{Picture from 2016 of a batch of Blackberry Applesauce we canned that year.}

We had two weekends in a row with some rain here. With so much planting and garden work to do this time of year, and my time and energy needed outdoors, I wanted to make the most of the rainy days to focus on some indoor projects.

The main indoor project I wanted to focus on was cleaning out the freezer. And by cleaning out the freezer… I mean processing food!

In the fall we were overwhelmed with everything that needed processing all at once, and we put some things in the freezer to process later. I intended to process everything in the freezer during the winter (we did get the extra tomatoes made into sauce), but it felt like I blinked and somehow it was late spring (almost summer!) already.

With berry season beginning, it gave me the push to do some freezer clean out. Our family wants to start freezing some berries, and we need our freezer space available for this year’s harvests.

And so… To the freezer I went!

First, taking stock of everything that still needed processing, and then deciding what to do with it all.

At the top of the list was apples. We don’t normally freeze apples, but we did put some bags in the freezer in the fall to make into applesauce later. We also had some frozen pears, with plans to put that in the applesauce as well.

I had planned on making jam with the blackberries we had picked last summer and stuck in the freezer, but when the applesauce project got rolling decided to just add them to the applesauce (with the seeds strained out) rather than do a separate project.

We’ve made many batches of applesauce over the years, but I’m used to making applesauce in the fall- it was the first time that I remember making applesauce in May! We ended up making our applesauce with apples, pears, and blackberries. It’s a combination we’ve made before, and a good one.

And with that… I put jars of applesauce into the freezer. Because, you know, the freezer had so much space in it and all. (haha) I did find it funny to be putting things back into the freezer in the midst of my clean out project, but the jars of applesauce took up a tiny fraction of the space compared to the bags of fruit. Progress was being made!

Plus my main goal was to process everything in the freezer that needed processing, that way anything left in there would be ready to use. I also took stock of what we still needed to eat up that was already processed in the freezer- pesto, tomato sauce, and a few jars of chia jam. (By the way- a friend told me how delicious applesauce is when you take it out of the freezer, and eat it before completely thawed when it’s still partially frozen. I tried it and they were right- it’s really good that way!)

We had harvested some ducks last year that we raised here on the homestead, so I got some of the parts we had frozen turned into broth. More progress! Gotta celebrate every little thing we get crossed off the list, right?

And now we come to… Eggs! Eggs in the freezer you ask? Yep. Last year we had a handful of weeks when we were collecting more eggs each day than we were eating. We eat a lot of eggs around here, and some go to our friends, so we usually keep up pretty well, but at the time we had extra to save for later.

I heard about freezing eggs in muffin tins, and decided to give it a try. I figured that we would appreciate the extra eggs come winter when the laying decreased. However, the ducks laid well through the winter (which was great) and we didn’t end up using the frozen eggs for winter baking like I expected.

We also baked and froze winter squash because we didn’t have a good place to store it where it would be at the right temperature for long term storage. We sometimes add the winter squash to soups, or just heat it up and eat it with some butter. (Yum!) One of my favorite ways to use winter squash is to bake muffins. I love to make big batches of muffins and freeze the extra, that way anytime we leave the house for a busy day, we can grab some to thaw out and bring along with us.

I’ve been using the frozen winter squash since last fall, but there’s still more to enjoy and use up. My clean-out-the-freezer task now is to bake lots of muffins, which will use up the frozen eggs and the frozen winter squash at the same time.

Progress has been made on the freezer clean out project, and there is more progress still to be made. It feels good to be a little more organized and have a better idea of what we have. When we grow the food ourselves, so much work goes into it that every single berry or tomato feels precious. We don’t want anything to go to waste!

Whether we grow it ourselves, or purchase it at the farmer’s market or grocery store, someone worked hard to produce that food. Food can also be expensive, yet another reason not to let anything go to waste. It’s so good when we go through our freezers, pantries, and cabinets regularly to remind ourselves what needs to be eaten up, and what we already have on hand to add to our meals!

Would you like to join me in doing a Freezer Challenge? What do you have in your freezer that needs to be processed? Or eaten up? Leave a comment and let us know. We can share inspiration with one another- giving new ideas on how to use things up!