When we first started our garden adventure, so much of what we harvested was canned. That was my go-to for preserving all we grew, with the odd thing frozen.

That has shifted slightly over the years as we realized we didn’t use as much of the canned goods that we thought we would. I began freezing more and more raw items as well as processed items like soups and sauces.

We had a small top-load freezer for a long time, which was great for storing all the stuff we processed from the garden. But it was getting old, the hinge springs no longer worked so you used the back of your head to hold the lid up while rummaging to through the freezer.

We also found that the bottom was often where things got forgotten or got shoved and left to slowly get freezer burn.

Last fall, I filled that thing to the brim and realized that now that our garden was so large, I had met the capacity. I had also met the end of my patience with the lid, as had Kurt. So we decided it was time for a stand-up freezer that opens like your fridge.

Knowing this in the fall, we did wait until a sale came up and found a great freezer. I’m not going to share the make or model because that isn’t what this post is about, but I think the ease of using it is what I love more than the brand itself (it isn’t a major brand so it won’t matter anyways).

It has so much space, so as I go through this summer, I am already planning so much more that I can freeze. This also includes the way in which I freeze some items for better use. For example rhubarb.

I have frozen little baggies of rhubarb in the past and then never used them throughout the winter. This year, I have found a rhubarb curd recipe that I love, and know I will want to make in the winter months, so I decided I can freeze the rhubarb juice so that I have it available whenever I want to make the curd.

This left me with a bit of a conundrum in how I wanted to freeze it. I would prefer to freeze it in 1 cup measurements because that is what the recipe calls for. But doing that in containers takes up a lot of room, and I always worry about ziplock bags leaking before it freezes fully. So I went in search of a better solution.

I found some really cool silicone freezer trays! They can freeze up to 4 cups per tray, in 1 cup intervals. The silicone is marked on the inside of each cup with a 1/2 cup and 1 cup mark. They also have a lid that comes with them for easy stacking. PERFECT! Plus, they were very in-expensive.

If you look up “1 cup freezer trays” on Amazon, you will see there are so many brands of these handy freezer trays. I purchased 2 because I anticipate doing a lot of freezing this summer and fall.

To make matters event better, 2 of the frozen bars fit perfectly in a ziplock bag, and due to their brick shape, they stack really efficiently in the freezer.

These trays also worked great for making our dog some great pupsicle treats for those hot days. The first batch was a full 1 cup size, but the second batch I down-sized to a 1/2 cup size. Both are great and I will likely vary between the two depending on what is in the pupsicle.

I will likely freeze soups this way in the fall for easy meals. They will take up much less space than the yogurt containers we currently use.

If you haven’t considered this way of preserving, or if you do freeze a lot but haven’t seen these trays, I highly recommend them! They are excellent size and provide efficient storage once frozen.