Aren’t they lovely? Homemade bagels — sesame, poppy seed, and cinnamon sugar. I used this WONDERFUL recipe at Savory Seasonings, a huge improvement on my former recipe. These are softer and puffier.
Do you know what’s the most beautiful part of this photo?
The most beautiful part is the fact that there are three bags of them, in heavy duty plastic zipper top bags ready to go into the freezer. Before Christmas, my dear husband dug into his “stash” and spent all his “mad money” on a freezer for me.
It wasn’t even a Christmas gift. It was an I-know-you-need-this-to-make-your-life-easier gift. Now that’s a romantic gift, ladies! (Although, let’s be honest, he’s really going to benefit from the stocking up on good things to eat. Love ya, HB.)
I’ve had it about four weeks, and I’ve been steadily working on filling it up. Well, a full freezer holds the cold better in case of power outage, you know. So I really MUST fill it up. (wink) We truly never know when our power (or water) will go off.
It’s a small chest freezer. I guess I should share a photo, but the bagels are so much prettier.
Okay, I found a photo of it. Look here. (This is basically Chinese Ebay.) It looks exactly like that — para sailing mascot and all. (Plain things are considered ugly in China. So everything has to have designs, flowers, children, crazy English. Makes me crazy.)
Wondering what I’ve got in there so far?
- white beans, cooked from dry — probably 20 bags
- pumpkin puree, cooked from fresh — 6 bags
- chicken broth
- beef and bean pockets
- broccoli, chicken, and cheese pockets
- 2 pizzas
- 2 loaves of banana bread
- fried apple pies
- bagels (of course)
- beef with mushrooms in a hearty broth
- cream of mushroom soup (homemade, of course)
- chicken in broth
- ground beef (which I ground)
- bulk pork sausage (homemade from pork I ground)
- cheese (from Big City)
- butter (from Big City)
- shelled walnuts
- popsicles
Do you have a chest (or upright) freezer? Any tips for me? What’s your favorite thing to store in there? I’m a total freezer newbie, so bring on the ideas for me and my para sailing buddy.
More Posts Like This One:
{ 24 comments… read them below or add one }
Beautiful indeed! What a wonderful gift!
We are freezer rich–I’m embarrassed to say how many freezers we have because by Chinese standards it is likely to sound insane. We have a larger family though…
A full freezer not only stays colder in case of outages, but is more economical, and will better preserve your food. (Because it stays colder, the new arrivals to the freezer freeze quicker upon entering, and it requires less electricity when well stocked.) On rare occasion when one of our freezers is less full I’ll freeze containers of water–just plain water/ice to fill in the gaps a little until I can replace it.
Your list looks wonderful. I’m thinking I’d add a few treats like cookies or some ice box pies, and maybe a good freezer casserole or lasagna? Juice or concentrate, perhaps? I seem to remember that you like coffee, so if you have a blender, ice cubes of leftover strong coffee can make lovely iced coffee treats.
Enjoy that wonderful blessing!
@Dell — What a great tip about the leftover coffee cubes! I’m not a fan of cold coffee drinks, but hubby is. Brilliant! Now I need to buy an ice tray! Pies… yum. Great idea! And I JUST found a source for “digestive crackers” the Asian version of graham crackers for making crusts. Perfect. Thanks for your ideas.
I love a freezer! I spent some time on the Savory Seasonings site and it looks like I’m going to be getting a lot of ideas from her! We’re headed to Xi’an for three months on Feb. 22, wish us luck figuring it all out!
I don’t have one…but I really, really want one. To be able to freeze up meals ahead of time would be so handy. I’m glad you have one! And those bagels look absolutely scrumptious!
You have some excellent staples in your freezer. A tip: I use shallow cardboard boxes or plastic baskets to keep my foods in categories – meat, breads, vegetables, ready prepared meals in their own basket/box. This saves on the “freezer scamble”!
If you buy fresh veggies in bulk, blanch and freeze them in meal-size portions. I had a glut of tomatoes and froze them as they were. It was a breeze to defrost and cook them up. I freeze ice-cubes in ready-made plastic ice-cube bags. (They’re easy to fill and store without spilling and really handy for emergency first aid!)
.-= Nadene´s last blog ..Plan the New Year ~ Overviews, Year Planners and Week Planners =-.
Wow! Jimmie! I’m so happy for you.
) Until a year ago I lived with an undercounter fridge (student apartment size) while feeding up to 8 people a week!!! I also had a smallish freezer. Now we have a side by side American size fridge freezer and another upright freezer in the garage.
Milk freezes well if you want to keep some in for times it runs out. Just remember to defrost the night before you need it. The other thing I always do is to keep all the bones and skin and scraps from roast meats – espeically chicken! I just put a large Gallon size zippy bag in the freezer and keep adding bones from vaious roast chickens till the bag is full. Then you have enough to make home made chicken stock for soup. One chicken isn’t usually enough for a pot of soup but 2-3 chickens is so freezing the bones makes this easier. When you are ready then pour it out of the bag still frozen into a stock pot, add some chunks of carrot, onion, celery, peppercorns and bayleaves and boil for a few hours. Strain and add veggies and some leftover chicken and it will be my Grandma’s yummy home made chicken soup! You can use the same principle to make beef, lamb or even duck stock – whatever on the bone meats you get easiest.
Enjoy your freezer and all your yummy treats. – Deedee
Hey Jimmie!
Happy New Year and congrats on the freezer. Even though we live in the US my freezer is a lifesaver! I do freeze a lot of what you do (but would LOVE the recipe for cream of mushroom soup!). We love to make individual sized “Boboli” pizza crusts in our bread machine and freeze them for later. I then freeze all the toppings for the pizzas and “package” them all together. My boys will just reach in and can make their own dinner or snack on those nights I’m busy! I was just thinking that cookies would be a great addition, since I cannot keep a batch in the house for more than a couple of days (I have two kids left in my house: two boys, 18 and 12…it’s amazing I have any food at all!) Have fun with your feezer. I love stocking my “frozen pantry” since I don’t can food it makes me feel domestic!
.-= Barbara´s last blog ..Christmas at the Swedish Institute =-.
We have a similar freezer…..minus the sailing child on the front of course. lol When we got it I wasn’t sure it would hold that I had envisioned for it, but it has done great!
One biggy that I freeze up is cooked meats, especially ground hamburger, ground sausage and ground turkey. I buy it in bulk cook it up and then seperate it into quart size freezer bags. Anytime we need a quick meal I can just defrost the meat and add it to pasta, on top of pizza, in tacos or a casserole and we are ready to go. When I buy chickens I buy them whole and usually several at a time. I spend a whole day cooking the chicken until it falls of the bones, bagging up the chicken in ziplock bags then make broth and stock with the bones which I either can or freeze. These can then be used later to flavor a dish or make a hearty soup. Biscuits, dinner rolls, cinnamon rolls, and turnovers are something I try to keep stocked up too.
.-= BlessedMomma´s last blog ..update =-.
I’m so happy for you! I don’t know what I’d do without my freezer! I love having some “extra” meals in the freezer for busy days.
Here are some of the things I keep or have kept in mine:
Every time I buy celery I would let it rot before I finished it. Now I just dice and freeze it right away. I also like to freeze bags of other diced vegetables that I use on a regular basis. It makes meal prep so much easier. Green peppers, carrots, chives, zuchinni, and onions (freeze on a cookie sheet first or they will all freeze together) are some of the things I’ve done. I also like to freeze fresh herbs- they taste better than dried. And, I’ve not tried it before, but I’ve seen recipes for making your own frozen french fries and hash browns.
I also like to freeze in season fruit for future use in smoothies, fruit salads, pies, or cobblers.
Like you, I cooked dried beans and freeze them. I also do lentils and quinoa. Sometimes I will even do bags of rice or noodles if I want some “instant” meals.
Homemade tortilla, pitas, and pizza crusts (or mini pizza crusts) are also nice to have on hand. And you can freeze unbaked biscuits and cookies for quick freshly baked bakegoods.
Strips of meat can be frozen in marinade for easy shish kabobs or stir frys. I also like a few bags of prebrowned burger. And, casseroles are especially nice to have on hand.
.-= Melissa Telling´s last blog ..Count Down To Christmas Paper Chain =-.
My grandmother gave me her big commercial upright freezer when she moved into her apartment and I love it! When I find meat on sale or cheese or butter I slap it in there. Plenty of veggies…I like to pre chop and slice peppers and onions since I use them so much in recipes. Just cooked up 20 lbs of Ground Beef today, made spaghetti sauce, veggie soup, chilli and meatloaves…am going to bake muffins and breads tommorrow. It sure cuts down on meal prep on down the road.
I have a freezer that I don’t keep full enough. These are some great ideas. But I am curious to know, what do you do with all those white beans?
.-= Kristen´s last blog ..Swope’s Ridge by Ace Collins =-.
I would love to have a freezer someday. What great things you are filling it up with.
Blessings,
Dawn
.-= Dawn´s last blog ..Starting out the New Year with a Bang! =-.
Yay for your freezer! I am glad you shared the picture with us– you realize it means that you must automatically have yummy treats in that freezer. Whereas my plain, unadorned upright freezer is surely filled with vegetables , mystery meat and other plain, tasteless things.
.-= Marsha´s last blog ..My first gift of 2010 =-.
I’m excited you got your freezer–and it is a romantic gift! But for myself, I’m excited over the bagel recipes, definitely something us oversea-ers don’t get to buy off the shelf. I’ll set my daughter on it right away. Are all those bagels from just one recipe? (ie. How many bagels did the 6 cups of flour make?)
.-= Lee´s last blog ..Creative Writing Lesson — Anthropomorphism =-.
@Lee –I hear you, girl. Sometimes people are so impressed that I make these things from scratch. But the reality is that if I want to eat it, I’ve got to MAKE it myself. There is no other option.
Yes, I made all the bagels you see there with that original recipe. I think it was around 22. They weren’t all uniform size, of course. Results may vary.
I’m a huge fan of homemade soups, so whenever I make soup (which is often at this time of year), I double or triple the recipe and freeze both individual- and meal-sized portions.
Now here’s my favorite freezer tip EVER. Fill sturdy zip-top bags with soup, spaghetti sauce, homemade stock, whatever. Squeeze out as much of the air as possible without springing a leak! Then lay the bags on a tray or cookie sheet in a single layer and freeze. With a small freezer, it takes longer, so work with smaller batches. Once frozen, the filled bags stack flat or on their sides like books! I do this with both gallon and quart sizes. Not only does this save space, the flat packages defrost much quicker than deep containers.
Glad you’re enjoying your freezer. What a treat for you!
~ Kim
.-= In Our Write Minds´s last blog ..Writing with your little ones =-.
Can I say that my readers are the best? You guys are giving me the best freezer tips ever! I invite you all over for a cup of chai and some bagels from the freezer! And since all my Chinese friends think I’m stark raving mad to even want/use/need a freezer, it’s so nice to get some positive reinforcement from people who understand. (Chinese people like food FRESH. Frozen = bad.
)
@Kim — I do this! The book freezing thing.
That’s so funny that you described it as books. In my chest freezer, it’s almost like files in a cabinet. Yes, this is a great tip.
@Marsha — The yummy treats are disappearing. Hubby came back from a week out of town. There goes a bag of bagels and a bag of fried pies OUT of the freezer. Oh… got to cook more… fill up the freezer.
@Dawn — I hope you get one too. This is my first ever in 16 years of marriage.
@Kristen — beans? Oh, chili, soups, casseroles, plain with cornbread on the side. I notice Chinese people here don’t eat as many beans as I’m accustomed to eating in the rural South. I miss them terribly. These white beans fit the bill. I can’t buy canned vegetables. So I prepare fresh ones — or dried beans in this case –and (now) can freeze them!
@Melissa – I know with your big family to feed, you really need a freezer. Great tips! I haven’t tried freezing tortillas, but it’s on the list. They are so time intensive to make. I’ve been worried about freezing them ruining their texture and then wasting all my effort.
@Nadene — good idea. I need to get organized in there. I will keep my eyes out for some appropriate containers/boxes.
@DeeDee — I have no idea how you fed so many with a miniature refrigerator. Yes, I do. You shopped daily like Chinese people do.
Beautiful bagels! We can get Costco bagels, but I am happy to say that my family actually prefers my homemade ones. I am trying not to envy your freezer. It’s not that we can’t buy one, I just am not sure where we would put it!
I am intrigued to read that you freeze your cheese. We can get butter here readily, but it’s kind of expensive. I always buy a bunch when I find it on sale and freeze it. A friend and I were debating the other day whether cheese would freeze well. I have had cream cheese get frozen accidentally in the “chill” drawer of our fridge, and the texture gets all crumbly. Does harder cheese, like cheddar, freeze well?
.-= Sue´s last blog ..New Year’s Greetings — a Pictoral! =-.
@Sue about freezing cheese — yes, sometimes freezing cheese does affect the texture. BUT, cheese is such a luxury for us, that we are simply glad to have it, crumbly or not. I reserve cheese pretty much for meals only. (If we snacked on it, we’d have no cheese for soft tacos and casseroles.) And usually crumbly is okay for cooking. So it’s okay. I think that when the cheese was fresh to start with, freezing it once is not a problem. But freezing, thawing, freezing thawing is a problem. I’ve had plenty of cheese that had been treated that way before I got it. But again, it’s too precious to be picky over.
I am SO going to have my husband read your post, Jimmie! I’ve been wanting a freezer here in Peru for years! So much more so since we’ve moved to the jungle!! I can’t wait until SOMEDAY!
fruit slushy drinks, pizza, grated cheese, bagels, beans, spaghetti sauce, pie crusts, pureed pumpkin… oh, yes. You have spoken my heart language 
We are lucky though we CAN get ground beef and cheese easily at our supermarket. Though there is a strike currently and prices are through the roof on everything.
Here they like to decorate the appliances with the oversized decals as well, but instead of the lovely artsy characters, they have the name brand enlarged 1300% and plastered on in lovely non-kitchen matching colors. of course. And you can’t get it off to save your life. That seriously influenced my purchasing back in the day we bought our most recent appliances… the plainer the better. I actually found a brand new plain white Frigidaire refrigerator… I could NOT believe it. I probably cried tears of joy…
Back to the freezer. Someday. I’m saving up my pennies starting last year. I’m SO happy for you! I really and truly appreciate what this means for you and I share fully with you in your delight! Someday you will share with me in mine!!
Oh, and I’m SUPER excited about the bagel recipe! THANKS so much.
Amy in Peru
http://fisheracademy.blogspot.com
http://apilgrimsproject.blogspot.com – 2010 Project365 blog
.-= Amy´s last blog ..Homeschool Planning – Part one =-.
Hey Jimmie… I was just looking at the bagel recipe this morning thinking to take the plunge, and do you use wheat flour? Can you get it there?
Amy
.-= Amy´s last blog ..Homeschool Planning – Part one =-.
@Amy — I do use part whole wheat flour in most all of my recipes. I’ve found that I don’t like what it does to pie crust, though. But for everything else, I do add up to 1/3 wheat flour. I have to special order it from the bakery wholesale guys where I buy my bread flour. I nagged them for months until they finally ordered for me. I’m obviously the only person in the entire city who uses it. LOL. The first bag was 25 kg (about 50 lbs) and lasted a year. My latest bag is only 15 kg (30 lbs).
What a wonderful gift! You’ll just love having a freezer. We have a small chest one as well. I have a HUGE chest freezer that came with the house, but we have it unhooked right now. We are renovating the house and need to find a new place to keep it.
I mainly use the freezers to hold meat until I have time to can them. But they are great for keeping bread and casseroles on hand for when I’m to tired to bake.
I am drooling. PLEASE come cook with me! (And maybe MY hubby will get me a new freezer.
)