Freezing odd items ?

Wow what a lot of clever ideas. I hadn't thought of freezing sugar paste or asparagus stalks. Has anyone mentioned coffee? I like to make fresh coffee when I have visitors and unused beans keep well in the freezer.

I chop mixed vegetables and freeze in small bags to put frozen into mince when I cook it, to bulk it up with fewer calories.

When you have the oven on, why not cook a load of jacket potatoes? The whole cooked potatoes can be frozen, then microwaved for 5 minutes when needed. Just the same as paying McCain's to do it for you. The texture is not unpleasant like those microwaved from scratch.

As already mentioned, making and freezing breadcrumbs from stale bread is useful for stuffings, toppings or sauces.

Wine into ice cubes to add to sauces/gravy.

I grow my own chillies and chop them up into tiny pieces which I freeze in ice cubes. This saves having to chop one up each time as I invariably get chilli burn. For the massive chop I don fine rubber gloves. I also freeze chillies whole and drop one in to a bubbling pot. I also freeze butter which is on offer as someone else mentioned so that I always have some in stock for baking cakes.

I have learnt such a lot from reading this thread,thank you Greymary.

NonnaAnnie said "you have reminded me that I used to keep my knitting wool in the freezer, it stopped it shedding fibres that get up you nose and in your eyes while you are knitting, particularly with mohair type wool."

Gosh that takes me back! I remember that advice too, but I think the last time I knitted mohair was for cardigans for my DDs way back when they were about 3 and 5... So over 30 years ago! Eeek! Where did the time go? I got the mohair in El Kilo (now Abakhan) where you could buy remnants of fabric by weight, and fibre cheap too. Mostly the fabric was cut into 2 yard lengths, so useless for curtains in our Edwardian terraced house. Very occasionally you could get lucky and find longer lengths, still have some in my stash, though we've moved to a semi since then, so don't need the length any more. Perhaps time to Freecycle to someone who needs the long lengths now.

Sorry, went rather off topic there!

I will freeze almost everything. All left overs go in the freezer rather than the fridge and I keep a list of what is in it.

This afternoon I made a pheasant and gammon pie filling. The pheasant was meat taken off two carcases, one roasted in November, the other in January and frozen. The gammon was left over from Christmas and frozen . Half of the pie filling has gone back into the freezer for further pies at a later date. We are having it with red cabbage, which I cooked in a huge batch about two months ago.

grannylyn55 you can freeze egg yokes. Ideally use a minimum of two eggyokes, whip them together and add about half a teasoon of salt or sugar and put them in a container and freeze. Lable them so you know whether they have been mixed with salt or sugar. You can also mix up whole eggs.

Our next door neighbour in France became allergic to the eggs her numerous chickens produced and every times we visited we would be presented with 2 dozen eggs when we arrived and another 4 dozen or so when we returned. Despite giving eggs to neighbour and friends we had more eggs than we could use immediately, so I used to freeze them. She has now disposed of the chickens, so no more eggs.

WOW ! These tips are all so useful - and welcome, thank you.
So many I have never known about or even thought of. I am going to print of this thread for future reference

Grannylyn65 I am sure my late teddy bear had woodshavings in his head.

He was early post war austerity model.

I regulary freeze fresh herbs once washed and chopped. Curly parsley does really well. I never really use dried herbs.
The flavour of the fresh frozen is so much better. I look out for the short dated bunches. I never buy the stuff growing in pots it's a waste of money.

Parsley Coriander and Dill I use quite regularly.

I also freeze lemon and orange zest and stick them in a pot in the freezer.

I freeze stock (made up from stock cubes) in ice cube trays. Some recipes call for a small volume of, say, chicken stock and I found I was throwing out unused portions of stock cubes. Now, in our favourite curry recipe we just need three frozen cubes. When they're frozen hard, they don't stick together so it's easy to count out the right number.

Nellie, my teddy is just a few months younger than me, so is 66! so is probably the same!
MO thanks for making me 10 hrs younger ?

Before my DD had her new baby I found a site for slow cooker recipes to freeze. You just put all the meal ingredients into a strong gallon freezer bag. She takes a meal out the night before to defrost for the morning. Then she just puts ingredients in slow cooker & hey presto a meal to enjoy when her little one comes home from school. Thanks everyone for the freezing tips.

I freeze basically everything. But there's only so much my freezer can store!

Have I missed someone mentioning milk? I always have a carton of milk in the freezer in case I run short between shopping trips. It's best to leave it to defrost naturally but I have defrosted in the microwave with no ill effect on taste or texture. I agree with others about how good it is to freeze fresh ginger and just grate off what one wants to use straight from the freezer.

Thanks Greymary, a great thread to start and such good tips. When we have a suitable meal, I freeze a portion for our four year old granddaughter for when she comes to stay so that there is always something handy for her.

I now look after her father's (in his forties) old teddy. Have realised that I can't bear (sorry) the thought of him in the freezer (the bear that is, not ds).

I thought my freezer was just for a few fish fingers or maybe a container of soup. Thank you all I will be sorting my freezer out tomorrow to see what Ive got room for.

Whenever I have chicken on the bone, I freeze the bones until I have enough to make a soup or stock. As I live alone it can sometimes take a while to save enough. hugs

I once tried leftover wallpaper paste...not a good idea.

A variant on MammaN's wine cubes - we freeze an entire bottle of cheap red wine for cooking and partially thaw in cold water in the sink when needed. Rest of the bottle goes back in the freezer. Doesn't seem to affect the flavour. (We largely don't drink red as it sets off DH's appalling migraines, so don't tend to have a bottle open for drinking.)

I used to freeze dead (whole) mice our cats brought in as gifts. The local Owl Sanctuary were very grateful as when thawed they are perfect ready meals for a recuperating owl. Otherwise they had to have pieces of liver wrapped in dog hair. Not as yummy.
I hasten to say they were kept separately in an old freezer in the garage.

If there's a prize for most unusual use of freezer, amberdog, I think you just won it!! Recycling gifts extreme!

Nelliemoser, my brother murdered my toy bunny when I was about 6yo! He flushed Bunny down the toilet. My mum rescued Bunny and hung him on the line to dry, but his head was made of sawdust and went all mouldy. He had to be disposed of. I've yet to come to terms with it all even though it happened circa 1960.

I don't think I can beat the mice in the freezer but another useful thing to have on hand is crumble mix. We don't have many puddings nowadays but I used to make a big batch of the flour/butter/sugar mix in the food processor then freeze it. It was v handy for a quick pudding.

Apart from the woodworm post nobody has mentioned soft toys. Never had to do it for my kids but if you have little ones with allergies it helps to freeze soft toys. A friend had two of everything (teddies etc) so that she could rotate them without daughter being aware.