Trading Freezers

I traded freezers last evening.  I been meaning to for weeks, but finally got around to it.  Well, I should say I traded the contents of my refrigerator freezers.  I don't have an individual freezer.  But I have refrigerators in the kitchen (with a bottom freezer) and the basement with top freezer.  

I find the kitchen one convenient because it has the crisper drawers in the middle and I am in there more often than anywhere else.  I spend a lot more time with getting at fresh fruits and veggies than frozen stuff.

The old previous basement fridge (and I mean "old") was more of a root cellar and storage for bulk items.  Bags of potatoes, onions, fruits etc.  And certainly horribly inefficient, energy-wise.  I replaced it months ago with another top freezer model, because I buy meat in moderate bulk on sale and I bought shoebox-size plastic containers to store the various kinds in.

But the kitchen freezer was the bottom type.  Stuff like frozen veggies, bread products (which freeze well), and leftovers stayed in containers on the (unmovable) top shelf.  Larger containers were in the bottom slide-out tray.  It became unmanageable.  Stuff on the top freezer shelf were impossible to sort through a small container at a time down on my hands and knees.  And the stacks just kept falling over, which destroyed any organizing I tried to maintain.

The slide-out shelf was not very helpful.  It was "necessary" to slide it out to get at anything, but basically, it was just a loose pile of variously-sized containers.  Even though I labeled them, it didn't help much trying to find anything

So I thought about that for a few weeks.  And I think I found the solution.  Reverse the contents of the freezers.  First, I emptied out everything from the slide-out kitchen tray.  Separated them into meat and veggies in a large plastic bin and put all my freezer gel packs on top to keep them frozen.  Then dumped all the small containers on top and closed the lid.

Then took my 6 shoebox-size meat containers to the empty Kitchen freezer.  They fill it up.  And since I have labels in front and on the top, they are easy to find and don't mix into each other.  The unmovable top shelf holds easy-to-manage stuff like breads, bags of frozen veggies, and smaller containers for various sausages/baked bacon. 

All those leftovers (and I do choose them sometimes just to use them up) are in the basement top freezer.  They are more stable there because I can see them better.  Most labels are on the top of the containers, but future ones will be on the front for easier identification 

A benefit of the freezer content exchange is that I used up some stuff I didn't remember I had.  I poached 4 chicken thighs in previously-saved frozen broth.  That had to start them out well.  I have a container of beef broth left over from a spicy chuck roast recipe, to make more beef stew tomorrow from a chunk of other slow-cooked chuck roast from last month I also found.  

So the transfer has worked out well.  I can see the contents of the small leftovers in the top freezer refrigerator more easily now without have to shuffle them all around on hands and knees.  And the bulk meat containers are easy to take out of the kitchen tray easily.

I say "bulk meat containers", but they are all cut up into in 3-4 oz portions and stored in zip lock bags.  All I have to do is lift a lid of the meat container I want and thaw it out.

This looking like a "winning" change.