Use your freezer!
Fresh, colourful food in our fridge and cupboards, and even on our kitchen tops, is certainly inspiring for us from-scratch cooks. But don’t forget about our very good friend, the freezer, who can do wonders in helping us eat lovely, unprocessed, and exciting food!
The best preservative.
I have mentioned before that one of the things that affects me the most in store-bought food is preservatives. I don’t believe they are good for any of us. Found in ready-grated cheese, ready-sliced bread (any ready made bread, for that matter!), as well as in salads and drinks - they offer no nutritional value and can certainly be making you feel bad without realising too. But the best preservative is sub-zero temperatures.
I recognise from my own life that as much as I enjoy cooking from scratch one week, the next I may not be in the mood, have the energy or even time to do it. But knowing that eating good food that my body responds well to is a healthy cycle (that helps my mood and energy!), I try to make sure I have homemade food at the ready also for those days, or weeks, where I can’t spare hours to make it all. That’s where the freezer comes in.
If you clean out your freezer and get rid of all the stuff you’d forgot was even in there (just me?), and start using it regularly and practically, it can really help those healthy eating habits. Yes, baking bread is perhaps a bit time consuming, but while you’re at it you can just as well make 3 and freeze 2 of them. Now you’ve got a while until you need to bake again!
Chopping up onion and garlic for dinner again and again gets old. What about chopping up a whole bunch (just get those tears out in one big crying session!), maybe even using a food processor, and storing it in little pots or freezer bags that hold exactly the amount you need for a meal?
SO much can be frozen. More than we sometimes think. Snacks, like my Super Energy Nut Balls, go perfectly in the freezer. And transferred to the fridge a day before use, they are ready to be snacked on, and taste totally fresh. Mashed potatoes are super easy to reheat from frozen, in a saucepan or in the microwave.
I always have breadcrumbs ready in the freezer (from dry, stale leftover homemade bread) for breading fish or chicken, or to add to a burger or meatball/veggie ball recipe. And I don’t even need to defrost them before use! Just add straight in!
It’s lovely to have fresh fruit and berries, but it’s not always convenient (or very cheap). I often have blueberries with my breakfast, and I have actually found that I sometimes prefer the quality and taste of the frozen ones (especially out of season). In porridge for instance, they don’t need to be thawed, just add them in at the last minute! I often have a boiled egg and blueberries, and I like to thaw them by just letting them warm up slowly in a cup of boiled water. I find it keeps them more intact than if I microwave them, but that totally works too.
Finally, let’s not forget that the freezer can be our own takeaway restaurant/ready made meals aisle. If you’re making a dish that you really enjoy but that takes a bit of time and effort (like a curry that requires a paste, lots of veg and spices for example), you can make a whole huge batch and have a handful of portions ready to warm up in the future when you crave the food, but you’re not keen on the effort.
The freezer is such a handy tool to make things easier for us, so don’t let it just fill up with stuff that you forget about! It, and you, deserve better.
And just to say, even if you are in a smaller home and only have a fridge/freezer - it can still serve you really well. That’s what I have, and it has more space than you’d think! Keep it compartmentalised and keep using it regularly!
Are you good at using your freezer? What could you use from it right now? Post on Instagram and tag me @TheFromScratchBody and use the hashtag #TheFromScratchBody so I don’t miss it!
