Finally.
It’s been a while since I promised to show you the inside of my freezers and refrigerator. But finally…I opened ’em up and snapped some shots.
I’ve gotta be honest. (It’s not like I’m usually not honest. Why do we use that phrase anyway?) But seriously? Opening up my pantry and trunk to show you was a lot more fun and a lot less embarrassing. I almost took the time to clean out my fridge and re-arrange everything a little more nicely…but then…that wouldn’t quite be telling the truth would it? And my freezers? Well…let’s just say Laura needs to learn to de-frost occasionally.
Okay, ready?
Here are the two freezers we keep in our storage room.
Freezer number one…the meat freezer:
The top shelf is full of Smart Chicken brand chicken breasts that I found on sale for $2.29 a pound. I loaded up…can you tell? (And that’s the part that reallllly needs to be defrosted…can you tell?)
We bought a half a cow last fall and a whole lamb. Pictured is what’s left…plus some frozen baked goods and chicken broth and a casserole. And a pan of frozen buns. I just made them and as soon as they’re frozen, I’ll take them off the pan and throw them into a baggie.
Okay…moving on to freezer number two…the one I call my fruit and veggie freezer:
This freezer is looking a bit more bare than I like…but just wait until the end of gardening season!!! That’s when this freezer is so crammed full of food you can’t get even one more pea into it.
But I still have plenty of green beans and a bag of corn left. I also have strawberries, peaches, blueberries, grapes and rhubarb.
There’s also a big bag of ice for our shaved ice , and a jar of tomato sauce. The door of that freezer also has more tomato sauce…just in case I run out of all the tomato sauce in my pantry. (Which is not likely to happen…ever.)
(BTW…when one is typing the word “pantry” and speaking about things being in one’s “pantry” multiple times in blog posts…one must make sure one does not leave out the letter “r”. It is a mistake easily made…but a mistake one would want to be sure to catch. I’m just saying…)
Okay, moving on back into the kitchen to my fridge and freezer. I have a side by side. It was here when we moved in and it is very nice, but if I were given the choice, I would not choose a side by side. The freezer is too skinny and the ice machine takes up too much space. (But with two large freezers in my storage room…who’s complaining?)
In this skinny little freezer, I keep one bag of each veggie and fruit you saw in my other freezer, so that I don’t have to run out of the kitchen every time I’m making a smoothie or cooking vegetables for a meal. I also have butter and cheese in here, and chocolate chips and pecans and some frozen bananas. This picture turned out kind of dark, so it’s hard to see what a mess this freezer really is all the great food inside.
And now my refrigerator:
See my pretty brown eggs in the door there? And my pretty jars of milk under them? That’s my favorite part of my fridge. Again, this picture is kind of dark, but I’ll try to walk you through it anyway. I have a drawer up at the top where I keep a few random things like cheese sticks and homemade chocolate chips. I also have my rennet in there that I use for making mozzarella cheese. (Wanna learn about that sometime?)
Next I have my big ice cream bucket full of freshly ground flour. (By the way, thanks Marnie for reminding me that it needs to be kept in the fridge. During the winter my kitchen is so cold it doesn’t matter…but once the weather got warmer I forgot to put it back in the fridge!) Also on that shelf there are jars of pears and applesauce and homemade salad dressing. And a big container of Brown Cow yogurt. Yum.
Then of course, more milk, a quart of cream, and some bottles of juice for our shaved ice. I’m really looking forward to putting those juices into our new fridge down at our Shaved Ice Shack ONCE WE CAN FINALLY OPEN because they are kind of taking up space in my fridge and making it hard to keep everything as organized as I would like. (The open date has now been pushed back to June 17…don’t ask.) *ahem*
Under that shelf we have our crisper drawer which is currently full of carrots, broccoli, oranges, grapes and lettuce. And, in the drawer under that, we have 3 loaves of homemade bread and a bag of homemade tortillas. It’s a happy day when I can actually make bread and tortillas and have some left at the end of the day for future use. Yea.
Okay…I hope that freezer and refrigerator tour didn’t bore you to pieces. Don’t worry…I won’t tour you through my closets (“…and here we have our everyday shoes…and our shoes for working in the garden…and our shoes for when it’s raining…”) (snore).
Now that you’ve seen my food stash…we’ll continue through the series and I’ll tell you why we eat all this stuff.
I think my next post in this series will be about our food budget and how we manage to eat what we eat. Sound good?
more info on making moz. please!!!
Yup, you’re going to have to do a cheese making post! I’m also curious as to your ricotta method. I’ve done it a few times, but I bet your way is different.
And, I’m glad to see that you do things like not defrosting your freezer. It makes me feel much better about my not quite so perfect life.
Thanks for this post!!It was very helpful.And funny as well.I love your sence of humor!!I also made your whole wheat hamburger buns for supper tonight.They were very good!!I`ll be blogging about them in a little while with a link back to you.Hope you have a blessed evening!!
Very impressive! I have read that you can place bags of ice in your freezer to fill up the empty spaces and thereby increase your freezer’s efficiency. I have done this and it seems to work well. You might want to try that with your produce freezer until you harvest your garden.
Ok I would love to know more about your fresh groung flour. Our family is in the begining stages of a maore traditional life styl. I would love for you to take me under your wing. Please teach me all that you know. I’m a very good learner.
God bless you
sorry for all the typos, I’m typing with one hand (baby is asleep in my arms.)
Thanks for the tour!
I wish we could get raw milk. Hubby doesn’t want a cow share, I’m trying to talk him into getting some goats!
Thanks for the tour! When I first saw your pics of your freezer…I thought she needs to defrost that “meat one” cause she would have sooo much more room! Then I saw your comment about needing to defrost it occassionally.
LOL! at your comment about leaving the “r” out of pantry. I have done that a few times myself. Thanks for the tip! :)
Oh to be able to get brown eggs again! I grew up with brown eggs. And there for a while my brother was raising chickens and I was able to get them again. But the hawks kept getting to his chickens and it was costing him to much for upkeep so he gave them away! So no more brown eggs! :(
I have just recently started reading your site. I won a couple of your ebooks and just love them. I am especially enjoying the Getting Real With Food series. I noticed you said homemade chocolate chips when you were talking about the small drawer in the top of your fridge. Can you give details on how you make these? I look forward to reading more in the series.
Jennifer
Ok now I’m addicted to your fridge. I can’t stop reading about it.
Thanks for posting.
Jennifer…I just linked my homemade chocolate chips recipe to this post. Sorry I forgot to do that before!
I love this post! It was very inspiring. One of our big goals right now is food preservation and stockpiling. I want to know everything!
Wow! All that, and you have time to blog and bake and love on that family. I am truly impressed. And Tired. I think I shall go take a nap.
The WORST spot to put eggs is on the door. Never put anything that needs to stay cold on the door.
Eggs and milk need to be kept cold, so bacteria does not grow.
Speaking of silly things to say…. while reading this post about your fridge and freezer, I kept wanting to tell you to “close the door already, you’re letting all the cold out.” LOL.
Where did you get the container your eggs are in? I need to keep mine in something like that so it takes up less space.
Where did you get the big glass jars with white lids (there are 3 in the door shelfe below the eggs)? I’m finding as our household becomes more “whole foods friendly
Here is a link to where Laura buys her jars: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000BYE26?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creativeASIN=B0000BYE26&linkCode=xm2&tag=wwwheavenlyho-20
….not sure why that sent….
anyway…
as we become more “whole foods friendly” I’m having a container problem.