Say Freeze!

In spite of last week's meal-planning challenges, I'm right back at the drawing board, or rather the dry-erase board,  this week.  I collected my cookbooks, grabbed my grocery store's flyer, made myself a coffee and got started. 

No, that's not what I planned for meals on Saturday and Sunday.  This week I remembered to take stock of the perishables in my fridge.  Since my dry-erase board was handy, I listed items there.  The upcoming week looks like this:

Yup, that says thaw cheese.  Twice.  I know that freezing cheese is not the nicest way to treat one of my favourite foods.  I'm aware that it changes the quality of the cheese.  I still do it.  

• It saves money.  I buy large blocks of cheese when they are on sale.  I haul out the food processor and Hubby shreds the cheese while I bag it in one-cup portions.
• It saves time.  As long as I remember to thaw the cheese (hence the reminders on my meal-planning board), having pre-shredded cheese in the house goes a long way toward getting dinner on the table fast.
• It helps to ensure we eat more home-cooked meals.  Quick meals = less processed, packaged, pre-made food.

I don't do this with fancy, expensive cheeses, but that's mostly because those cheeses aren't in the house long enough to make it to the freezer.  (Another reason for freezing block cheese.  If it wasn't out of sight in the freezer, it would be gone before I needed it for a meal.)

I do wish I had a better, economical option for packing the shredded cheese.  Right now I use off-brand, zip-top, single-use, snack-sized, plastic bags.  Truly not ideal in many ways, but they are cheap, they are the right size, and they fit nicely in the freezer.  If you have an method for freezing shredded cheese that works for you, please let me know.  And let me know if you have any questions.  I'd love to hear from you.