Has anyone done a "eat out of your freezer" challenge?

I am really trying to slim down my freezers contents - I have two very full deep freezers. I was managing pretty well, until we had an emergency butcher and kept pretty much the whole animal, because it was a stag. We didn't see that it was a stag until it was about to go on the semi to Omaha. So it was BIG and READY to butcher. I am not at all fond of bull meat, so I was not on board with this one. But since he had been in the pens with only steers and fed out fully - turns out he was quite good! LOL I have been trying to save some of his better cuts for special occasions. But I had pretty much one freezer full of beef when he went to the locker. I have a lot of sweet corn and other things - so I am seriously trying to thin down my beef.

Yes, in fact I just started doing this recently because our freezer was out of control (we only have the refrigerator freezer compartment, not a stand alone deep freeze), plus we have food in our pantry/storage area that hadn't been looked at in awhile. Like when I'd make chili I found it easier (read "lazier" lol) to just buy a few cans of kidney beans than to take the trouble of walking allllll the way down to the basement to see if I already had kidney beans.    So I made a list of some of the things I have down there, plus I cleaned out the freezer and got rid of a few unknowns, a few freezer burned things, etc. 

I do still buy fresh vegetables of course, but when I made chili just the other day I first checked and found kidney beans and canned diced tomatoes. So all I had to buy was the ground meat. 

I made split pea soup with the leftover Christmas hambone/meat (which had been in the freezer) and I definitely would have just bought a bag of split peas at the store. But I checked downstairs and found a bag already there. So I only had to buy celery. I already had carrots in the fridge and that's all I put in my split pea soup. 

I figure that even if I don't eat out of the freezer/fridge and cupboards every single day, I'm still ahead if I try to do it at least a couple times each week. 

I have a stocked freezer due to buying meat when on sale or butcher clearance due to sale by date.

I have an inventory list of what is in my freezer along with small circle stickers after each thing (ex chicken breaksts thin 2 p/p and then 5 circles, ground turkey 1 pound and 6 circles, etc)

As the item is used I cross out the circle.

I meal plan based on what is in my freezer, fridge, and cupboards.

I do this every other week. It helps me cut down on food waste as I am using up the rest of the produce and helps Mr save money.

So I pick a protein for say Tuesday, look at what I have fresh and decide on how to fix it that way.

Today is chicken stew for dh and dd and vegetable rice soup for me. Using up produce in the fridge and serving frozen GF cranberry orange muffins I made 2 weeks ago.

I did that for the entirety of 2020! Now, I'm trying to clean out the freezer attached to the fridge. It has the most random things in it.

I do it periodically.

As to not overwhelm myself, I pick a handful of items I've been staring at in the freezer and pantry and work those into the menu planning that week. I don't do it all at once.

Unless the sale is good, I don't "restock" meat during that time, I eat what we have.

I might also turn it into something else. For instance, if I have some ground beef that has been there a while, I might make a batch of taco meat or a meatloaf and freeze that. Makes it easier to thaw and eat a quick meal. Or, if I have a whole chicken, I might make a big batch of soup and re-freeze in lunch portions.

I do that all the time. In fact, this weekend I am restocking my beef in the freezer, something I will do every 3-4 months. For example, I will make up meatloaves (5-6 of them), spaghetti sauce, the insides for stuffed peppers, a casserole that I split and freeze, and taco meat. I will add some stew meat, some ground hamburger (4-5lbs) and a roast as it just sounds good. This will be added to my cooked and cubed chicken breasts, uncooked boneless and skinless chicken breasts, ham, ham bone, pork loin chops, and a pork roast. I also have 2 kinds of muffins, and 3 kinds of cookies, and 4 loaves of banana bread. I have everything portioned out into what I need per recipe or a meal. I am queen of freezer Ziplock. I keep a running list of what I have and what I can make. My pantry is the same way. I have everything available to make what is on my list. Before Covid, I was have 1 of everything we use (big paper towels, multi pack of toilet paper, big Kleenex, laundry soap, cleaning supplies, etc.) in the pantry. Now I keep 2 of those things. When you open 1 or use 1, I replace it. I open a 10lb bag of flour, I put it on my list. That said, if there is a good sale, I will purchase more.

I make a 2 week menu plan. I will make my grocery list from that plan and what is on sale. My grocery list is mainly fresh fruits & vegetables, dairy, replacements, and ingredients for a new recipe (if needed). When I get home from the store, I will wash and prep the fruits and veggies onto what is needed. They go onto Ziplock bags as well. I will have portioned size bags of each for grab snacks.

I have a great chef (DD) and this just helps make it so when I finish working, I can go into the kitchen for a nice home cooked meal. We significantly minimize the waste by doing it this way. 2 days once every 3-4 months of major cooking is all it takes.

When I have my own refrigerator and the garage freezer here, I will be restocking it and do a challenge then. Of course, you will all be done by then. I normally have a very well-stocked freezer because I never know how I am going to be feeling and may need to have quick access to a healthy homemade meal.

One thing to consider doing is to keep a list of exactly what is in your freezer. It is a heck of a lot easier to refer to the list than to dig around looking to see if you still have any chicken breasts left or if that last bag of frozen vegetables was used or not. It is a little more work to maintain a list, but it saves you so much time down the road.

I tend to shop at Costco so that means large amounts of things. Since it is just me, I need to cook up and freeze things so they don't spoil before I can get to them. For example, I will buy a large bag of onions and then use my food processor to chop them to small pieces. I go ahead and fry up the entire bag and then separate and freeze the cooked onions. It makes assembling something that requires onions a snap since the work is already done. I don't like doing dishes, so any time I can cook a large portion of something, I do it so that I only have to wash the dishes from it once. I do the same with ground turkey. Just separate it into usable portions and then season it as you use it. I make soup every week and always freeze portions in sealing bags for later meals. I find it is just as easy to double a recipe and freeze the half that you don't need as it is to cook a single recipe. I've done that for years.

I separate the meal into single-serving sizes because it is just me now, but I also did this when I had my son living at home. It made it easy for him to just look at the freezer list and choose something to eat or for us to pack meals to take camping with us. The bags I freeze in can be tossed into a pot of boiling water at a campsite for easy heating and everyone can have whatever they want to eat that night. As a single mother, it made all the difference in the world to the comfort of our camping trips. I was able to stay with him while he fished right up until time to eat dinner since it was already prepared in the bags. We would usually choose something different to eat, but since it is going into the same pot of hot water, it didn't matter. And it makes cleanup a breeze.

I probably have more freezer tips, but that is all I can think of at the moment. Oh, and keeping a list taped to the freezer door also helps when I am going grocery shopping to know whether or not I need to restock something.

You should go check out YouTube as there are a zillion women doing pantry/freezer/low spend/no spend January's.

Personally I just start cooking from what I have and avoid going to the grocery store unless I really need to.

I've been doing that this week with the cooked leftover meat from our freezer. I used some left over pot roast for a shepherd's pie, smoked shredded pork for some burrito bowls and tonight we are heating up the rest of our smoked turkey to go with our homeade mac and cheese.

*We do buy a quarter cow every year and I freeze things from our garden (corn, roasted tomatoes, etc), so I mostly get staples when I shop during the year.  I do try to save leftovers as much as possible in the freezer for other things.  I keep a freezer bag of veggies bits that would work well in a stir fry when we have things left over.  I keep small pieces of left over meat and use them up in things.

I am not a challenge girl in reality. When my freezer gets a little full or we need to start eating some of the older stuff, I make a list of everything in the freezer that needs to be eaten. For the next week or two, most of my meals come from something in the freezer or part of it, and I cross it off the list. My freezer has three levels in it. The bottom two are full of items from the grocery store and the top one is frozen meals that I have made and I made full meals (for 2) so we have extra. I'll usually pull a few things out each weekend to thaw for the coming week. That way we have plenty of food ready to go if making something won't work for the evening. We currently have bean chili, chicken enchiladas, pot roast, and beef stew in baggies to pull out for the next two weeks.

I call it “eat the freezer”. We have 3 refrigs with freezer compartments and a large freezer in the garage. First I make a complete inventory. Then I start meal planning. It’s a pretty detailed meal plan, including the recipes and sides. That then generates what fresh items will be needed for each weeks meals, so weekly groceries are kept to a minimum.

We don’t eat out from Jan thru April unless there’s an emergency. I’ve been doing this for a lot of years. Covid lockdown was not a problem for us.

I'm doing it right now. I make a loose meal plan based on what is in the freezer, but I don't assign each dish to a certain night or anything. I work through that list, inserting leftovers nights or quickie meals as needed. That is what I do regardless of the freezer situation, I just buy less during the process. I still keep an eye out for good sales on meat but I don't buy as much.

This time around we have a lot of frozen vegetables too so I'm also working on using those.

My dad buys a lot of frozen foods and we eat them but he replaces faster than I can use it up. I have a frozen lasagna in pieces in one freezer and it’s great when I don’t know what to make. I also have plenty of chicken cordon bleu ready to bake and a few packages of meat like chicken and pork to go through. I need to make this a goal of mine to use up the freezers. We have 3!