Meal Planning With Your Deep Freeze

Meal Planning with your Deep Freeze (1968) by Kathleen Thomas (Countrywise Books), ISBN: none — Condition: Good — as sold by Crappy Old Books

Behold the golden age of the chest freezer, when a sensible person could stare into an icy cavern the size of a pram and think: “Yes, that is where February will come from.” Kathleen Thomas’s cheerful 1968 manual is part cookbook, part logistics plan, and part pep talk for anyone who’s ever lost a pork chop to the polar night. It’s the vintage playbook for batch-cooking, labelling, and living off the frost—long before “meal prep” had an Instagram filter.

Inside you’ll find weekly menus, thrift-minded shopping lists, and the holy trinity of deep-freeze wisdom: portion, label, rotate. There are clever timelines (cook once, eat thrice), polite reminders that mystery parcels are not a food group, and calm instructions for the great domestic expedition known as Defrost Day (boil kettle, summon towels, think brave thoughts). Expect practical notes on what freezes like a dream (stews, pastry, soups), what survives with dignity (cakes, blanched veg), and what belongs in the realm of cautionary legend (salads, I’m looking at you). Along the way: family suppers, “company” casseroles, thrifty puddings, and the odd 1960s flourish—vol-au-vents may be involved, and we support you.

This copy is in Good condition: clean, complete, and reassuringly kitchen-tested. The cover shows light shelfwear, the pages have that gentle vintage creaminess, and if there’s the faintest memory of nutmeg in the air, that’s just ambience. No gelatin eruptions, no gravy landslides—just a sensible book that’s done a sensible amount of work.

Filed by Crappy Old Books, the home of domestically heroic paperbacks. If you’ve ever stood over a frost-rimed basket muttering “what is that parcel?”, this is your handbook. Label makers at the ready; February awaits in Drawer B.

Keep browsing: See more Food books Other books by Kathleen Thomas