By Robin Asbell

There are milestones in life, graduations, great loves, important career moves and the like. A moment that I hold as one of my own was the day I bought my upright freezer. It may sound silly, but it was intertwined with moving in with my husband, putting in a huge garden and getting my first credit card. That was at least 25 years ago, and that freezer has come along on cross country moves, even serving as a de facto armoire in my bedroom in one apartment.

I’ve canned plenty, and it is a great way to put up single ingredients and simple things. The rules of canning say that you must process your food for the time required by the ingredient that takes the longest—meaning that a vegetable soup will have one vegetable perfectly cooked and the rest overdone.

The freezer, on the other hand, can take just about any food into suspended animation. It has an ebb and flow. In goes a knob of ginger, out comes last summer’s basil pesto. In goes the extra loaf of homemade bread, out comes a pot of soup to go. And come peak harvest time, it’s sure easy to throw in whole roma tomatoes, which can be dropped frozen into boiling water and then peeled at some later date.

My freezer is where my bags of grains and seldom-used flours reside. It’s also in heavy use before the holidays. A month before a holiday meal at my house, pie crusts, cookie doughs, cake layers, anything to make my life easier on the big day are made and frozen. Casseroles, sauces and things like dumplings and eggrolls are great backups to have on hand.

Of course, one of the best things about working your freezer is the economies of scale and season. At the moment that local berries hit their lowest price, you can cash in and freeze a whole year’s worth for smoothies and muffins. Large-scale purchases of meat and poultry can save you big bucks, especially if you buy direct from a farmer. Seasonal treasures like wild salmon can take up residence in your frozen section. When your bread of choice goes on special, freeze it. Slices of frozen bread toast in the toaster just fine.

Even the best artisanal bakeries use the freezer to stay ahead, making their cookies, scones and breads ahead and freezing them before baking. You can freeze bread and pizza dough, or you can make breads and pizza crusts and parbake them, so that when you thaw and bake them they are just like fresh.

One rule to remember is a variation of Garbage In-Garbage Out. By that I mean, don’t think that you are economizing by putting something you didn’t like in the first place in the freezer. You are just spending money keeping it cold until you throw it away. In fact, I try to only freeze foods that I am really, really attracted to. Otherwise, it’s just as easy to eat a cheese sandwich as it is to thaw and wait for a casserole experiment that I don’t even remember fondly. Only keep things that you will really want to eat.

The nuts and bolts of freezing are simple, but you have to be patient. Always, always, always get any food to be frozen as cold as possible before putting it in the freezer. Any hint of warmth will make steam, which makes ice crystals. These play havoc with the texture of the food. Always store and wrap the food so that the least amount of surface area is exposed to air. It may be frozen, but oxidation is still occurring very slowly.

Another good thing to bear in mind is size. It might seem easier to freeze quarts of spaghetti sauce, but smaller portions thaw more quickly, and may be all you need at one time. Herbs and garlic are easy to puree in a big batch for later use. Just portion whatever you like onto a parchment lined pan, freeze, then transfer to storage containers. Tomato paste, pesto, and other things you just want a tablespoon of can be done this way. I also like to spread the puree out into a thin sheet, to snap off portions later. Set yourself up with good food, and you will love your freezer as much as I do mine.

Robin Asbell is a longtime contributor to the Mix, and as the former head chef of the Wedge Deli, she developed many recipes for popular foods still sold today. Her cookbooks, The New Whole Grains Cookbook (Chronicle 2007) and The New Vegetarian Cookbook (Chronicle 2009) is available at your local co-op. Robin writes for magazines like Vegetarian Times, Better Homes and Gardens, Heart Healthy magazine, Experience Life and Health magazine.

Recipes in this article:

Tomato Sauce Concentrate

Freezer Blueberry Scones