Week #1 assignment in the Kitchen Cure is to clean out your fridge and pantry. That includes the freezer, and we're considering one way to make more space: eliminating two of those ice trays above.
We're betting many of you who live in apartments use ice trays. Old refrigerators (or, as in our case, brand new ones that don't back up to a water source) don't have automatic ice makers, so ice trays it is. But we're using the entire top drawer of our freezer just for ice.
We have a container next to the ice trays that holds loose cubes. It looks like this:
We know, an embarrassing display of inefficiency, since we so often let that container sit empty. We don't need four ice trays; we just need to dump and refill two more often.
Even if you don't have a big, built-in holding tank, it makes a lot of sense to store a shallow container or bowl in your freezer where you can dump your ice tray(s). It makes getting ice cubes much, much easier—no prying out individual ones and then leaving a half-empty, waste-of-space tray in the freezer.
If the container is a narrow rectangle, you can even set one filled ice tray on top of the cubes you've already dumped. It won't take up much more space than having more than one tray, but you'll have much more ice.
Related: What's in Your Freezer?
(Images: Elizabeth Passarella)
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if I'm not mistaken, I believe your freezer will use less energy if it's full. so maybe toss some ice cubes but fill it back up with frozen goods.
i tossed a couple trays during last year's cure - i realized that i could just use a container like you describe if i ever needed more than one tray's worth of ice (for a dinner party, say). but i don't leave it in the freezer, i just use a large tupperware container and start making ice a day or two before it's needed.
Just signed up, my fridge and freezer could def. use a good cleaning out.
Although if I tossed even one ice cube tray I would be at -0.5 trays. I actually got this handy little 1/2 cube tray awhile back and its all we use, makes about 6 ice cubes.
What is frustrating is our fridge does have the auto ice maker, which btw takes up a huge portion of the freezer, but isnt hooked up (not near a water source like you said above). I looked into trying to remove it alltogether but im unsure how the landlord would feel about that. So for now I just keep a 1/2 tray and empty it into the tank that holds the ice the machine should be making every time I want some ice and refill it.
The extra is saved for when people are over. I'm of the Amy Sedaris school of entertaining, "The second you decide to throw a party start making ice. Buying a bag of it is cheating.
I actually rehauled my ice cube trays last year. i threw out 4 hard plastic ones and replaced them with 2 silicone ones. they're small, they stack, and they make perfectly square ice cubes. Like bokeh, I put a bowl in the freezer when i need more ice for something.
if I had a large freezer with dedicated ice space and room to spare, my tray of choice would be the vintage metal ones. They look cool, never make the ice taste funny, and they work into my trying to "deplasticize" our lives. unfortunately they don't stack so well so they don't work for us anymore.
I like having a lot of ice in my freezer as I don't have much frozen food and like someone else noted above, it's more energy efficient. So I have 4 trays (2 are vintage metal and I LOVE them!) plus a bin for loose cubes; all on the top shelf. And my bottom shelf still has room to spare. hm.
@elbow, you're quite correct. It also helps a lot when you have a power outage because lots of frozen things take much longer to melt than only a few frozen things. If you want to be nerdy/technical, it's called thermal loading. Same basic principle as putting bricks in your oven to even out the temp.
Nuts and flour cause the biggest trouble for me, as they can spill and make a HUGE mess. I've mostly shoved them onto the door, though. How I ended up with three partially consumed Costco bags of almonds will remain a mystery, though.
@Tiamat_the_red thank you for the primer on "thermal loading". Our summer place frequently experiences power outages and this is a very useful tip!
Katy
http://fengshuibyfishgirl.com
I have zero ice trays, and I don't miss them. I fill glasses/cups a quarter of the way up with ice and keep one or two in the freezer for guests. (I don't use ice much) The "ice glasses" work better than ice in my opinion. I have also cut up citrus (lemons, limes, oranges, etc) and frozen the pieces to put in water during a party. Citrus water and ice in less time.
We're not big ice consumers so I make ice (2 trays worth) every 3 weeks or so... I empty the trays into the plastic zippery-lock bag I keep especially to hold the ice. Then it won't develop funny flavors or shrink due to the auto-defrost system. I can then refill the freezer with stuff I really use... like ice cream. yum.
omd. ice. it's one of my greatest kitchen fears, the not having enough or running out, or being a guest at someones' house who is afflicted with the above. I feel kinda faint just considering it.
i am an ice fanatic and SO do not miss the days of apartment fridges with no icemaker, back before I knew how easy it is to install one.
how anyone can possibly "not use" or not miss not having ice is utterly beyond my comprehension.
I have an (electricitiy wasting) dedicated undercounter ice maker that makes enough for a party every single day. best appliance ever, wasteful tho it may be.
That's a fantastic idea to have a bucket for ice in the freezer. I never have enough ice and was about to go buy a couple more trays but now i'll just use a bucket from home.
I don't use ice at all, which is certainly uncluttered-but then there isn't that much call for it in the UK!