[Steph Hen]

i have loads of fruit in the freezer already and a lot more to come in. I have no doubt we will get through it all in the coming year as kids eat tons.

At the moment it's all in different trays and punnets and tupperwear and all different recycled plastic boxes, etc. It seems like a waste of space and is disorganised so;

 What do you use?

Obviously I'm not wanting to spend a fortune but wondered if there's something I'm missing out on?
I'm basically always cooking a whole tray or two as we live on leftovers so there is no such thing as 'single portion' cooking in this house. The exception is the boys morning porridge which they like an apple grated in. So Id like a hundred grated apples for this. I have grated and blanched some as a trial and it's not gone brown. Now freezing in half inch thick blocks/sheets so that I can drop one into the pot to defrost while its cooking on the stove.

Do I need to find a larger box to store all my grated apple slabs or can I wrap in something?

I'm not a fan of plastic but everything seems to be plastic, aluminium (also prefer to avoid) or greese proof paper and I'm not sure what chemicals this is made of. Is there anything else I could use. What did people use in the 'olden days' when freezers first came in? Was everything wrapped in linnen or something 

[Fleecewife]

In the very early '60s my mother had one of the first freezers - it was an ice cream one, second hand from a shop.  It had two oval lids on the top and was deeper than anyone's arm length.  Getting things out of the bottom was impossible without the washing machine tongs 
We had no idea about freezer burn, or about blanching veggies and so on. Back then people didn't use freezers, they cooked everything from fresh, except perhaps some butcher's pies. Within about 10 years from then, chest freezers became available and most food was wrapped in plastic (the first cling film came in made by Dow chemicals (US) about the same time as the ice cream freezer we had, but we couldn't think of any uses for it!


What I use now is a hotchpotch of freezer bags and freezer pots from Lakeland.  They make some very simple square ones with different coloured lids (not the clip-on lid kind) which come in three different sizes and are easy to stack.  I find square pots better than round for efficiency. For fruit and veg I tend to open freeze, then transfer to portion size bags ie as much as we will eat in one meal, or I pack small bags lightly then shuffle the contents around once they are frozen and extract the air. I wonder if you could do that with the grated apple?  Sprinkle it loosely over a tray and freeze for a couple of hours then transfer to a plastic box.  It would not be totally free running like peas but might be better than in a block. I use the boxes for, amongst other things such as soups and stews, freezing berries such as raspberries, blueberries, brambles, blackcurrants and so on for sprinkling on breakfast cereals or ice cream (not for me as I don't eat anything with sugar in, just the unsweetened fruit itself) but I've not tried apples.  I shall be interested to hear how successful they are.
Our freezer has quite a lot of meat in which is not possible to store neatly, and if it's packed too closely then it can prove impossible to get back out once it's frozen solid 

[Rosemary]

What I use now is a hotchpotch of freezer bags and freezer pots from Lakeland.  They make some very simple square ones with different covered lids (not the clip-on lid kind) which come in three different sizes and are easy to stack. 

We have dozens of these. Plastic but not single use.

[Backinwellies]

Nothing wrong with using good plastic freezer boxes ........... will last and last .......  also recycle icecream tubs (collect all neighbours icecream tubs ) ,   
Open freeze all fruit first before boxing and it wont stick together so you can just take out what you want. 

[Steph Hen]

Thank you for your insights! I've open frozen (now I know the name!) most of the fruit, the stuff I've already stewed is in blocks.
My mum said her mum used to use big sheets of paper which she used in their shop. She'd freeze everything in trays and then decant to packages of this paper. If she was doing pies aparantly she'd use metal dishes.

[Fleecewife]

What I use now is a hotchpotch of freezer bags and freezer pots from Lakeland.  They make some very simple square ones with different covered lids (not the clip-on lid kind) which come in three different sizes and are easy to stack. 

We have dozens of these. Plastic but not single use.

...and they last for years!  (I meant 'coloured' lids - typo and it was very late when I wrote that!)