Remind me to label

Black permanent marker...writ huge.

And I now have one of those vacuum thingys that pulls all the air out of a package before freezing. Great thing. The baggies for that contraption have a nice writing area opaqued on them...so you can really see what you have written.

Yeah, hubby is our freezer geezer here and buys those freezer bags with big spaces for labels and labels and dates everything with a permanent black magic marker.

Yeh, so we agree, permanent marker - I used Sharpies in the lab years ago, on test tubes, etc. I've got to buy a new pack of them. Will check out baggies with opaque strips.

Which brings up another subject. I tend to reuse these a lot, often many times, which is a pain, but I hate tossing plastic. Plus, the expense adds up quickly. So now I have a hook in the garage for a bag to hold the re-use baggies.

I like the Martha Stewart glass containers, but I need more of those and more freezer space. I also use things like big glass pickle jars for freezing, but from my lab days I know not to fill them too full, re expansion of the contained item. And, no way, yeast dough in ordinary glass jars, the M. Stewart containers being ok.

I confess that we do not re-use freezer bags. Too worried about food poisoning though washing them thoroughly would probably prevent that. I do like the idea of saving money and not clogging landfills with products with the approximate shelf life of granite.

We're currently limited in freezer space having only the freezer side of a side by side--considering investing in additional freezer space. Though I've long made our breads, leavened crusts, etc. from scratch, I've never frozen the dough. That doesn't kill the yeast huh?

It does work.. not always as swell as the first fresh bit, but still good and sometimes very good, and I'd have to read more about the whys and why nots. Maybe just a tad more flour would make it all work better. I mean mostly re pizza, I've not had a problem re bread in the past. But I haven't been the mad breadmaker for about four years, have to get into gear again.

I also mean to follow through on trying the recent craze in slow rise no knead bread - back with a link, we've talked about it here on a2k.

I haven't tried it since I'm so happy with my floury Carol Field's Italian Baker book that opens by itself on about eight different recipes. But my thought is to try out a couple of her recipes with the new "easy" method.

Back on the bags. I want to not throw away plastic just a slight bit more than I despise washing the baggies. I'm an old bacteriology major and not all that freaked re poisoning myself from my kitchen with my reasonable cleanliness, but of course that may be my downfall (did you ever read Arrowsmith?).

I'm being spare in spending recently, but high on my want list is one of those separate freezers available now. They're sort of washing machine sized.
Back in my old house in northern california, there was a pre existent big refrigerator sized freezer in the basement. It required a lot of electricity and I got rid of it (stares cross eyed at self now). My energy bills were way out of line there and I was roping them in. I suppose the new small freezers are more energy savvy.

To help prevent freezer burn, I usually store things in those disposable plastic containers (that I reuse until they fall apart) and store those containers inside plastic bags. I write out a label on a scrap of paper and stick it inside the plastic bag. Editing to add that since they don't get soiled, I can reuse the bags many times.

I do the same for my pantry items. I buy things in large bulk packaging and have an occassional problem with moths getting into my grains so I repackage them into large plastic bags or storage containers and tear off the paper labels from their original packaging and stick those inside the containers or bags.

Folks...those plastic pumps are very, very easy to use...and it make a huge difference. If you freeze lots of stuff...you gotta give it a try.

We've looked at those Frank and thought they would be the real deal, but then thought nothing ever works as advertised. These do though huh?

We sometimes use little plastic containers for stuff that just needs to be thawed out to use it, Butrfly, but for most stuff, they seem to take up quite a bit more room than freezer bags and we need all the space we can get. Maybe that's just a matter of perception though?

I think it works great...and the storage actually improves because the package becomes so small. The other baggies or plastic containers seem to take up way too much room.

Lemme look around and see if I have anything I can photograph...I'll post it.