Musings from the freezer

Today I finished packing the last of our meat that we purchased from the local farmer. I wrapped 22 packages of bacon. Yeah, 22. Isn't that ridiculous? We don't usually eat much bacon. Now I'll have enough to eat it as often as we want. To be fair, the serving sizes I wrapped it in weren't quite a pound. I don't have a scale, but there were 8-10 large (wide slices) per package. They aren't those perfect rectangular pieces you're used to seeing from the grocery store. My mom and dad had picked up the hams and bacon so they went ahead and wrapped the hams for me. I got 2 hams, and 12 thick ham slices. I feel so satisfied knowing it's all tucked safely away in our freezer. It's a veritable cornucopia in there right now.

Now that the meat is all sliced, delivered, packaged and frozen I wanted to take inventory of exactly what we have in there. I emptied everything out (took advantage of the cold weather). When I finally got to the bottom of my freezer I was amazed at just how much fit inside. I bent and stretched to reach the things on the very bottom. Then that familiar problem came back. How was I ever going wipe out the bottom? (it's not worth mentioning why it needed wiped.) I made a tally of every cut of meat or package of food. I have this insane need to be organized-right down to what I have in the freezer. Both sides of my notebook paper is filled and I even left the large cuts of meat at my mom and dad's. We usually get together for the big meals there. There is no way we three girls are going to eat a 6-8 pound roast. It's just not going to happen. Also, we packed most of the steaks into their freezer. It's much more fun to eat this kind of treat with others. We took my grill down there last summer too and I don't really like steak unless it's grilled. They don't have one because they're scared of the gas (to be fair we had a tank that nearly exploded one time. That was the end of gas grills for them.) They only use it when I'm there to fire it up. Looks like this summer we'll have lots of steaks after our long days of swimming.

So what's the grand total for freezer storage right now?

36 assorted cuts of pork chops
12 delmonico steaks (with all the sirloin, and t-bones and more delmonicos at my parents)
27 (1lb)packages of ground beef
16 (1lb) packages of ground pork
3 rashers of sweet italian sausage
4 small pork loin roasts
2 small beef roasts
1 (gallon sized) bag of Philly steaks
14 portions of stirfry/thin sliced meat
1 gallon sized bag of meat to make beef jerky
22 (1lb-is) rashers of bacon
2 hams
12 ham slices
1 whole chicken
6 chicken breasts
3 portions of beef stew meat
3 lbs pork 'necks' (great for soup)
6 beef rib portions
4 large pork rib portions

Plus frozen veggies, frozen fruit, coolwhip, fish filets, frozen chinese specialty foods, peking ducks, 8 boxes of girlscout cookies (i had to help her out), cheese, and butter. I won't be able to fit much more. I want to make up some bread dough that we can bake on demand. It can be turned into rolls, bread, or pizza crust. I'm so pleased.