I am a big BIG fan of my freezer and there are a few things I feel i’m constantly encouraging people to freeze to make their lives easier and reduce waste. Here are the top 5.
- Fresh Herbs
Before I started doing this I would never get through a whole bunch of fresh herbs and end up throwing half a bunch away always. I haven’t met a type of herb that doesn’t respond really well to being frozen so now I always take the time to chop and freeze all fresh herbs the day i buy them to ensure nothing is wasted. Extra tip: add a couple of frozen mint leaves to your tea to cool it down and give it a nice flavour.
2. Bread and breadcrumbs
I almost always make toast from frozen sliced bread now so it doesn’t go off before I eat it. I’m so into it that I also freeze sliced bagels, english muffins and crumpets and toast them straight from frozen. The king of them all though is breadcrumbs. If you do ever get round to blitzing up your stale bread in the food processor like Jamie Olive does, or like I do beat up stale cracker crumbs in a tea towel, make sure you put them straight into a freezer bag and use them as needed to breadcrumb fish, chicken or to put on top of a pasta bake.
3. Portions of pastry
Again, something I use to waste all the time! Now when I buy a block of pastry I cut it into 4 and save three in a freezer bag to use 1 by 1. I find one of these small blocks is enough to make 1 small quiche or tart of pies for two people. Make sure you label the bag whether its puff or shortcrust, as you can see I always forget.
4. Butter
I love love love lurpak and it always seems to be on sale 2 for £5. Momma didn’t raise no fool so i’ll always get two, throw one in the freezer and bring it out a few weeks later when the first tub is finished. It freezes amazingly, I promise you will never be able to tell.
5. Sliced Bananas
I know that banana nice-cream is a big thing now but am I the only one where my food processor has never been able to handle rock solid pieces of banana, always seems to get stuck and give me a massive ball ache with the washing up. If you feel my pain, instead try slicing up a banana and freeze the pieces, nibble on them as you like, they end up being like little mini ice-cream pieces – great Netflix snack!
