If you live where there is snow cover, put your frozen food in sealed containers outside in the shade and keep the containers covered with snow.

Move food from your refrigerator to the now empty freezer. Freeze half-full bottles of water (Clorox bottles work great) on their sides outside overnight (will not split that way) and place them in the freezer to keep your food cool. The freezer works better than your refrigerator for this as it is better insulated, and if it is a chest freezer, it will retain the cold air better when you open it.

-- John (jh@NotReal.ca), December 02, 1999

Answers

Agreed. In about 10 days, buying a bunch of bags of frozen dark green vegetables (peas, spinach, broccoli) from the grocery and utilizing "Nature's freezer" (until sometime in April at least) is something my household will do.

www.y2ksafeminnesota.com

-- MinnesotaSmith (y2ksafeminnesota@hotmail.com), December 02, 1999.

Our kitchen sticks out of the back of the house (3 outside walls), so I have a door ready to put in place, between the dining room and kitchen, and plan on not heating the kitchen. This way, it acts as an "air-lock" to keep outside air out of the heated portion of the house, and will also help the refrigerated foods last longer. I'm in a fairly cold climate (daytime temps, in January, average around 42 with over night lows averaging in the lower 20's), so the kitchen temperature will probably stay somewhere around 40 (someheat will be generated by cooking). A fridge is basically a big cooler, so things could go for a while, assuming normal or colder January temperatures, before we have much problem with food spoilage (also have jugs of ice, in the basement freezer, ready to put in the fridge).

We also have a small wood cabinet, with a good tight latch, already on the back porch. If the power goes out in the middle of a bad cold snap, we can stick the frozen food out there.

However you store your refridgerated foods, keep a close eye on the temps, and have a thermometer inside of whatever storage medium you're using. For refrigerated foods, the temp needs to stay below 40 degrees fahrenheit.

-- Bokonon (bok0non@my-Deja.com), December 02, 1999.

Watch the temps on those 'back porches'! I was shocked to discover that my 'fridged' back porch became a virtual 'green house', once the leaves were of the trees!

-- kathy (catfish@bestweb.net), December 02, 1999.