This thread is extremely motivating! We have too much in both our regular freezer and our upright freezer, so I am committing to cooking at least one meal out of the freezer every week. It was around 35F and raining this afternoon, so it was a good time to get busy. I made:
--a big batch of soup in the Instant Pot: turkey from Thanksgiving, kale I grew this spring, white beans, a cube of "hot sauce" I made from our peppers, sauteed bacon ends, onion, garlic, various seasonings. It was delicious, and got rid of two large freezer items.
--beef broth from bones we bought last year that have been languishing in our big freezer;
--roasted pumpkin (the neighbors brought us a bunch);
--split pea soup (chipotle peppers go in this, which had been lurking in the freezer for quite some time);
--turnip greens (okay, these didn't clear anything out of the freezer, but still involved items we already had).
I'd love to experiment with how long we could go without doing a "big shop". We'd still need to buy things like milk, coffee, etc. My spouse prefers to take the cautious one meal per week approach.