Food For Kids Podcast episode 3: How to use your freezer if batch cooking isn’t your thing, with Kate Hall

Joanne Roach (00:13)
Hello and welcome to Food for Kids, I'm Joanne from The Foodies. I'm really excited to bring you this episode today because the guest is Kate Hall from The Full Freezer. Kate's a fantastic advocate for using your freezer to reduce food waste, save money, cut down on stress and generally be able to cook more from scratch but by using home frozen ingredients. She created a brilliant approach called The Full Freezer Method and it's a different take to more traditional methods.

She's published a book, a membership and does loads of free training and challenges and has helped literally thousands of people to get to grips with their freezer and reduce their stress and waste. I recorded this two years ago when I originally planned to release the podcast and Kate has been on load of TV and radio shows since then. So I'm very lucky to have her here. This episode introduces the principles of her method and the story of how it came about. And I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I enjoyed talking to her.

So here's the interview.

Joanne (01:11)
so Kate welcome. Could you please just tell us what it is that you do and how you came to do that.

Kate (01:16)
Sure, so I am Kate Hall, I am the founder of The Full Freezer and I help busy parents to reduce their food waste and to cook from scratch more often by using their freezers more effectively. So it's not batch cooking, it is all about freezing individual items of food so that you can avoid them going into the food waste bin and so that they are there to cook when you want to use them.

And I essentially ended up doing this because I faced that challenge in my own home of the frustration of keeping on buying things in and thinking, yep, this week it's gonna happen. Cause I used to be a batch cook before I had my second child. I was all about the batch cooking. And then when he came along and I had a newborn and a toddler, I kept on doing that thing of continuing to buy foods with those good intentions that "This week I was going to do that batch cook" and it just never quite happened.

Joanne (02:09)
The of two is definitely different to one, isn't it?

Kate (02:11)
Completely different, completely different. And I think even where I found, you know, I might've found a window of time, I no longer had the same motivation to spend that time cooking in the way I had in the past. So I just got really frustrated with the amount of food that I was wasting and the amount that we ended up leaning on convenience foods and takeaways and everything. you know, buying the good stuff,

throwing it away because it had gone off and then buying the convenience foods. We were wasting so much money as well. It was really frustrating. And yeah, I just had this light bulb moment where I was like, hang on a minute, if I can freeze a meal, surely I can freeze individual items of food. And from that, I did a lot of reading and researching and a lot of experimenting and just found what worked for us really and kind of put together a system that allows me to keep organized and to enjoy a lot of variety with our family without having all of that waste that usually comes with the whole process of cooking from scratch.

Joanne (03:10)
Fantastic. So for somebody who hasn't come across your content before, you said that it isn't batch cooking and it's more ingredients. So what would that look like on like a normal week? What sort of things would you freeze or eat from the freezer?

Kate (03:22)
So, I mean, I can take tonight as an example. So we have had a pasta dish, just a simple tomato veg pasta with chorizo and some chicken. And this was a dish that has been done pretty much completely from the freezer. So I have used onions from the freezer, courgettes, mushroom, peppers. The chorizo was from the freezer and the roast chicken was cooked already from the freezer. And everything was basically just cooked up with a couple of cubes of red wine from the freezer and a tin of tomatoes and tomato puree from the freezer as well. So I think the only things that weren't from the freezer was the pasta and the tin of tomatoes, which I could have had some in my freezer if I'd had some leftover. In fact, the leftovers.

So that's where it links up is that I actually, only used half a tin of tomatoes. So I froze the other half of the tin. I flat froze those in a compostable bag so that a compostable freezer bag that is. So that when we next need half a tin of tomatoes, I can just grab those out of the freezer, pop them in a dish to defrost in some cold water. And then that can go straight into the meal we're cooking. So the way it tends to work, is this process of there will be some nights where I cook from scratch. And when I'm cooking from scratch, if I'm going to chop up, say I've got a pack of three onions, if I'm going to chop up one, I might as well chop up three. So I'll chop up the three, one will go in the pan, two will go in the freezer. And this whole process just sort of, it's literally just me looking at things and going, well, if I'm chopping it anyway, I might as well do it all. Sometimes it's a bit more of a, that's been in the fridge for a couple of days, you know, those peppers are going to be, you they're not going to last much longer, let's chop those up and get them in the freezer. So it is, it's just this kind of, ongoing flow of things going in, things coming out, so a lot of people that, if they follow me on Instagram, they're a bit like, how big is your freezer? You're always putting things in your freezer, like your freezer must be enormous and I'm lucky I've got two tall freezers, but the food that's going in, there's constantly food coming out as well. So it's not like, you know, usually people freeze things and they literally just put it in and it's cold storage.

Joanne (05:35)
Yeh I mean that's the key is that you don't find things 12 months later that's completely freezer burned and you can't even recognise it, it's got no label.

Kate (05:43)
And that's it. That's it. Yeah. My, my method is much more about using your freezer in the same way that you use your fridge and just seeing that it's, it's going to give you more time. It's, it's a pause button basically. So anything that is in your fridge that you know, you know, I mean, the things that I love are things like I always used to waste pesto. I'd use a tablespoon and then it would go in the fridge and I would forget about it. And when I went back to it, I was like, I don't know how long this has been open for. Yeah, you know, it's growing moulds and you think, oh, not again. Whereas now, sometimes if I know we're going to have pesto again soon, I'll just write the date on it. So I know it's within the use within date, but a lot of the time I will literally just decant it into an ice cube tray, pop the ice cube tray in the freezer. And then once it's solid, they go into bags. So I've got my tray back. And then when we want know, we want to have pasta, pesto pasta or something, I can just grab a cube or two out of the freezer and just whack it straight into whatever we're cooking. It's just so satisfying when you know that in the past it was something that you would always waste, that it always ends up going in the bin. And to be able to use that on another day, I just find incredibly satisfying. It's really good fun.

Joanne (06:56)
Pesto was the one that I was most pleased to find out and also you mention it, people will be like, seriously? you can freeze pesto, can freeze hummus? And I was really pleased to find your stuff because I'm reasonably knowledgeable about freezing stuff because of growing. So I've had to learn a lot of that. But quite a lot of the things that I've seen you do on your videos, I've gone... you can freeze that? or you can freeze it in that form? or, you know, I would freeze it at the raw stage, but not the cooked stage or the cooked stage, but not the raw stage or, you know, a whole portion where as you do just literally a spoonful of something.

Kate (07:31)
That's the thing, yeah, I think that's the thing that I love about it is that I have connected with people who are really experienced with using their freezers. And like I learned from my mum who had been batch cooking for 35 years, and she's now turning around to me and going, can I freeze this, you know, whatever? And it's just so much fun when I, you know, I get a text message from her and she's like, I've just frozen some kidney beans. I only needed half a tin, just frozen the leftovers. And it is like you say, I mean, she's got an allotment and she grows her own food. And it is, you've got your own fruit or veg, then you take the steps to learn how to preserve it so that you've not wasted all of that effort that you've put in. But stopping to think about freezing half a tin of something that you've opened, I think is just, it's engaging a different perspective towards the freezer.

It's just something that people wouldn't ever think of putting in.

Joanne (08:22)
I like your, your description of it as the pause button. I think that's a really good way to describe it. It's just like kind of, I've made this meal, here's the ingredients that are leftover. I'm going to press pause on them until I can think about what to do with them rather than having them in the fridge and having to try and work out what to do with them. If they're not on the meal plan for this week, what do I do? It's a really good way to describe it.

Kate (08:43)
And as somebody who is not organized and who gets overwhelmed very easily, that whole pause button concept is absolutely invaluable to me. Like I am totally in awe of people that can do meal plans and stick to them and people who can plan. I mean, you know, there was a program that I saw recently where it was all about leftovers and doing the shop so that the ingredients that were bought all went into the various different meals. And it's like, I've not got the bandwidth to think about food in that way. anybody who does, I quite frankly think is a genius. Like, I think, you you have to have either grown up doing it and your family, your mum or your dad has always taught you to do it that way, or you've just got to have an instinct for it. I think a lot of us, it's like, I get to five o'clock and it's like, right, what am I cooking? What am I making?

And so for me, knowing how to defrost things quickly and just, you know, getting a sense of a lot of the basics, you're kind of like things like throwing together a pasta sauce. I know for some people that would be overwhelming. But when you've got all of the ingredients prepared and you're just having to put things in a frying pan and fry them up, all of a sudden, I think it becomes a bit less intimidating.

Joanne (09:55)
I think having those prepped things makes a big difference, doesn't it?

Kate (09:58)
Even things like having, if I was doing an omelette or something, having some chives chopped up in the freezer mixed in with butter, it just gives your food that little extra dimension where you're like, well, I couldn't be bothered before because I was going to have to cook something. It was going to take effort and it was going to be a bit rubbish. Whereas if I know that I'm actually going to enjoy it, still take a few minutes to throw it together. But I know it's going to be worth, you know, that couple of minutes. And I'm not having to get a chopping board out. I'm not having to get anything, you know, or do any washing up aside from a pan. But yeah.

Joanne (10:30)
It's a lot more special, but only a bit more effort, which is a good return.

Kate (10:34)
Yeah, I think so. it's it's that whole thing of separating. I love the fact that it separates the preparation from the cooking.

Joanne (10:44)
I like the idea of while you're doing something, just do a couple of extra on the, on the moments that you've got the bandwidth to do that. So I would do that with buying a bag of potatoes, you know, you buy a two and a half kilo bag, but this week you're only eating them once. So why not peel them all and put them in the freezer at the same time, cooked or raw.

Kate (11:03)
Absolutely.

I will always, if I'm doing a Sunday roast, will do the roast potatoes and I'll do a whole bag of potatoes. And then what we don't need goes into the freezer and they can be cooked from frozen. So like I've, I've got a video that shows that you, you know, you can, you just cook them for five minutes, and then get them out, air dry them straight into the freezer and then cook them as if they were fresh. And like that to me, it's just so satisfying when you have that Sunday where you're like, the kids really want a roast dinner, but I really don't want to stand here peeling potatoes and boiling things. And I mean, the Sunday just gone, I literally sent my husband to the shop to buy a chicken. And then I went into the freezer and I grabbed roast potatoes, parsnips that were already in batons, carrots that were already in batons, and everything could either just go straight into the oven to be roasted or into a pan to be boiled or fried up or whatever. You know, it's just like, well, that didn't really take any effort at all. That was really easy. could, yeah, I could keep on doing other things and cook exactly the amount we needed as well, which always satisfies me.

Joanne (12:14)
That's fantastic. You've got quite a lot of information on your your website and your instagram feed about these general principles.

Kate (12:21)
Absolutely. So within my Instagram feed, share lots of sort of hints and tips and everything just throughout. I also have a secondary Instagram. So my second Instagram account is called @canIfreezeit? in that it is purely sort of 20 to 40 second videos and each one focuses on a different item of food and just shows you the fact that Yes, you can freeze it. This is how you should store it in the freezer. And these are some ideas of how you can use it. And then if you read the caption that goes along with it, I give a bit more information about ideal amounts of time to keep things in the freezer for and any extra information that's sort of important to that particular food.

Joanne (13:03)
Brilliant. I'll link to all of those things in this show notes. thank you ever so much for coming. It's been really, really interesting.

Kate (13:09)
Absolute pleasure. Thank you so much, Joe. It's been lovely.

Joanne Roach (13:16)
So I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did. I think her method of focusing on unused and partial ingredients instead of a batch meal is a really helpful alternative approach and assembling things is much easier when you've got portioned or par-cooked items to hand. I'll put all of her links in the show notes so go check her out. She's also kindly recorded some regular monthly slots for the podcast to tell us how to freeze a range of different ingredient types and those will come up at the end of each month in my regular segment about how to save money and reduce waste.

So thanks for listening today. I'll see you again on Monday when we're talking to Emma Shafqat from Dietitian with a Difference about how to know whether your child's fussy eating is quote unquote a normal pickiness stage or if you should be thinking about getting some advice. Until then, happy eating.

0.00 Introduction to Kate Hall

1.10 Interview with Kate Hall

13.15 Summary and Outro

Key Takeaways:

The Full Freezer Method focuses on freezing individual items.
Freezing can help avoid food waste and save money.
Using the freezer is like pressing a pause button on ingredients.
Prepping ingredients in advance can simplify cooking.
You can freeze sauces and small portions for convenience.
Meal planning can be overwhelming for many families.
Having prepped ingredients makes cooking easier and more enjoyable.
Kate has lots of practical instructions on her instagram page