Freezer Fitting…

I love my lil freezer and will work it hard! I love it so much, sometimes I’ll cook enough meals for a month and freeze them so we can just reheat and eat. This is known as Once a Month Cooking (OAMC).

The concept of OAMC is to spend a set time cooking, whether it’s a day or two, and ending with enough meals to last through the whole month. OAMC recipes usually involve freezing the meals until needed.

The primary advantage to this method of cooking is to save time over the course of the month by buying groceries in bulk on the cook date. There are some other substantial advantages, however:

• Saved food resources: buying what is needed and preparing it into a finished dish right away rather than losing track of it or losing it to spoilage
• Saved energy: cooking several dishes at once means less pre-heat time and better use of the energy that is being consumed
• Saved money: having a ready supply of finished meals makes it less tempting to eat out because “you’re just too tired to cook”

I haven’t done OAMC since October, just before the holidays, but I will probably do it in the coming months when I can dedicate a whole day to shop and cook. But here’s what my freezer looks like now.

The following are the current total contents of my freezer:

2 lb pkgs of chicken spinach asiago sausages
3 qt sized bags of raw shrimp
3 qt sized bags of cooked shrimp
4 qt sized bags of ground turkey
12 chicken breasts – divided between 6 qt sized bags
1 bulk sized bag parmesan tilapia
1/2 pkg bacon
1 bulk sized bag broccoli
1 bulk sized bag asian stir fry mix
1 bulk sized bag mixed berries
3 large bags frozen spinach
1 1/2 qt sized bags spaghetti squash
1 bag corn
1 bag strawberries
1 bag artichoke hearts
1 bag pineapple tidbits
1 bag tri-color bell pepper slices
1 bulk sized pkg swiss cheese
1 1/2 qt sized bags blue cheese
1 pkg garlic naan
1 pkg biryani rice mix
1 tray of frozen cilantro cubes

Here is the freezer that all the above is going into:

And my freezer measures 18 inches across, 14 inches deep and 13 inches tall:

Here are all the non-meat items packed in:

Here are all the meat items packed in:

When freezing items, I use frozen freezer bags so that I can stack food flat on top of each other and remove as much as possible. I apply this to freezing my OAMC meals too so it is possible to freeze up to a month’s worth of food in a little freezer!