Opening the freezer, the cold, misty air falls out onto my feet. I bend and peer in the deep, dark depths to find what’s stashed away on the frosted-over shelves.

Sometimes I feel the need to clean and tidy. On this particular day it was the freezer.

We have two freezers. One attached to the fridge in the kitchen, and we have an upright freezer tucked away in the laundry to store other bits and pieces. I guess this is where I get in trouble!

Got a spare bit of chicken… put it in the freezer… made extra of that… put it in the freezer… this is on special… put it in the freezer… you get the idea.

So I pulled everything out of the second freezer and made a list. (I like lists!)

I wrote down the item and an expiry date or when it was made or went into the freezer. I do check the freezer on a regular basis so there isn’t too much in there that spoils. But even so I rechecked everything and found a couple of items with freezer burn – probably because I didn’t wrap it properly.

And here’s my list:

And then it’s a matter of getting creative and using up what’s in the freezer!

As mentioned earlier in ‘From dinner, to stock to soup!’, the homemade chicken stock is what I get out of making boiled chicken for dinner. I always keep it and then turn it into soup after using the ice filtration method of refining the stock.

The bananas were turned into banana and yoghurt muffins for school – they freeze well, wrapped individually.  (There’s a whole lot of different flavours in there ready for school lunches).

I had a couple of bananas left over so I made banana bread too.

I used the blueberries and raspberries for two dishes: a free form berry tart made with short crust pastry; and Callum Hann’s raspberry-swirled butter recipe from his book I’d eat that! Check out my ‘Berries… what to do with them…?’ post.

The whiting and snapper was a lovely gift for us from our friend who does a regular fishing trip each year. He packed up some filleted whiting and snapper and we popped it into the freezer. We had three small packets left and decided to try fish tacos.

Our family loves beef tacos and chicken enchiladas, and we make them often. We just swapped out the beef for lightly pan-fried fish. What a delight! A bit of tangy sauce with the salad , wrapped up in a soft taco. These are now an often requested dish!

So when you get a bit of spare time, I suggest you take out everything from your freezer and make a list. It’s a good way to clean out the freezer and become inventive with the foods you need to use up!