OAMC with only a refrigerator freezer
If you don’t own a stand-alone freezer you have probably asked yourself if this Once A Month Mom stuff can be done with just a refrigerator freezer. I have been doubtful but MJ proved me wrong this last month. Here is a great recap from a woman who made it happen!
When I first decided to participate in the OAMC Day, I started collecting ingredients I already had on my counter top including spices and other random staples and made a note of what was available in my fridge. Then I thought about all the posts that said, “You can do this with only a refrigerator freezer, but…” I broached the topic with darling dearest hubby (DH) and he was adamant. Absolutely not. There is no space for an extra freezer. There is no outlet where there is space. I do not like chest freezers, blah blah blah and on it went. *sigh*
I was going to participate in this OAMC. There was no alternative. I had made up my mind. Now it was just a matter of where to put the food. At this point, further dreaming and venturing of expenses aside, I have a normal, old school, on top refrigerator freezer. Currently (well before the OAMC Day), stocked with frozen pizza, frozen veggies, ice packs, and buffalo chicken fingers. There might also have been some ice cream too. (I am pregnant after all, must get that calcium, right?)
I looked at the freezer and then at the list of food and then back at the freezer. I moved all the bags of veggies into the door and shoved all the ice packs to the back. I ate some ice cream and then proceeded to convince myself I would figure it out later. After all, I did marry an engineer and it is his fault that I do not have a different or other freezer, right?
Shephard's Pie ready for to go in the freezer
So into the cooking I jump. A day later with some stuff still on the counter and other in the fridge I am determined to get it all in the freezer. I mis-read and ended up with three dishes in the baking pans, so I have six of these foil pans to get in the freezer as well as the million other bags of food. Well the containers are the biggest so they go first. (We moved into this house in November, so we still have some boxes in hiding upstairs). I had my DH break up a box so that I could have card board pieces to put in between the foil pans. So three foil pans on the bottom of the freezer with a piece of card board in between each, and two on the top shelf. I went ahead and put the last one in the fridge determined to eat it that week. The one frozen pizza went into the oven and the other two fit barely, and just perfectly on top of the foil containers on the top shelf in the freezer. I had about six inches of space left in the door once DH arranged the bags of veggies on top of each other and was able to put one fully frozen salmon and the baked chicken fingers stacked there. Then the rest of the freezer was made into a huge conglomeration of freezer bags with who knows what in them.
There is not much organization. It will take some time to find what I want, but it is in the freezer. One of the things that I did, was to let things that I knew were going to be in the door go in the main section of the freezer early on before everything else and let them really freeze first. Now they will stay frozen. Also, we turned the freezer up a notch colder, because with it so full it would not freeze as much as we wanted. Discovered this fact by my soft ice cream. ICK!
My refrigerator freezer after my cooking day
Other notes I would put forward are that even with the freezer filled full we made sure that no items were pressed against the back wall (ice packs the exception) nor against the fan or light. Engineer DH said this was necessary to keep the air filtering through to keep the items frozen. Also, I have to mention that my freezer does not have an ice maker as it was never installed. So that gives me a little more space. Yet, even if I did have one, I would just turn it off, take out the drawer and use that space as well.
Just after two meals have been removed there is movable space, and after three foil pans were removed there was room for a gallon of ice cream. Not that I’m keeping track of it.
MJ is a young, married, and fully in love. I love to read all sorts of things, but mostly religious fiction novels as well as L.M. Montgomery books, etc. I grew up a lover of Anne of Green Gables books and films alike. My daddy and I are genealogists and my mama and I are sewing ladies. I’ve been cross stitching for about ten years, and brand new into quilting. IT IS A DEFINITE LOVE! I and my engineer husband live just east of Atlanta, Georgia where he does his engineer things and I read books, lots of books, and quilts, and sometimes cross stitches. I have always been a book-a-holic and ever since she entered the book review world have completely fallen in head-over-hills and hopes to never leave my little library. As an attempt to show my mother and sisters what I am up to I created Creative Madness where I post pictures of current quilt projects and many many book reviews. I thrive on Historical Fiction, but love many others as well. The newest news for us is that we are expecting our first child, a little girl due about August 15th and we could not be more excited!
love it! this gives me hope with my lack of a stand alone freezer as well. my husband hasn’t said no to one, we just haven’t purchased it yet, but i think we might need it when i start doing meals for my infant too;)
Hopefully, when my little girl gets here, I’ll be able to get him to reconsider too. Hope this bit of my experience helps!
I’d still have just the refrigerator/freezer for my own OAMC, but friends of ours were moving out West and they sold us their stand-alone freezer for $50. Now I can REALLY stock up!
Great job, MJ! (Your freezer is much better organized than mine is!)
I love it! Good job on the description. We have far more room but my engineering minded hubby does a lot of the same things.
My father and brother are engineers, so when I started considering hubby positions, there was no other option. I grew up with men as engineers, I had to marry one. lol
I haven’t been following the exact menus lined out, but I’ve been doing once-a-month cooking the last few months….with just a side-by-side fridge/freezer at that. It can be really crazy, especially considering it feels nearly impossible to do full baking dish items. I actually try to do mostly things I can arrange in bags….or things that I can freeze flat, and then stack. I should be getting my deep freezer back soon (had one a few years ago, but a mouse chewed off the cord and it’s been stored ever since….I want it fixed!). I don’t know where I’ll put it, but it would make my life a million times easier, lol.
I have used my fridge-freezer for OAMC and it has an ice-maker to boot. I was able to fit items fairly easily, well, it can get tight with an entire month, but you can maximize space. One bit of advice I would give for casseroles is to line your baking pans with saran wrap and foil. Then place your food inside that. Flash freeze the food in the pan, then you can easily lift the frozen casserole out, rewrap it and put in a ziplock bag if possible and put back in freezer. You can stack several of these “flat” casseroles together. When you are ready to cook, let it thaw slightly so that you can loosen the saran wrap/foil and place in the orig baking pan. This saves money on not having to buy aluminum baking pans and helps you maximize space in the freezer. It worked perfectly for me! The one downside is you do need to assemble the casseroles first so they have time to flash freeze.
You really do give me hope that I can do OAMC now! I’ve been wanting to do it for a long time now, but I didn’t think it possible with just my small fridge freezer. I can’t wait to get a friend or two on board to get this to be a monthly thing! I’ve recently become friends with a huge group of couponers, so I can’t wait to see what deals they can get me to combine with your recipes! I’ll be paying pennies per meal hopefully!