Defrosting

Today most freezer’s don’t require defrosting, Defrosting a freezer is a huge job and I remember helping my mum do this a lit when I was young. Modern freezers are great but they can use more energy than the manual defrost models. The auto defrost cycle sucks all the moisture out of frozen food and can affect food quality.

How to defrost

Empty out your freezer and have a really good sort through the foods. Food that you are keeping put into ice boxes

Make sure you turn off the power to the freezer before defrosting.

Leave the freezer door open for a while to melt the ice, this can take a while make sure you leave a few old towels on the floor to really soak up the water. If you haven’t got time to stand around and wait for the freezer to melt naturally place in a few pans filled up with boiling water to help speed up the ice melting.

Once all the ice has gone it’s a good idea to give the freezer case a really good clean, I find warm water and washing up liquid works really well.  If you have nasty food smells mix bicarbonate of soda and water into a paste and run this all over and then leave for approx 30 minutes allow the  bicarbonate to soak up the odours. Clean all the shelves and any draws the same way and ensure full dry before you put your freezer back together.

Once its all clean you can switch back on, leave a while for it chilly and then add the food back in nice and neatly and in order.

If you don’t have the hassle of having to defrost your freezer then give you freezer a good clean using warm soapy water and then dry really well before the food goes back.

Freezer organisation

Make sure you add onto your frozen left overs freezer labels always make sure you put the date you put the food into the freezer too as well as the number of servings. When you put in new food bring the older food to the front so it doesn’t get forgotten about.

categorise your shelves.  Have a shelf for fish, one for meat and one for left over portions so you know exactly what you have and can clearly see what meals you have in for the week.

Keep frozen vegetables, bread and chips in the freezer drawers and use bag clips to save food from spilling out.

Use square food containers for freezing left overs so they fit together well and take up less room.

Keep food storage containers the same size to save space

Ditch packaging where you can

Keep a regular inventory of what you have in your freezer by either using a list which you can stick into the inside of one of your kitchen cupboards.

Dump the packaging many of the foods we buy in the frozen section come in large bulky boxes. Get rid of those as quick as you can, and use a plastic food bags to help you save space.

Remove Shelves If you don’t need them, take them out, just because your freezer comes with shelves doesn’t mean you have to use them. Many of the shelves and drawers are removable, which opens up the space to be able to make it your own.

Hope you have found this post useful 

Happy Freezer Cleaning

Lynsey Queen of Clean xoxo