The Freezer

I've been doing a really good job (for me) of planning dinners and writing out - and sticking to! - grocery lists for the past few months.  It feels really good going into the week with a plan.  And half the time, our plans go awry and I wind up postponing this meal or that.  But it's ok, because it's only a plan.  (and hint: I only actually plan three to four meals a week anyway, since I just know everything will go haywire by Thursday).

So I sat down to add to my on-going grocery Monday night and made sure I had buns, hamburger, bacon, cheese and bread on the list.  Then I decided to peek in the fridge to see what we needed to use up and what could be good for dinner planning.  And that's when I started to uncover the hoard.

Plenty of buns, tons of cheese, and two whole loaves of bread. I scratched those off my list.  But then I started to wonder: what on earth do I have in the freezer??  So I cleared the counter and dove in.  Here's what I found:

Two boxes of popsicles (unopened)
Three sides of bacon
Twelve bags of frozen veggies (various flavors)
Four pounds of hamburger
Eight steaks
Two packages of chicken
Five frozen meals from past freezing kicks
Two gallons of ice cream in flavors we don't like (why?!)
Three tubs of homemade babyfood from last summer
Several freezer-burned frozen hors d'oevres in ziplocs leftover from our Christmas party
Two loaves of garlic bread
Three bags of frozen french fries, in varying states of openess

Um, the freezer was ridiculous.  So I completely rewrote my grocery list and reorganized the entire space.  Amazingly, there was very little that I felt forced to throw out.  I finished one tub of sub-par ice cream and melted the rest (totally crystalized) into the sink.  One package of steaks was older than the hills, and the babyfood wasn't worth keeping.  I will not be buying any bacon for a while, and I can probably hold off on any veggie or french fry purchases through the summer!  And if you're wondering, we'll be having steaks for dinner tonight.