**Get Your Freezer Ready for Winter — 12 Foods You'll REGRET Not Buying Now! — Transcript & Summary | SozAI** Source: https://sozai.app/transcript/freezer-winter-foods-buy-now/ Amish host Elias shares how to stock your freezer with 12 cheap seasonal foods, including ground beef and October apples, plus tips to prevent freezer burn and freeze foods properly. ## Key Takeaways - Buy seasonal and marked-down foods in autumn and freeze them to save money through winter - Freezer burn is caused by air exposure, so remove air from bags and label them with dates - Freeze ground beef flat in portioned bags to thaw quickly and store efficiently - Apple pie filling and beaten eggs freeze well when prepared correctly beforehand ## What the video covers - Groceries are cheapest in the weeks before winter, and freezing lets you buy at autumn prices for winter meals - The main theme is that freezing preserves food well when done correctly, and that freezer burn comes from air exposure, not the cold itself - Ground beef markdowns near its sell-by date are a bargain; freeze it the same day, portion it into flat bags, and remove air - Water displacement is demonstrated as a no-vacuum-sealer method to remove air from bags - Ground beef should be eaten within about 4 months and labeled with the freezing date - Bruised or 'second' apples are cheap in October; they should be sliced, treated with lemon water, and frozen as pre-mixed pie filling - Frozen pie fillings can be baked directly from frozen, with extra baking time - Eggs should be frozen beaten in muffin tins rather than whole, and yolks need a pinch of salt or sugar to thaw properly - The video promotes a website (frugalamish.com) and an apple peeler product link, and asks viewers to subscribe and comment - The narrative is built around the host's grandmother's freezer habits and Amish family traditions ## Chapters 1. 00:00 Introduction: Autumn Prices and the Freezer 2. 02:19 Why Freezing Works and Why Food Goes Bad 3. 05:43 Introduction to the 12 Foods 4. 06:58 Number 12: Ground Beef and Flat Freezing 5. 14:55 Removing Air and Preventing Freezer Burn 6. 15:15 Number 11: Apples and Pie Filling 7. 21:21 Number 10: Eggs and Freezing Methods 8. 26:00 Closing Remarks and Call to Action Answers ## Questions about this video Why does the video say ground beef is a good buy right before its sell-by date? Stores mark down ground beef near its last day to sell, often by half, but the meat is not spoiled. If it is frozen the same day it is bought, the freezing stops its aging clock. How does the video suggest removing air from freezer bags? It recommends slowly lowering the open bag into a bowl of water so the water pushes the air out the top, then sealing it just above the waterline, with no vacuum sealer needed. Why should eggs be frozen in a muffin tin instead of whole? Whole eggs expand as they freeze, which splits the shell. Beating them and freezing them in muffin cups avoids the mess, and adding a little salt or sugar to the yolks keeps them from thawing thick and gummy. ## Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown 00:00 Speaker A Right now, this very week, friend, groceries cost about as little as they will all year. 00:07 Speaker A The farm stands want their tables empty before the hard freeze. 00:21 Speaker A The orchards are selling bruised apples by the bushel, and in a few weeks the stores will mark down butter and turkeys to pull the holiday bakers through the door. 00:30 Speaker A Then it ends. 00:36 Speaker A By the time the Christmas lights come down, nearly every one of those prices has climbed, and it stays there until spring. 00:51 Speaker A But you already own the way around it, friend. 01:05 Speaker A It is humming in your kitchen right now. 01:20 Speaker A That freezer lets you pay October's prices for January suppers. 01:26 Speaker A So, what is in it? 01:41 Speaker A Be honest. 01:53 Speaker A A carton of ice cream, half a bag of chicken nuggets the grandchildren left behind, and way in the back, a bag with no name on it, white with frost, that you are a little afraid to open. 02:08 Speaker A That is like keeping a good draft horse in the barn and only ever hitching him up to fetch the mail. 02:19 Speaker A And you know how that frosty bag ends. 02:27 Speaker A It thaws out gray and dry, tasting the way the freezer smells. 02:34 Speaker A Good food bought with good money, and into the trash it goes. 02:39 Speaker A So, we decide freezing ruins food, and come January we stand at the produce case turning over a pale, hard tomato that rode a truck across half the country, and we buy it anyway because supper is at 5:00. 02:48 Speaker A Sit down a minute, friend. 02:54 Speaker A Freezing never ruined anybody's food. 03:03 Speaker A Freezing it the wrong way did. 03:10 Speaker A Done right, February looks different. 03:20 Speaker A You lift that lid on a gray afternoon and pull out an apple pie ready for the oven, tomatoes that still taste like August, broccoli as green as the day it was picked. 03:32 Speaker A Not one trip to the store, and it feels a little like you got away with something. 03:44 Speaker A My grandmother put it in one line, the first one I wrote down when I put her kitchen on paper. 03:57 Speaker A The cold keeps food. 04:11 Speaker A The air steals it. 04:21 Speaker A So, 12 foods to buy now while they are cheap and the right way to freeze each one. 04:33 Speaker A One of them, the freezer even peels for you. 04:40 Speaker A And number one is the thing I put away deepest every single year. 04:57 Speaker A It is probably not what you are guessing. 05:06 Speaker A It takes no work at all. 05:12 Speaker A And for about 3 weeks in November, the stores nearly give it away. 05:18 Speaker A My name is Elias. 05:28 Speaker A I am Amish from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. 05:43 Speaker A My grandmother never had a freezer in her house. 05:59 Speaker A She rented a drawer to the frozen food locker in town, and every fall she filled it until the lid barely shut. 06:08 Speaker A Ours is a gas freezer out in the wash house, and it still gets filled her way. 06:19 Speaker A If you are new here, subscribe so the next one finds you. 06:34 Speaker A And in the comments, tell me what is in your freezer right now. 06:49 Speaker A Now. 06:57 Speaker A Number 12. 07:13 Speaker A Because the cheapest meat in the whole store is the package with tomorrow's date on it. 07:26 Speaker A Number 12. 07:38 Speaker A Ground beef. 07:51 Speaker A Family size packs on sale, and above all the ones wearing a bright markdown sticker. 08:06 Speaker A When the meat reaches its last day, the manager marks it down, often by half, usually first thing in the morning. 08:14 Speaker A And most folks walk right past them because the sticker makes them nervous. 08:23 Speaker A And those packs do not wait for you. 08:29 Speaker A By 10:00 in the morning, the folks who know about them have already been through. 08:37 Speaker A Here is the truth about that meat. 08:49 Speaker A Nothing is wrong with it. 08:59 Speaker A It is cheap because the store ran out of days to sell it, not because it went bad. 09:13 Speaker A My grandmother had a rule for it, and it is in the kitchen books just the way she said it. 09:21 Speaker A The day you bring it home is the day it goes in. 09:30 Speaker A Freeze it that same afternoon, and the clock stops right where it was. 09:37 Speaker A It does not start again until you thaw it. 09:43 Speaker A So, buy those packs, and when you get home, divide them up. 09:57 Speaker A A pound to a bag. 10:12 Speaker A If it is just the two of you at the table now, make it half a pound. 10:28 Speaker A Then lay each bag on the counter and press it flat and thin, about like a paperback book. 10:41 Speaker A Quick, while I have you, friend. 10:47 Speaker A My grandmother's locker drawer fed a houseful every winter, and I wrote down how she filled it along with the rest of her kitchen in a bundle of kitchen books. 11:03 Speaker A It is at frugalamish.com, linked in the description and the pinned comment. 11:10 Speaker A Now, back to that flat bag. 11:27 Speaker A Because flat does two things for you. 11:33 Speaker A Flat bags stand up in a row like books on a shelf, so you can read every one of them instead of hunting through a heap of frozen rocks. 11:45 Speaker A And a thin bag thaws far faster than a frozen lump. 11:51 Speaker A Lay it in a pan of cold water, and it is ready for the skillet in under an hour. 12:03 Speaker A Chili, meat sauce, tacos, a meatloaf on a Sunday, all winter long, all at the October price. 12:18 Speaker A Now, the air. 12:30 Speaker A Remember that gray dry bag in the back? 12:44 Speaker A That is freezer burn. 12:53 Speaker A The cold is not what did it. 13:00 Speaker A The air in the bag did, drying the meat out a little at a time all winter. 13:09 Speaker A The same way a slice of bread dries out when you leave it on the counter overnight. 13:23 Speaker A So, get the air out. 13:35 Speaker A Here is an easy trick. 13:47 Speaker A Fill a big bowl with water and slowly lower the open bag down into it. 14:01 Speaker A The water squeezes the air right out the top, and you zip it shut just above the water line. 14:16 Speaker A No vacuum sealer needed. 14:28 Speaker A Ground beef is best eaten within about 4 months. 14:41 Speaker A Write the month on the bag with a marker before it goes in, every time. 14:55 Speaker A That is number 12. 15:10 Speaker A And the next one comes from the one month of the year the orchards are glad to see you. 15:23 Speaker A Number 11, apples, and not the pretty ones. 15:37 Speaker A October is the only month apples are truly cheap, and the cheapest of all are the seconds, the ones with a bruise, a hail spot, a funny shape. 15:48 Speaker A Most orchards sell them by the half bushel for a fraction of what the perfect ones cost, and inside they are every bit as good, but not for long. 16:03 Speaker A Most orchard stands close for the season around Thanksgiving, and the seconds are the first thing to go. 16:17 Speaker A Pick firm baking apples. 16:23 Speaker A A soft eating apple turns to mush. 16:35 Speaker A My grandmother kept her slices from browning by dropping everyone straight into a crock of cold salt water while she worked. 16:39 Speaker A It works, but I can taste the salt, so I use lemon. 16:55 Speaker A The juice of half a lemon in a big bowl of cold water, then peel and slice, and in they go for a few minutes. 17:02 Speaker A A cut apple browns because the inside is meeting the air. 17:15 Speaker A The lemon sourness slows that right down. 17:29 Speaker A Now, here is the smart part, and this one I took from her exactly as she did it. 17:43 Speaker A Do not freeze plain slices. 17:51 Speaker A Freeze pies. 18:06 Speaker A Toss the slices with the sugar, the cinnamon, and a spoon of flour, just as you would for a pie, and put enough for one pie in each bag. 18:20 Speaker A Freeze it flat. 18:35 Speaker A The kitchen books say it in one line. 18:45 Speaker A Freeze a supper, not an ingredient. 18:59 Speaker A Then, one gray afternoon in February, you unroll a crust, dump that frozen bag right in, no thawing, lay the top crust on, and bake it about 20 minutes longer than usual. 19:13 Speaker A 5 minutes of work. 19:18 Speaker A The first February I did that, Esther cut a slice while it was still far too hot. 19:32 Speaker A She took one bite and set her fork down. 19:43 Speaker A She did not say anything for a moment. 19:57 Speaker A Then she said, "That is October." 20:11 Speaker A If you put up a lot of apples, a hand-crank apple peeler makes short work of it. 20:24 Speaker A The cast iron kind that clamps to the edge of the table peels, cores, and slices an apple with a few turns of the handle. 20:37 Speaker A I have linked one in the description below. 20:51 Speaker A That is number 11. 21:06 Speaker A And the next one, you have watched happen at the grocery store more than once. 21:22 Speaker A Number 10, eggs. 21:36 Speaker A Yes, eggs. 21:53 Speaker A You know how it goes. 21:59 Speaker A The carton costs one thing in the fall and a good deal more by February. 22:14 Speaker A One winter not long ago, some stores even put a limit on how many cartons you could buy. 22:30 Speaker A Our own hens know that winter, too. 22:42 Speaker A When the days get short, they slow down and by December we are lucky to get a few eggs a day out of the whole flock. 22:53 Speaker A So, in our house, October eggs have to carry us a long way. 23:08 Speaker A Now, I know what you are thinking. 23:19 Speaker A Eggs in the freezer? 23:32 Speaker A Yes, friend, just never whole. 23:47 Speaker A As an egg freezes, it grows. 23:52 Speaker A The shell splits and you have a mess. 23:59 Speaker A Here is how. 24:10 Speaker A Crack them into a bowl and whisk just enough to break up the yolks. 24:23 Speaker A Then pour them into a muffin tin, about one egg to each cup, freeze them solid, pop them out, and keep them in a bag. 24:39 Speaker A One small thing makes all the difference. 24:51 Speaker A A yolk frozen plain thaws thick and gummy. 25:06 Speaker A So, for every cup of eggs, 25:19 Speaker A Think how many pounds your house goes through in a month, holidays and all, and multiply by nine. 25:25 Speaker A That carries you right through to the end of summer. So, when that sale comes, I fill the cart. 25:31 Speaker A The young fellow at the register looked at our cart last year like we were opening a bakery. 25:36 Speaker A I did not mind one bit. Every pie crust, every skillet of fried potatoes, every slice of bread with butter on it clear through to summer, bought in the cheapest stretch of the whole year. That is real money for no work at all, and 25:49 Speaker A that is why it is number one. Now, I promised to tell you why nobody at the grocery store will ever teach you this. 25:56 Speaker A The store counts on when you shop. Most of us buy supper on the day we eat it. 26:01 Speaker A So, in January, the store can ask January prices and we pay them because supper is at 5:00. And that frozen dinner aisle? That is the store renting you back your own freezer. A little tray of food somebody else froze for many 26:16 Speaker A times what it would cost you to freeze it yourself. Nobody is plotting against us. 26:22 Speaker A They simply do fine when we do not plan ahead, so nobody hurries to show us how. 26:27 Speaker A Each bag that goes in your freezer this fall is one winter purchase pulled off the store's calendar and paid for at fall prices. So, one thing this week, only one. 26:38 Speaker A Buy a half bushel of apple seconds and make three pie kits the way I just showed you. It takes an afternoon. Then on some gray day in February, put one in a crust. Once you have tasted October in 26:50 Speaker A the middle of winter, you will not need another word from me about the rest. And this February, when you lift that lid, there will be no frosty bag with no name on it in the back. There will be a row 27:01 Speaker A of flat bags standing up like books, everyone with a name and a month on it. 27:06 Speaker A Everyone bought when food was cheapest. It is the very same freezer you have right now. You are only using it differently. Down in the comments, tell me what your family always put up every fall. Everybody has one thing. I learn 27:20 Speaker A something from you every time. Stay patient. Stay deliberate. And remember, the people who built this country with their hands knew things we are only just beginning to remember. 27:31 Speaker A I am Elias. Good day. Topics: freezer storage freezing food batch cooking frugal living ground beef freezing apple pie filling freezer burn budget groceries Amish cooking food preservation Study this video - [Flashcards from this video](https://sozai.app/tools/ai-flashcard-generator/?from=transcript&id=83223) - [Quiz on this video](https://sozai.app/tools/quiz-generator/?from=transcript&id=83223) Free, made by AI from this transcript. No signup. --- This is the markdown twin of https://sozai.app/transcript/freezer-winter-foods-buy-now/ — the same content, without the markup. Published by SozAI (https://sozai.app). 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