber: I like about it is when it checks it off, it doesn't completely delete it. It just, shoves it down where you don't see it anymore. So when I need to re-add something, I only have to type in, like, two letters and it, repopulates at the top

Tia: Nice. Okay, so there's a great Android alternative then.

Amber: there are options out there

Tia: Yeah. Okay. So what's working now for you, Amber?

Amber: Well, this is a little bit of a throwback to some earlier episodes. I have taken some of your advice, Tia, and I have put-- not technically a basket. I've put a reusable shopping bag in my closet so I can start stashing those little things that I'm like, "Ugh, I don't need this anymore. I don't want this anymore." I have a place to put them now, and I did the same thing in my sewing space. So I talked about how I recently went through a whole reorganization with that space. It's still a work in progress,

Tia: Mm-hmm.

Amber: a bin now that I am specifically putting fabric that I know I'm just never going to use, and once that gets full, I will gift it to somebody else who can go through it and find what they want to use. But

Tia: That is

Amber: in every

Tia: awesome. That's awesome. I love it. Cool. All right. Well, that is all for today, and if you liked today's episode, you can support the show by telling your friends and leaving us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify

Amber: And if you have any questions about the show or suggestions for future episodes, you can send us an email at heymonicapodcast@gmail.com. And you can find all show notes and links to those amazing freezer baskets, on our website, heymonicapodcast.com

Tia: Amber supports individuals exhausted by dieting who want to improve their relationship with food and body. You can learn more and book a free connection call at wholeyounutrition.com. Amber also hosts a virtual community and co-working space dedicated to planning realistic, satisfying, and nourishing meals that actually taste good. Find more and join the collective at mealplanningcollective.com

Amber: Tia helps busy professionals with kids who have amazing systems at work, but no energy left to create organized systems at home in their freezers. Book a free consultation at roomforserenity.com or get organizing tips and tricks from her on Instagram. Her Instagram handle is @room_for, F-O-R, _serenity

Tia: Bye, Monica