Loaves and Fishes

In my house the freezer is prime real estate.   During my husband’s illness we moved from a townhouse style home to a one-floor condo.  Its spacious and well-designed floor plan captured my heart.  But there was no room for the small chest freezer that had been the mainstay of my kitchen creations for years.  I would make a batch of this or a pot of that and freeze our future meals and nest them safe and sound in our basement.  I actually made my own broths and kept them at the ready for future culinary sessions.

And so, since the big move, the bottom freezer in the new GE Profile unit has been a challenge.  I may have developed a complicated relationship with this freezer.  It’s become both a game – a large 3D puzzle- and a source of great irritation-  a ‘freezer volcano.’  It would erupt with various items whenever I was looking for something.  I would dig through layers of cartons and packages looking for broccoli.  Inevitably I would give up and eat the spinach I found.  Oh look, I knew I had blueberries in here.  Then I had to take a few minutes to fit everything back into the giant drawer at the bottom.   I confess to at times making food choices based upon the desire to not hunt in the freezer.

The months after my husband died my sister-in-law brought over endless bags of small containers of frozen meals for me.  What a Godsend!  Otherwise, I would have spent those early months eating cereal or toast for dinner each night.  We would joke as I would try to wedge them into the freezer.  I literally would say “okay, Jesus.  It’s loaves and fishes in reverse.  I need you to make room for this in the freezer.”  As the months went on, this kept working.  It really was quite miraculous.  Whenever someone visited, or I went shopping, I would end up saying – how am I going to get this into the already full freezer?  Then I would say ‘loaves and fishes, my Jesus’.  And it fit.  I began imagining a ‘build-out’ of my freezer located in heaven where it was all being stored.  

Then as the year continued to unfold, after those lovely ‘meals on wheels’ from my sister-in-law had all been eaten, I went through the inevitable ‘microwave a Lean Cuisine’ phase of widowhood.  The shape of the freezer made that difficult and the space wasn’t being used well.  Then there would be the bread or rolls I’d purchase that were too many in a package for me to eat.  The bits and pieces like turkey hot dogs leftover from that holiday weekend or that extra sliced baked chicken breast.  So I would toss them in the freezer.  Sigh.  It was always full.  Never any room to buy things I would spy on a good sale.

My sister gave me some great tips and I recently dug in.  I’ve been eating out of my freezer pantry for a few weeks. 

I now have organized it by containing the smaller bags of fruits and veggies into little plastic bins in a top drawer.  

I have a shelf reserved for proteins – meat and fish.  And I’m proud to say that when I recently saw a spiral ham on special for about $7 [instead of $28] I grabbed it.   I took the time to slice and dice the ham into baggies and placed those into a sealed container on my protein shelf.  I had the room!!  Let the freezer games begin.

The bottom ‘pit’ now has two plastic bins so I can at least remove one and search it if need be.  But the real goal is to eventually have space to store a few home-cooked meals.  With the bins I could store soups, stews, casseroles in plastic bags and lay them into the bin to save space as my sister suggested.  Or use the cute new Ball freezer jars a dear cousin recommended. 

Of course, the other problem is that any time you make a pot of something it is about ten to twelve servings.  I learned to cook by watching my Mom and Gram in the kitchen.  It was family meals – not a meal for a widow.  I’ll have to learn to cut the recipe in half.  Then freeze half.  It’s a system that may work.  And if not – ‘loaves and fishes, my Jesus.  Loaves and fishes.’