Keeping Track

One of the hardest parts of bulk cooking is keeping track of all the food once it's in your freezer!  There is nothing worse than finding a meal that has been floating around the dark corners of your freezer for a couple of years, especially when you put so much time and effort into making the meal in the first place. 

I have tried many ways over the years of tracking what is in my freezer, but the easiest is to simply use a freezer inventory page.  You can hang your page on the freezer, in the cupboard, on the side of your fridge or in your home management binder.  Placing your inventory in a page protector allows you to use dry erase markers to mark and re-use your page.  You can also use a dry erase board, but I have found that things sometimes got erased by people bumping the board or a "helpful" toddler trying to clean up.

To use the inventory, simple write down the entree or item name on a line and make a slash ( / ) mark for each item in the freezer.  When you take the item out of the freezer make another slash to  make an  ( X ).  This is useful for keeping track of all of your frozen fruits and veggies.  No more digging around in your freezer wondering if there is really a bag of corn left for corn chowder, now you can know at a glance (provided you teach ALL members of the family to mark of anything they remove from the freezer) and no more frostbit fingers.

Here is a printable freezer inventory just for you!

Just click the picture to open, save on your desktop and print as a full page. 

I even use on of these sheets to keep track of all of my canned goods during canning season.  It is great to know at a glance what I have without having to run around an open cupboard doors or running to the basement when menu planning for the month.

Hope this helps you keep track just a little bit easier of all of your freezer contents!