What's in your freezer?

[cjsmith]

Serious question.

If I am ever going to cook, I'm going to cook for one, which is pessimal from a purchasing and storage point of view. My freezer is perennially full.

Friends ask "Full of WHAT?" They have a point. Food! But it's not that simple.

What have I got in there? Seven servings of bean soup (and that's after I've eaten three), one serving of lentil soup, some meatballs, two servings of beef stew, four servings of meatloaf, one ancient serving of Dijon chicken I should really pitch, a couple of pounds of lean ground turkey, two frozen chicken breasts, a big honkin' pile of chopped onion, some chopped bell peppers, a bowl of walnuts, lots of frozen veggies of the Bird's Eye sort of genre, a handful of frozen taquitos, several ice packs, and a tiny Godiva chocolate raspberry truffle ice cream container I'd forgotten about.

I had to look in there to write that paragraph, and truth to tell, I'm surprised by some of it. I didn't remember the meatloaf, the Dijon chicken, or the ice cream. Some of these things were seriously buried, of course.

What would I like to put in there? Multiple kinds of flour. The half a lemon I didn't squeeze into a recipe or the half a can of tomato paste I didn't use. Most importantly, a large variety of finished products, so that I have a big choice of what to pull out of there.

So there's my question. What's in your freezer?

More later.

Comments

[moriamerri.livejournal.com]

A lemon tree, CJ! It's super easy. Really. But be sure your tree is a MEYER lemon tree. You'll have lemons for years and years....

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I have a teeny little orange tree in a pot. (Thank you, layer!) It'll be a while before it bears fruit, of course.

I wonder if there are potted dwarf Meyer lemon trees.

Oh gosh, how will I ever move? *sigh*

[moriamerri.livejournal.com]

Well, there ARE dwarf meyer lemon trees (I think mine is a dwarf, but it so many years ago that I bought it.....it all fades....) So, um, you COULD put it in a pot. But I wouldn't. Not if there's any ground available. I haven't tried it but I just can't imagine that it could really get big enough and happy enough in a pot to make the HUGE numbers of lemons that I'm used to. Which, um, has sort of come to seem "normal". Although for my own purposes, a much smaller number would do. Strange, I've come to see giving fruit away as an expected task. Like, um, not hauling bags or fruit around to foist on people might be okay too. (Novel idea.) So, um, okay, maybe in a pot would work. (sheepish grin).

How to move? Yeah, that can be a BIG issue for gardeners. Especially if you are moving someplace cold. (Actually potted trees are hard to move too)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Yeah, potted trees are heavy and unwieldy. If I had any number of them I don't know what I'd do -- foist them off on green-thumbed friends? On the other hand, in-ground trees are even less portable; we simply give them to the next owner of the house and hope that person doesn't chop 'em down to put in a rose garden. :-/

[moriamerri.livejournal.com]

I was at summerwinds nursery yesterday (San Antonio and Middlefield in
Palo Alto). They have dwarf meyer lemon trees for $30, several of them.
Just mentioning it cuz I saw them.

Does it bother you to give the tree away in terms of $? Or is it more the
possibility that the new owners may chop it down?

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Oh, that the new owners might chop it down (or if it's in a pot, the thought that they might just pitch it). They're not THAT expensive, but I'd kind of like to know they'll keep producing and being appreciated by somebody.