The big unfreeze

I opened my freezer door yesterday and felt a familiar blast of icy air and guilt. The inside resembles a cross between a snowdrift and something the Titanic bumped into. There are ominous white bulges and sparkly hard edges; the drawers knock against frigid lumps and I have to wrench them to get to the contents. In short, it's a frozen disgrace. I wouldn't be surprised if a flock of penguins came waddling out.

I think it was the blessed Nigella who counselled against using your freezer as dustbin, and I've tried to stick to this advice. I know there's sensible stuff in there, like home-made chicken stock, cubes of grated ginger and garlic for my Asian cooking, vine and lime leaves, sausages and mince from Muck and Magic, home-made tomato sauce and pesto, an Abel and Cole venison pie, peas and broad beans.

But there's elderly stuff too: a kipper that I bought but didn't fancy eating straight away, the end of a block of puff pastry, a beetroot pesto that I made ohmygod two years ago. And lord, there are the beet gnocchi I made earlier this year.

And when I really root around, there are solid blocks which I can't even identify - is that a soup? Or a sauce? Can that be the last of the lamb keema I made heaven knows when? What is this brown stuff?

Action is required. Over the next four weeks, I plan to Eat the Freezer, and then defrost the monster. I inherited the freezer with the house, and it's pretty elderly. There's gonna be a lot of water...

H/t to National Geographic for the fab frosty animal pics