A few weeks ago, I stood before my freezer in a state of shock, my wide eyes scanning the snowy field of half-empty bags of tater tots, freezer-burned corn kernels and frosty blooms of ice hiding little surprises underneath their crusty surface.  I went out immediately and purchased a box of Ziploc freezer bags, and prepared for the arduous journey ahead of me.

I won't bore you with the details of how much food I had to throw out.  In short, there was a lesson here:  Only buy what you're going to use, use it within a reasonable amount of time, and for gods' sake, keep it stored in a way organized enough to find what you have.  If I had done that final step, I might not have found myself portioning tater tots from three seperate opened bags into Ziplocs and throwing out a freezer-burned mess that may have been year-old chicken breasts had the lump been recognizable.

After a good reorganizing, I found myself with a lot more freezer space than I ever remembered having before.  This got me thinking.  "Freeze it all."

Freezing food isn't just for tomato sauce and extending the life of yoru leftovers, but it's the perfect justification for taking advantage of sales on produce you know that a household of two people won't be able to finish before they get rotten.

For example, I love mushrooms.  My boyfriend, however, does not.  But my local grocery chain had a buy one/get one sale on white mushrooms.  How could I resist?  Freezing mushrooms is much the same as freezing other vegetables:  You simply blanch them, give them a nice cold ice bath, then package in an airtight container and put 'em away.  (I prefer freezer bags and plastic wrap, because I feel like I have more control.  I know that makes no sense, and I can't explain it in a way that would make sense, so I won't.)

I unfortunately don't have the money to run out and purchase all the things I want to store in my freezer, since I just discovered this new icy joy.  But I am sitting here with my grocery store's weekly ad, contemplating how many bags of baby spinach I can boil and pack away in that little cold cube while they are buy one/get one...

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