I thought this glorious US holiday weekend called for one thing and one thing only. That's right: pictures of my freezer!

Oh, okay, you can have a beer too. There's beer in the fridge part. Also wine up top. Choices, choices.

So you guys want to see my freezer? BEHOLD.



No, we really, really can't get the ice cream maker in there.

Note that this is only the first layer of stuff. Everything is approximately three deep, and mostly stored in pint containers.

The container idea came from living in Brooklyn and ordering Indian delivery every once in a while. The food came in these exciting little pint containers that perfectly held 2 cups of whatever you might want to put in them. They also were free, and stacked perfectly. So I started washing them out and reusing them. Eventually we went ahead and ordered 100 new, for ultimate freezer organization power. This also means we now have many fewer incidents in which, say, a bag of dried chickpeas suddenly splits in your hand and showers its contents all over the freezer. Good times.

Yes, they're plastic, and that's certainly not optimal, but it works for us at this point in time. The black containers are also reused takeout boxes, but they're made from corn. We feel a little better about using them, but we don't know where to find more!

We stuff all kinds of things into the freezer. Flours, grains, beans, pulses, and some baking supplies go in the freezer because after you've experienced one infestation, you don't want any more, ever. We could probably take these out and store them in the cabinet after a week or so in the freezer--there are a few containers of dried pintos and chickpeas in the pantry--but, well, why bother? This works out fine for now.

You can see my impulse for making ice cream is pretty well under control if that's my attitude.

So. Freezer contents.

I started labeling but had to stop because there is just too much stuff to list in one picture.


Grains, flours, & baking:
short-grain brown rice
long-grain white rice
arborio rice
barley
quinoa
oatmeal
couscous
polenta/coarse cornmeal
wheat flour
white wheat flour
gluten flour
chickpea/gram flour
rice flour
buckwheat flour
bulk yeast
turbinado sugar

Dried beans & pulses:
white beans
black beans
red kidney beans
pinto beans
adzuki beans
mung beans
chickpeas/garbanzo beans
yellow split peas/urad dal
green split peas
puy lentils
red lentils
green lentils

Broths:
chicken
fish
veg
bean (right now it's chickpea broth)

Vegetables:
stockpile
corn
peas

Meat & fish:
bacon
pork loin steaks
roasted chicken
precooked chicken sausage
(shrimp & whitefish filets pop in & out frequently)

Fruit:
dried sour cherries
dried sweet cherries
dried cranberries
dried apricots
backyard plums
strawberry & banana chunks
whole black bananas

Nuts & seeds:
cashews
almonds, slivered & whole
pecans
sesame seeds
(walnuts should be there but aren't)

Prepared food, which is to say, food I made:
chili
lentil soup
carrot soup
mini quiches
several black bean & rice-stuffed peppers
cooked beans in their broth (various)

Store-bought prepared food:
ice cream
a pound cake
half a box of disgusting fish sticks I really need to throw out
(sometimes we have frozen burritos or pizza)

Miscellaneous:
tempeh
ice
coffee

And that's just what's in there right now, for a household of two, one of whom is vegetarian! Imagine if we were serious coupon people, or fishers coming home with six gigantic salmon at a time, or hunters bringing home a deer!

This is why I now own a canner, incidentally. I want the summer tomatoes all year, but can they fit in there? No, they cannot. I want a lot more vegetables in the freezer as well as out, actually. We'll have to see what we can do about that. I mean, the freezer isn't organized, though it may seem so to the naked eye. It's just full of easily stackable containers. If I really got in there and went at it, I could almost certainly preserve a lot more food in the freezer. Hmm. I'm going to have to think about that one.

In the meantime I'm going to have a beer, though. Holiday weekend! Hooray!