Your Guide to Freezing Food

Yes, it's good for making ice cubes and harboring half-eaten lasagna, but the truth is, your freezer is capable of a whole lot more -- like making healthy meals as easy as opening the door. Our tips for prepping, packing, and thawing are just the beginning.

As any convert to the locavore movement will tell you, CSA stands for "community-supported agriculture," those farm-to-back-door programs that entail regular deliveries of whatever happens to be ripe at the moment. But after cooking, chomping, and soldiering your way through a box of rutabaga, you wouldn't be blamed for wondering whether a more apt translation might be "Can't. Stand. Another!" Such is the peril of eating seasonally: Windows of opportunity are brief, and the palate gets fatigued. But it doesn't have to be that way. The solution to CSA syndrome, and to a host of other food-related dilemmas, is right there in your kitchen. Too often used as a kind of gustatory purgatory, the freezer has a whole array of talents it's eager to put to work. By freezing fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as things like cheese (yes, cheese) and bread, you'll not only save money and waste less, in many cases you'll preserve more nutrients. Here, then, the cold, hard facts about how to make the most of that underutilized appliance. As for CSA? We like to think of it as "Coolly Socked Away."

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