The Big Thaw

    About every 6 months or so, my giant extra standing freezer decides it wants to ice up and stop working.  I naturally always have way too much food in it (some may call me a hoarder, but I can't pass up a good deal) I then have to figure out a way to save all of the food so I can thaw it out and restock it again.  This time, it didn't completely die yet, I was just planning on organizing it and taking inventory of what I actually have (I know I'm a complete nerd) and realized the bottom was totally icing up.  I looked at the forecast and saw that we had a couple of days in a row where the temperatures outside were favorable.  I live in Vermont and I love that I have access to my "outdoor freezer" aka my front porch in the winter.  

    So I decided to take the plunge and empty everything out of it.  I have one huge cooler from Costco that I absolutely love that always saves me when I have to do "The Big Thaw".  While taking items out, I put the all the meat in the fridge (I don't trust the outdoor freezer method for meat). Cheese and veggies went in the cooler on the front porch.  (Soooo many tomatoes from the garden that I didn't get to process yet).  Bread just went out because it will be fine if it thaws for just a day.  We also have a kegerator that currently is just being used as a fridge, so in the rest of my items went that could be ok if they were just in the fridge for a day.  Needless to say, we are packed solid....everywhere.  

    I did discover some cranberries, some oranges and some strawberries.  Since I was running out of room, I decided to attempt to make Christmas Jam.  I have never made it before but needed to be creative in order to save space!  See "recipe" below.  

    In the end, I was able to thaw the freezer and get everything back in the following day.  It was nice to have everything organized and to be able to actually see what we had!  Now for some creative ways to meal prep with what we have!  

"Recipe"

    I don't have any measurements but had about half of a Costco size bag of cranberries, 3 cups of oranges and 3 cups of strawberries and threw them all in a pot to cook down.  I blended all of it together in my blender and back in the pot it went along with some cinnamon, allspice and clove.  I then added about 2 cups of sugar.  I am not the best at making jams and jellies, sometimes they come out and sometimes they don't.  Mostly because I can't follow a recipe, I like to add in what we have and make use out of everything!  I didn't use any pectin, I just cooked it down pretty good.  It came out pretty tasty.