Part of getting ready to set sail every year includes filling the freezer with meats – unless you’re a vegetarian, of course – and then you can fill the freezer with other yummy foods.

Our freezer sits underneath the cockpit bench and is easily accessible from just outside the galley. It’s an Engel and runs off both 12 volt and AC current. We run off the battery when we are underway and run off shore power at the dock. There is a small freezer inside our galley refrigerator, but it’s not big enough for the quantity we like to bring with us.

I’ve learned a thing or two about getting the maximum use out of the space that I’d like to share.

By not freezing the meat prior to storage, the meat uses up less space.  If the meat is frozen first, then you can’t manipulate the shape to pack more in. We store the meat raw while Mattina is plugged in at the dock. This little machine hums away until the meats are frozen solid.

Warning: layer your  meats so that each row has a choice. Don’t put all the steak at the bottom, for instance.  The freezer has now become a jig saw puzzle and it’s amazing how hard it is to fit a frozen package back in once the pieces have been disturbed. After a while this doesn’t matter, but at first, if you can pick off the top layer without disturbing lower layers, life is much easier.

We also vacuum seal the meat so freezer burn doesn’t ruin the meat.

Now to get to the Bahamas so we can light up the barbecue.

Thanks for reading  . . .