Freezing odd items ?

I love this thread so many great ideas. I'm real hoarder of frozen left overs or excesses to use up later. So much of what we buy is too big a portion. Mushrooms and peppers get sliced and used in casseroles/slow cooker/stews. Latest experiment was freezing Vegan 'milk' in ice cube trays after my Vegan friend had been for coffee and there was lots left over. It separated a little in the tray as it froze but mixed up well after defrosting and was fine in her next coffee. Mashed potato is great shaped into nests and frozen on a tray before placing in a box. Pop into the oven filled with baked beans/spaghetti topped with cheese to heat up for grandchildren's after school snack. Following the summer's glut of tomatoes in the greenhouse some get frozen in bags to use in sauces and soups. Any joints we cook are sliced up and frozen in boxes so that a few slices can be taken out at a time. I make gravy and boil the frozen meat up in it to make another roast dinner. Roast potatoes freeze well on open tray then bagged, good for preparing in advance or a quick roast. There's loads more we do but I'd better stop now before I hog the whole thread

I freeze chillies, then chop them up while they're still frozen. They last for years in a Ziploc bag in my freezer, and I just take out one or two when I need them.

We seem to get excesses of things at various times so freezers are often full to bursting.

Tomatoes, whole. they separate on defrosting, the skins and core slip off easily and then you can whooshe it about and use in sauces, soups etc.
Basil - I freeze masses of pesto when the basil all comes up at once. We also have loads of walnuts every year so these go into pesto too.
I make up quiche mixes with excess eggs, or creme caramel and freeze, and pastry cases separately.
Courgettes, Jerusalem artichokes, onions, carrots all go into soups.

I don't like frozen potatoes or whole cauliflower, but I have just found recipes for cauliflower puree that freezes well, also cauliflower and blue cheese soup, and cauliflower curry.

Red and green peppers, chillies, ginger, all get cleaned and thrown in raw. They come out a bit soggy but absolutely fine in casseroles and sauces. Aubergines I slice and par roast with a sprinkle of olive oil then open freeze, good for casseroles and moussaka.

Spend my summer slaving over a hot stove processing what we call NFB - Nature's F-----g Bounty! love it and eat well and cheaply in the winter.

Yes, annodomini, I froze my new scarf once, as I just couldn't get some careless person's gum off it

I pop ginger whole in the freezer - you can grate it without peeling, so easy!

I also occasionally remember to put veg peelings in the freezer for stock. I make a lot of soups at this time of year, and really like having homemade stock for them. Then of course the extra soup goes in the freezer, so I always have a selection.

I get ridiculed by DH for freezing small amounts of leftover cooked dishes (leftover in the cooking dish, not off the plates, I should add. But When they make great fillings for stuffed peppers and the like, I am the one laughing

When someone parked chewing gum on the underside of a loo seat, I had to freeze my knickers.

Waitrose have knocked their Seville oranges down from £3 odd to 99p a box and I find online that they can be frozen for making marmalade later in the year. Brilliant.

Oh wow, there are so many helpful ideas here, thank you everyone! I freeze cakes quite a bit. My christmas cake recipe is for an 8" cake and we are only 2 now. So I cut what was left into 3 and we have just about used it all up - I think, must go and look!

Freezing a kohl eye pencil for about an hour can stop the kohl breaking when sharpened.

I once froze a skirt when I accidentally sat on some chewing gum on a bus it was so easy to chip off the offending mess and skirt was good as new

I freeze left over fish bones and prawn shells and anything else which honks, until the refuse is collected - saves stinking the bin out for a week - or in my case two weeks.

I freeze fresh herbs in their packets and then scrunch up the leafy ones such as coriander and basil. They break into tiny pieces and it saves the faff of chopping them.

I buy a chunk of Parmesan cheese, grate it in my food processor then freeze it. It defrosts almost instantly when you sprinkle it on a meal.

Another thing I do is peel root ginger and freeze it. It's then easily grated from frozen when required.

I also save the water from steamed veg (apart from potatoes) and freeze it to use later as stock in soups etc.

Hairy Bikers' Christmas Pudding Vodka.

Serve straight from the freezer!

Oh dear - I just eat things up! Certainly chocolate and cheese! When I was on Slimming World I did used to freeze grated cheese in 2 oz portions (the amount I was allowed) so that I wasn't tempted to just cut and come again each time I opened the fridge!
Although it is best to decant from tins for the fridge, I think many of today's tins have a lining of some kind, which must help!

Tinned stuff can be kept in the fridge for a couple of days, but NOT in the original tin, decant into something else and cover well.

This has been a very interesting thread. I have never thought to do any of these things. Especially with cheese. Is the frozen cheese then defrosted before eating or is it only useful for grating, or in dishes? A really useful tip. Thanks. I didn't know about not leaving an opened tin of, say, baked beans in the frig either.

When we went to Italy every year I would bring home a LARGE piece of Parmesan and cut it into reasonable sizes and freeze them till I needed them. I freeze left over bits if cheese for making pasta with forgotten cheese. In other words all the odd bits you've got left over.

Once jars are open I freeze the contents. Preserved lemons for tagine so is ok in the freezer. I was given a jar of truffles ( the fungi) at Christmas . I've never used truffles so if anyone can tell me what to do with the remainders when I start to use them I'd be most grateful.

Not a good idea to put opened tins of food in the fridge especially if its fruit or tomatoes when exposed to the air the tin can start to dissolve into the food and apart from it acquiring a tinny taste it isn't good for you..

I freeze the remainder of tinned food, such as baked beans, tomatoes, kidney beans etc., if I open a large tin and don't use it all. Got sick of paying a premium for small tins, or finding half used tins in the fridge going mouldy, so thought I'd give it a try and it worked a treat. I just decant what's left into a plastic container.
When I've bought tins of water chestnuts and bamboo shoots for Chinese stir fries I've frozen half of each tin for next time.
And because DH and I can't agree on those pots of fresh pasta sauce (I like tomato and mascarpone and he likes tomato, basil and olive), I buy both, have half of each and freeze the other halves for next time.

Sawdust for stuffing grannylyn. Mine's got that. And it's leaking.

I freeze avocados.

Then use them to make guacamole :-)

Woodworm ? How on earth??!!!!

chocolate buttercream, that is.