Freezer Time

I am not a fear monger. Mostly I believe our media works hard to get us upset about things. On the other hand, I believe in being prepared. If there is a pandemic or a financial collapse, we have enough food in the house for 6 months. The only things we really need are fresh fruits and veggies.

Last week we bought a chest freezer. It's a little one--7.5 cubic feet. They gave us $30 off because it was a dinged floor model, but it's in the garage so I don't care. The Energy Star sticker said that it uses $23 worth of electricity a year. I can live with that.

The next day we went to Costco and bought over $700 worth of food. Well, subtract about $100 for books and wine (we all have necessities, don't we?)

At home, we spent probably an hour packaging things to put in the new freezer. Breaking down all the meat (pork tenderloins, chicken breasts, sausages, hamburger, steaks, pork chops) and cheese into individual servings and wrapping them in freezer paper, was pretty quick & easy when we worked together.

This was the fun part: We got one of those new suction thingys made by Reynolds (it's battery-operated, not hand-operated like the one from Ziplock). It costs $6. We bought two packages of gallon ziplock bags at $4 each. We figure that it is a one-time cost because all of the food is pre-wrapped in freezer paper, nothing touches the actual bag. We can reuse them forever. It's great watching all the air come out, making a tight little package. We can open it up, take out one serving and seal it up again. Saving space, preserving food. I love it!