Chill chest.

Friends, I want to take you to a scary, cold, dark place today.

...Well, not too dark, because thankfully, our freezer has a light inside!  Why is it that most freezers don't?

The freezer is a place of mystery.  I shall share with you the oddities that sleep within mine.  Take a peek inside.

Now, keep in mind that I share a freezer with three other lovely ladies.  I try to limit my belongings to a chosen few, but it's difficult.  We do need to do a freezer purge soon, though.  There are mad half-eaten loaves of bread and thermos packs in there.

First of all, the freezer is a truly marvelous place to hide things from oneself.  See: the old credit card trick.  I hid the choconola from myself and it has proved quite helpful, indeed, in stretching the stash. 

I also use the freezer to store perishable or bulk items, such as ground flax.  I enjoy flax in my morning oatmeal, but I keep a small container in the refrigerator, which I periodically top off with my freezer supply.  It just makes more sense to store the big, bulky item in the freezer, where the turnover is slower and real estate is less in demand.

I like to store special things in the freezer, too, like the matcha powder an old Japanese pen pal sent me or the broccoli, chicken and bacon macaroni and cheese Jake made me for my birthday.  That way, I can extend the life of my special things, both by (sort of) hiding them from myself and by keeping them fresher for longer.

Ok, I know you aren't really supposed to store coffee in the freezer, but I do it anyway.  I have no good reason for this.  After all, the freezer is technically a cool, dark place.   I guess I just circled it to show the world that I AIN'T PERFECT.

Veggie burgers, a staple in my diet, are always in my freezer.  They're great for crumbling over a salad to bring to work or to pop in the toaster when you get home at night.  The freezer is really good for those convenience items.

I keep half-empty canned items in the freezer in efforts to cut down on waste.  That Tupperware container is filled with diced tomatoes and I know they'll get used in a soup this winter.  The yogurt container holds peeled bananas, which were on their last legs and are perfect in smoothies, cereal, soft-serve and even oatmeal.

Finally, I keep my bread in the freezer.  I used to hate on my parents for doing this, because defrosting a slice was OMG SO HARD!!!!!! when I was a hungry, angsty teenager.  I do it now for all of the previously mentioned reasons: to save valuable counter and fridge space, to reduce waste from mold or mice and to ration the special bread out.  This loaf is challah from "the best Jewish bakery in Brookline" (says Jake).  What a good boy he is, sponsoring Tour de Carb 2010 (I'm looking at you, pumpkin spice scones). 


Question of the Day: Do you keep anything weird in your freezer? 


For the record, that Ben and Jerry's IS NOT MINE.