Eat Drink Man Weblog

My family keeps a chest freezer in the basement. A chest freezer can be a wonderful investment. When my mom is throwing a banquet for a few dozen people, she prepares freezer-friendly dishes ahead of time. Stored in the freezer downstairs, casseroles, pies, and breads patiently await showtime for weeks. When mom’s deadline looms, she has fewer details vying for her attention. Hunters prize chest freezers because they provide a storage solution for an entire deer. But even if you aren’t ever going to pick up a riffle, a chest freezer can help you think like a hunter: when a supermarket offers meat or ice-cream at a heavy discount, you can load up.

There’s one problem. It’s easy to get seduced by the awesome power of the freezer chest. Leftover odds and ends are all too easily sent to sleep with the fish-sticks. Soon a petrified graveyard of your culinary past builds up. It can be daunting to reclaim your space.

Yet freezers benefit from an occasional cleaning. Every once in a while a freezer owner must buck up and empty the chest.

One solution is to buy a large cooler. A huge mass of frozen food packed in an insulated box should keep its chill long enough to defrost, clean, and re-engage a freezer. But such a solution does nothing to prune its contents.

My freezer is due for a cleaning. So today I took an inventory. I divided the frozen goods into six categories: protein, vegetable, pre-made, snacks, miscellaneous, and unidentified.

PROTEIN

• Frozen shrimp (about 1 ½ cups)
• Ground pork
• Ground beef
• Ground meat (unlabeled, presumably beef)
• Beef roast, top round London broil
• 6 oz salmon fillets (2)
• Omaha Steaks gourmet franks (one box)
• Thin-cut ribeye steaks (3)
• Meatless franks, assorted brands (7)
• Meatless bacon (one box)
• Bag of frozen chicken . . . breasts?

VEGETABLE

• Baby lima beans
• Succotash (half a bag)
• White pearl onions

PRE-MADE

• Borscht
• Vegetarian chili
• Shepherd’s pie, personal size (2)
• Vegetarian tortellini casserole
• Stouffer’s five cheese lasagna
• Zucchini-ground-beef-mushroom saute
• Mashed potatoes

SNACKS

• Twinkies (3)
• Skinny-Dipper ice cream pop
• Fruitcake

MISC.

• Yeast
• Refried beans
• Hamburger Buns, homemade (one dozen)
• Raw pumpkin seeds
• Walnuts
• Chicken broth (2 different containers)
• Box philo dough
• Premade pie shells (2)
• Butter (1 pound)
• Shredded coconut

UNIDENTIFIED

• Labeled “for Jan 3^rd dinner” (2)

There are two schools of thought on unidentified items. The first says you let them thaw out and let newly unlocked aromas aid in their classification. The second says you unceremoniously pitch them – if it was something wonderful, you’d remember, right? My approach depends on how much courage I can muster up on a given day.

After dealing with the unidentified items, I printed out my list and posted it on the kitchen fridge. As I plan dinner I now have a list of resources at my finger tips. When I deploy frozen goods to the dinner table, I can strike them off the list.

When I get serious about emptying a freezer I have three general strategies: “like attracts like,” “learn something new,” and “cooking game show.”

“Like attracts like” is the simplest stratagem – run down your list and group the items which naturally seem to go together. Hamburger buns and ground beef are a natural for hamburgers. Chicken breasts and chicken broth give you a head start on a chicken noodle soup. Pearl onions make a wonderful accompaniment to a pot roast. Ground beef, a pie shell, and mashed potatoes are the backbone of a shepherd’s pie.

If you include two to three frozen items in a given meal you’ll quickly go a long way towards reclaiming your freezer’s untamed wilds.

“Learn something new” uses a frozen item as a catalyst. It’s an especially useful tool to dispatch items in the miscellaneous category. All you need to do is select a troublesome item and free associate. To my mind “Philo dough” suggests apple tarts and spanakopita. I’ve never made a spanakoptia at home. It’s high time I learned.

When my culinary imagination starts to lag, I simply type an ingredient into google and see what comes up.

“Cooking game show” is the most daring of the freezer emptying strategies. I select three different ingredients and vow to combine them in once dish. Shrimp, salmon and walnuts might turn into an interesting dinner. Shrimp and flaked salmon tossed with toasted walnuts over pasta. Top with a good olive oil and some parmesan cheese, or a light cream sauce. Or walnut crusted salmon with shrimp kabobs on the side.

Some combinations set you up for failure, so don’t be afraid to roll again. Coconut, refried beans, and gourmet franks do not strike me as a solid foundation. (An inventive fusion cook might prove me wrong.)

Some of my freezer adventures will no doubt turn into leftover theatre articles. Now you know what half-baked outlines guide my quest to turn yesterday’s dinners and bargains into today’s delicacy.