I really enjoy cooking. Everyday duty has become a kind of hobby for me because in our family they like to eat tasty and varied. At the same time, meat dishes should always be on the table.
Purchased semi-finished products I do not risk using. I prefer to buy meat and cook my favorite dishes myself. The family gradually expanded.
I went to work, and realized that eating as before would not work, because:
- Cooking meatballs, meatballs or stuffed peppers takes a lot of time. I can’t do this in advance now, because I’m returning home at the same time as all the other family members. But everyone is already used to the fresh and homely. There are two times in a row one and they also do not want.
- Distinguishing the right meat from other frozen foods is an almost impossible task. All packages look almost the same. But I want to have dinner with something specific, and not what I could find in the refrigerator.
- Frozen pieces of meat gradually turn into a monolithic layer, and getting to the minced meat or beef for goulash from the bottom of the freezer box is not always possible. Yes, and to put unnecessary packages back beyond the power of even Tetris lovers.
- Our refrigerator does not need defrosting. Gradually, the bottom layer of food in the freezer became one layer. It was impossible to get something out of it, as well as remembering what and where is stored in it. Gradually at my disposal 5-6 centimeters from the entire depth of the box remained. And there nothing fit!
- Gradually, the products began to lie in the freezer, not by category, but where there was a place. But a glass of ice cream next to pork should never be stored.
It turned out that the freezer was quite spacious, but it absolutely did not help to tasty and quickly feed the family. There was something to do with this.
I found how to make a freezer roomy and comfortable. Having pulled everything out of the boxes, I sorted the products into 3 categories.
I put frozen vegetables, fruits, berries and ready-made desserts in the top (ice cream, cheesecakes, pancakes).
In the middle hit meat blanks for daily use. It also included fish, poultry and game, for second courses.
The bottom box was occupied by large meat layers for holiday baking, seafood and broths (I will talk about them later). This simple separation greatly simplified the search for the right one in the freezer, but did not solve the remaining problems.
To quickly get to the lower layers in the box, I decided to transfer the principle of the organizer for clothes in the refrigerator. To do this, divided the freezer compartment into 3 parts by vertical partitions. At first it was cardboard. They did not fit because they were soaked and lacked rigidity. Then I tried to put thin plastic partitions. It has become much easier with them. The most successful were plastic or wooden cutting boards with a thickness of about 7 mm: they kept their shape, fit in size and left a gap between the compartments when removed. So in the boxes it turned out 2-3 compartments in which the pieces are stacked, like bricks in the masonry. They are convenient to get and return to the place.
I always signed bags for freezing. First with a pen, then with a marker. The rod was hard to see. The marker is much brighter, but dirty other bags, hands and the box itself. The inscription on the inside of the bag colored products. An embedded piece of paper with the inscription soaked and stuck to the meat. But I found a way out: products that are easy to confuse in appearance, put in 2 bags for freezing. Between them I insert a leaf with the inscription marker. Now it persists for a long time and does not stain everything around.
I used to freeze beef, pork, or whole chicken in large chunks. But coming home from work you need to cook quickly. Thawing, cutting and preparing a large piece takes a lot of time. To save it, I wrote the main dishes that I cook and saw that they needed different types of meat, sliced in a different way.
Now I began to cut beef for goulash into thin strips, pork for pilaf in large cubes, and for chops in portions and then freeze it.
Stuffing, even when divided into packages for one dinner, caused the same problems and drained heavily after thawing. I decided to freeze the already formed patties and meatballs. This greatly saved cooking time.
I use a meat grinder once a week after buying meat, and I don’t spend time on weekdays to cut vegetables for meatballs and meatballs.
How to fit everything and a little bit more
We really love soups. For them, pork, beef and chicken bones were kept in the freezer all the time. They took up a lot of space, and in appearance did not differ much from meat. How many times I thawed a goulash bone instead of meat for a goulash - and it's hard to count. Yes, and I had to unload the refrigerator.
We don’t have a dog, so we don’t need the bones themselves, only the broth. I found on the Internet the idea of freezing it in ice molds or plastic cups. This method did not suit me at all: it is difficult to find a flat surface in a box of meat. The liquid spilled, and the form itself made of hard plastic took up a lot of space. I came up with a more convenient way. I pour the steamed and cooled broth through the funnel with gauze into ice bags.
They do not leak, take any form and take up little space. And if necessary, with their help, you can cook the soup in meat broth in 25 minutes.
These simple life hacks helped me prepare delicious and healthy dishes for the whole family, without spending much time. At the same time, free space appeared in the freezer.
