Getting The Freezer Ready

I just spent the morning defrosting my chest freezer. For some reason, the ice built up really fast this time. It was bad!

Before I do it. I gather my tools that I need. A bucket to put the ice in. Coolers to put the food in. My blow dryer to easily take the ice off the walls. A plastic scraper to get behind the ice to knock it off. Towels to dry the inside. Lastly, a plastic dust pan to scoop the ice up with. 

So after unplugging the freezer, I went at it. The blow dryer loosens the ice enough that I can use the plastic scraper to knock it to the bottom. Then I scoop it up and put it in the bucket. When the ice is all out, I dry the walls and bottom. Then I plug the freezer back in.

Next I went through all of the food to make sure it was all good and reorganized it before putting it back in. I only had to toss a loaf of bread that looked pretty sad and a half pound of ground pork that was freezer burned. 

I learned how to easily defrost a freezer when I was 19 years old and first married. We rented an apartment that had a refrigerator – freezer combo. The freezer was not frost free. So when we buy chest freezers to save energy, we always buy ones that are not frost free. That saves us even more energy!

But now I am ready to put those turkeys in that I buy this month when they are cheap. 

I have a 1/2 gallon of milk on the bottom which will come out to thaw later this week. I have one turkey left from last year that I will roast for Thanksgiving this year. Under the top containers are two reusable grocery bags. The one on the right has all of our frozen vegetables and French fries. The one on the left has all of our frozen fruit that I use for smoothies and muffins. I also put homemade frozen meals on the top of that one. 

The right hand container holds 16 pounds of butter that I purchased last year. I also have 5 pounds in my upstairs fridge. So I have determined that if I have that much left, I am not stocking on butter this month.  

The left hand container holds our grated cheeses that I purchase on sale.

You can also see on the left hand side that I have two large containers that stack. I keep meats in those. 

I also found that I had 10 lbs. of bacon in this freezer along with 3 pounds in the upstairs ones. Since I had bacon on my list to buy this week, I was thrilled to be able to take it off the list.

The meat that you can see is meat that we will be using the next couple of weeks. I will transfer it to my fridge freezers as we eat down the meat in those.

It is stacked on top of the containers that hold all the rest of the meat. One container is nothing but chicken and turkey. The other container holds ground beef, stew meat, steaks, pork chops, lamb chops, and all of our fish like haddock and salmon.  

Now I am ready to do my weekly shopping tomorrow. I noticed in the Aldi’s flyer that they have the Butterball turkeys that have been $ 1.29 a lb on sale this week for $ .87 a lb. I will pick up one or two tomorrow since they are our favorite brand.

We will go out to vote in the early morning tomorrow and then I will drop Hubby off at home. I have 4 stores to go to tomorrow. He hates shopping. I love that he hates shopping because I don’t have to worry about extra items that aren’t on my list going in the cart.

So I will be back with my grocery hauls later in the week.