Freezer Clean Out

Okay, so I know I am like many of you and I have things in my freezer that for some reason were never labeled or dated, and fortunately, some items are labeled and dated which makes guessing less stressful. I decided about a week ago that I need to be using up what is in the freezer. You know, stuff from 6 months ago (14 months ago?) before freezer burn and freezer taste robs the food of all its deliciousness. So, I found a container of pasta bake that we used up last week. For me, a pasta bake is pasta, meat, sauce, cheese, cottage cheese and leftover mushrooms and olives, that is thrown together and baked. They are never quite the same, depending on ingredients. Last night we had sausage gravy over an old bag of frozen hash browns. Tasted just fine and no freezer burn. Yay!

For dinner tonight, I am thawing 2 packages of ground beef from last fall and am making a couple of meat loaves. Yeah, you guessed it, I'll freeze one of them. LOL, and no, we haven't gotten sick yet. I always check the food and if in doubt, throw it out! I am thawing in the fridge some cabbage rolls for tomorrow night, and I have bags of shredded zucchini, so I am going to bake some zucchini bread this afternoon.  I did come across what I think is a turkey breast that is in a net and it looks like I smoked it. It is now thawing as well, and when I figure out what in tarnation it is, we will eat that up, too.

I not only need to be using what we have stored up in the freezer, I need the freezer space for fresh items. I have not had a freezer nightmare, yet. But I know that if I don't get on the ball and get my freezer sorted through, I will be finding food from more than a year ago. Yes, it's happened before and I hate to throw food out to the chickens that we spent our hard earned money on to buy for our consumption in the first place. I know I need a better system. Problem is, when I put something in the freezer, I just stick it where there's a spot. So, no rhyme or reason to my freezer, just food everywhere. I am hoping that once I get some decent space in the freezer, I can maybe come up with a rational system where I can rotate and use food in a timely manner. How do you manage your freezer storage?