freezer madness

For years I have wanted a stand-alone freezer, and even gave serious thought to whether it would be possible or practical to haul a little chest freezer up the stairs of my last apartment. When I was getting ready to buy a house, one of of the first non-essential things I wanted to get for it was a stand-alone freezer, but then I got lucky and the house I bought came with a freezer in the basement. Like everything else in the house, it is old and inefficient, but it still does the job.

I haven't gotten brave enough to learn to can things yet (this year for sure!) so most of my food preservation thus far has been through freezing, and in the basement right now I have three half-pints of crabapple butter, three or four pints of applesauce, one half-pint each of raspberry jam, lemon curd and lime curd, a little bit of diced cayenne and a little bit of pesto, and at least one loaf of homemade bread. I also have leftover soup, curry, cooked beans, packaged frozen fruits and veggies that I stocked up on when they were on sale, and some half-priced baked goods from 3rd Street Bakery. I love visiting my freezer, it's like having a grocery store right in my basement, and last fall when I was bringing down an armload of applesauce I felt downright homesteady.