Forum Thermomix
Welcoming Center, Management and General Chat => Chit Chat => Topic started by: Halex on September 10, 2011, 09:00:20 am
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Today i decided to tackle the freezers in the garage. I had done the drawers in the kitchen earlier in the week
Biggest challenge chest freezer. I bought some plastic containers from the reject shop and now have all my meat in the chest freezer (apart from sausages) so i have a tub for beef, lamb, chicken & pork. Each package is now dated and in tub correctly. I originally wanted a separate mince tub but just not enough room. Its great, i can see my menu plan and know i need diced steak, find it straight away. JD put me on to this type of organisation, she really is a superhero. No JD i didn't list everything in the tubs but easy to see.
Well i found some rather old bits and pieces, 2 which went to meat heaven and number 3 which is defrosting now. I had more sausages than i thought, we like the British sausage company so i seem to just grab some everytime i shop, just for a quick easy meal, well DS will be taking sausage sandwiches to school for a while!!LOL - he wont be laughing!LOL
Plus i have bread, bread to fill a small bakery, i just love to make it and then we freeze what we dont eat, so after today no bread baking until its all gone.
Not too many surprises, just shocked as to how much meat I have as well. Now No-one ask me about cooked meals, thy now have their own freezer, well they share with the sausages. I have 7kgs of meat on order, wont be picking that up until the end of the month.
Well i am a hoarder, would hate to run out of food, but must get all my stocks down
Hally :)
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Oh, you're making me feel a bit guilty, Hally.
Quite a lot of things go into my freezer, never to be seen again. I sometimes manage to deal with whatever is on the top, but I've very little idea about what lurks down in the shadowy depths of my chest freezer.
I like the idea of tubs for each kind of meat, though.
I think I can see that one working for me.
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Hi amanda,
You feel so much better knowing what is in there and where it is.
The tubs seem a good idea, will let yiu know how it goes. I am hoping with ths new organisaton i wont end up tbrowing meat out that i s too old. Will also look at menu planning around what i have in the freezer. I have 2 lamb roasts, so lamb will be our next roast i do. The mystery ,meat once defroted was a pork loin, roasted that last night, will slice it up anf freeze it into portions to have later ths week, also good for a few sandwiches.
Hopeyou get to yiur freezer soon.
Dont know how but i locked this thread, silly me, well typical me.
Thursday went to the dentist with my yoga pants on back to front, how embarassing........
Hally :)
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:D :D I'm sure he didn't even notice Hally.
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When I do manage to tackle the freezer the family shudders as they all know what that means - 'freezer surprise' dinners.
Whatever I pull out of the freezer is what we have for dinner, and it is often unidentifiable in it's frozen state.
Occasionally these days end up with take-away. :D :D
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Jd, not sure nice shiny bucke....mmm.....
Amanda, once its done and freezer surprise dinner are over life will be easy, use up first before you buy more. Sounds good in theory.LOL
H :)
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That reminds me, I better get into my Freezer this week as we have half a cow going in there next weekend. Better write myself a note or I am sure to forget till its too late.
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Is that from your farm. 1/2 a cow, gosh how many kgs of meat there.
H :)
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Um Um, I don't know how many KG, I think its a 350kg Cow (Live weight) So at a guess about 80kg per side of meat. The cow has come from the Father-in-laws farm and my DH is cutting it up. We are going halves with a friend.
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Omgoodness, how many freezers do you need?!?!?!?!
How long will that last.
H :)
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Um Um, I don't know how many KG, I think its a 350kg Cow (Live weight) So at a guess about 80kg per side of meat. The cow has come from the Father-in-laws farm and my DH is cutting it up. We are going halves with a friend.
Just out of interest Dede, do you say how you want it portioned?
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We used to own a butcher shop several years ago and when we left we kept the big freezer, so there is no problem with freezer size.
And it should last us around 6 months I hope.
As my DH was/is a butcher then He cuts it up to exactly what I want (as I'm the cook). We will also have heaps of mince.
My favorite cut is porterhouse steak, DH loves T-bone steak. so we have to compromise a little there as a porterhouse is cut out of a T-bone.
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Do yiu get wagyu. I love wagyu
;D :)
H
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Do yiu get wagyu. I love wagyu
;D :)
H
Sorry just can't work this one out :D :D :D :D :D
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?? Lost me :-[
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Oh is it a breed of cow?
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Dont know but they serve it in top restaurants, our butcher supplies it to restaurants wholesale. They cut sizes ie 250g then if they have under 250 left they sell it. We all love it. Its very expensive, but he sells itboffcat $29.95 per kg
Love wagyu
Hally :)
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:4_Kobe_Beef,_Kobe_Japan.jpg
soooooooooooo good
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I had a quick google Hally and found it to be a Breed of cow that has been in Australia for around 20 year, Looks much like a black Angus to me. But apparently the meat is marbled with fat (Like a scotch fillet steak) but all through the meat.
"The
great thing about Wagyu beef is that even though the meat is heavily marbled with
intramuscular fat, this type of fat is of the ‘good’ or unsaturated kind"
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Oh so the answer to your question is...................I don't know (I didn't see the cow) But it is highly unlikely I would think.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagy%C5%AB :)
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I understand the freezer issues. We have several freezers, 2 upright with drawers. Each draw has a different food, frozen berries in one ,butter and cheese in another and so on. This all quite manageable but the trouble is with the big bench one. the kids call this Jurassic park.!!! Like Hally I keep different foods, mostly meat in separate containers. I have a catalogue of what and how many item are in each container. So 6 chickens, 4 roast beef, etc. My biggest problem is to stop buying more. When we have visitors we often have a roast. As most of our friends are a family of 1 or 2 , they hardly ever cook a roast. This is one of the reasons i don't do many main meals from the Forum. We also have 2 freezers on top of the 2 fridges. These contain leftovers , ice cream and ice blocks. Bol. sauce and the bread of the moment also reside in these freezers, I know this sounds over the top, but earlier on this year i emptied another bench freezer. My aim is to empty the big freezer by next year. I know I have a problem ;D ;D ;D, but I am trying to deal with it. My advice is don't buy any more freezers' unless like dede you are going to need to store a lot of produce or like us, you live a long way from the shops.
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So glad you have a problem too, i did not need to make the apricot preserve but i did, it’s in the freezer now. i really need to stop cooking.
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Yes Chookie it can be a problem. Our freezer in the garage doesn't have a great deal in it at the moment so It shouldn't be to hard to sort out. We usually try to rotate the meats so the oldest stuff is at the top so it gets used first. Its so easy to forget what you have where. I am pretty good at labeling everything thats in the freezer so if I want some porterhouse steak I dont accidentally get some casserole steak out instead :-\.
As for our other freezer that is an upright freezer that mainly has veggies, fruit, chicken, deli meats, bread, icecream etc.
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Loving this freezer clean out thread - you wouldn't think it could be so interesting. OMG I need to get a life - talking about freezers excites me :-)) :-))
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Oh Judy that is sad lol.
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my friends and family :( always tell me i need to get a life but not DH and DKIDS ;D
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Dede, thanks for the cow info...yiu must try it onecday, its 100% better than porterhouse.
H :)
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Chookie, i am a terrrible hoarder, need to have pantry, fridge, freezer full just in case.
For the 3 of us i have too much freezer space, but would dearly love another one.
I try to keep my kitchen 1 as my daily workng one. Have given boys instructions not to put anything in freezers without askng me first, in the hope that i know where everything is.
Good luck on running it all down
H :)
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Dede, thanks for the cow info...yiu must try it onecday, its 100% better than porterhouse.
H :)
Yeh we must. I am interested to try it now just to say I have.
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Dede, its the onky steak i really really enjoy :D
We are lucky it can very expenive, but i am sure yiu guys will get a good deal being farmers etc ;)
H ;)
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Well think maybe I am better off to never try it, then I will never know what I am missing out on and we can keep enjoying the steak we eat now. ;D
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I am not a steak person, I find steak can be chewy. This steak melts in your mouth. I buy it whenever the butcher has some, its not very often, sometimes i can only get 1 piece and it can take me a month to get us enough for dinner. I dont buy it unless its the end part that is under weight, i think its normally around $60-90per kg not really sure. I have nver had it in a restaurant as its about $60-100.
Hally :)
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Holly cow (lol) that's expensive meat. As we are farmers and owned a butcher shop we know the secrets to growing good meat that is tender. So we have no problem with chewy steak. If you ever buy steak any where make sure it is yearling steak. And never buy budget steak unless your using it to casserole. A good steak is from a cow that has been treated right and feed well and is under no stress at the time of slaughter. Which is impossible to tell all this when buying a piece of steak at a butcher shop or supermarket.
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Yes wagyu cows areholy..lol
I buy tbone, porterhouse, i like the porterhouse side of the t bone, i have rhst and ds has the other part. I buy cotch fillet which is normally good but occasionally can be a little chewy. I will ask my butcher to give me tearling. Thanks :)
H :)
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Just read your conversation about wagyu... We've had a limousine-angus cow artificially inseminated with a wagyu straw a couple of years+ ago. Her steer is now nearly ready for the freezer (once he's "finished" on some barley pasture) :) We're hoping to get the right amount of marbelling through the meat.
Dede you're lucky to have your own butcher! My DS and I can deal with smaller things than steers (lamb, pork, rabbits...) but we usually employ a butcher to cut up our beef. He comes to our place but we hang the meat in our cool-room. Homegrown is always better!
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Carine, i bet yiur wagyu will be melt in the mouth
Hally :)
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I'm sure I've mentioned this before but our freezer used to be a black hole from which various strange things would emerge, a lot of them ending up being chucked because they didn't look safe to eat.
A year or so back, OH and I had a thorough clear-out of our freezer and I made a note of everything I kept, including which drawer it was in. I started a list on my computer for each drawer showing what was in it, portion size and the month it was frozen. In addition, I got a stock of little sticky labels so that every time I freeze something, it gets a label stuck on it saying what it is and date frozen.
The list is stuck to the side of the freezer with a magnet and whenever I take anything out, I scribble it out on the list. (If only I could train OH to do the same :D :D). Whenever the list looks a bit messy, I just type up a new one.
It sounds incredibly anal (and probably is ;D ;D) but it has really worked and I now throw nothing away. In addition, with OH being away this week, I know exactly where to find those one-portion meals I froze for just such an occasion.
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Sounds like you are so organised... Well done, even down to meals for 1. I too have sticky labels on all i could abel, nthing will go in the freezer now without a label, well i hope.
Its grezt not to have to waste money through not knowing what, how long, etc.
Felt really good clearing all 3 out :)
Hally :)
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Carine, i bet yiur wagyu will be melt in the mouth
Hally :)
Certainly hope so :) Will only be half wagyu though, but still worth a try!
Re freezer labelling, I just keep a permanent marker on top of the freezer and label freezer bags or containers as they go in. When we have lots of meat to freeze I stick a note on the freezer to remind us where all the different cuts are- saves rumaging through all the draws ;)
How did you go with your tidying up Hally?
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Freezer full, but nicely organised.
Even 1/2 wagyu would be wonderful i am sure. Let s know
Hally :)
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Katya, i label our stuff in the freezer, and have it on a list on the the pantry door.
Also when we buy beef, our butcher labels the different cuts, steaks etc for us. ( we buy a whole beef at a time, about 300 kilos.)
Robyn
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Wow Obbie how long does that meat last?
H :)
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:) 10-12 months for us.
we have 2 kids, who mainly eat mince and sausages.
So we haven the steak, roasts, t bones, diced steak, fillet steak, porterhouse, for us.
I buy as much as possible in bulk.
Fish at 10-20 kilos at a time.
chicken at 5-10 kilos, when I can.
But we have 3 big chest freezers full.
Robyn :)
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3 chest freezers, thats why you are so rganised.
Are you buyingthis met straight from the farms. Who chops it all up?
Very interesting, must be a lot cheaper in the long
Oh by the way i have a whole cow at home....that would be a great coversation starter at social event...lol
Hally :)
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:) Our butcher does it for us.
My friend owns 2 fishing boats, so we buy fish in bulk direct from her.
Other friends have a barra fish farm, so we buy barra from them, 20 kilos at a time.
When i can, i buy chicken in bulk, 10 kilos.
Robyn
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Bulk buying is a big money saver in the long run. I buy lots of things in bulk to save money. Especially with a large family nothing goes to waste.
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wow you ladies you are getting organize :) l love it :)
you have inspired me as l am bit of a hoarder l cant help myself when shopping, with the stuff that is on special
l like to have a well stock fridge, freezer and pantry i tell myself that l am saving money in the long run but when stuff get lost in the freezer or back corner of pantry
l think what a waste of money , l should not buy it but l still do
its a great idea to use containers had not thought of that and l love the idea of writing down whats in there hopefully that way you can keep track of things
you have inspired me to tackle my chest freezer
my dh will be surprised as the ice is so thick on the freezer walls
now has anyone got any ideas of how to organize a deep corner pantry ? :) :) :)
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Nazar I would like to know how to organize a pantry as well :) Mine is so chockers i have no idea whats in there, and DH and MR 6 put things any where they feel like, so its a never ending battle!
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Most of my pantry is all in tubs too, it works well, but others dot out things in tus r the right tubs sometimes, i have a big onecat the botton for oils, soya sauce, vinegars etc. Then have other tubs for ther things. It needs redoing, but i felt good doing the freezer
Hally :)
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:) I have a list blue tacked on my pantry door, of what is inside, when i use it, i cross it off.
Organisedhome.com has some great tips, and worksheets, printables to help you.
I use their sheets for inventry on freezers, pantry, shopping lists.
You can also google shopping lists, and download and print. Then keep on the fridge, and add things as you use them.
Robyn
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I need to do that with my freezer! Thanks for the tip Robyn.
Pork larb. Used up the pork mince, lettuce from the garden, lemon grass from the freezer and peanuts from the pantry.
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One freezer is empty, the other is 1/2 full. Meat order coming today. No freezer meals left, so feeling good, a clean slate to start cooking again :)
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You'll be busy today then Hally.
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yes I was. 1 freezer full the other one 1/2. I need to sort them properly, yesterday I just wanted to get them in the freezers.