When you cook big batches of food to stash away in the deep freezer for an easy meal later, Thingybase can help manage all the inventory so you waste less of it. Even better, you can search your freezer from the comfort of your couch if you're sitting there wondering, "what's for dinner tonight?"
What you need
You'll need the following to get started:
- A Thingybase account
- Thermal label printer
- Deep freezer
- Freezer safe containers or bags
Watch the video
How to do it
You already have a deep freezer plugged in and probably full of food. Ideally you're storing your food in old food containers, like cottage cheese or large yogurt containers, to reduce plastic waste. Make sure your thermal label printer is plugged in and working on your network; you'll be printing labels with it from your phone or computer.
Alright, lets get to it.
Create "Deep freezer" in Thingybase
First, find or create the room in your Thingybase account items where your deep freezer is located. Click + Add item, enter the name "Deep freezer", and check the Allow items to be contained within this item check box. Next click Create item, which saves it to your account. If you want, click More..., Change icon and select the freezer icon so it stands out a bit more.
Add items to the deep freezer
Once you've created the deep freezer in Thingybase, it's time to start adding all the food you want to inventory. From the deep freezer, click + Add item, Choose from template..., Perishable. Then enter the name of the item, an expiration date (you can free form it, like "6 months from now" or "next March"), and pick an icon if you'd like. When you're all done, click Create Item.
Print labels
After all the items are added to Thingybase, print the labels and slap them on the food containers. You'll scan these later when you take the food out so you can quickly delete them from your inventory.
Here's what it looks like after I printed a bunch of labels for a batch of sous vide pork belly:
Store in deep freezer
Once all of the items are labeled, stash it all away in the deep freezer to enjoy another day. You'll be happy you did after you don't feel like cooking from scratch after a long day of work.
Using food from the freezer
A few weeks or months later, when you're feeling hungry, you might be wondering what's in your deep freezer that you could make for dinner.
Search for items
Head to your items and search for whatever you feel like eating. If you don't find it, navigate to your deep freezer in Thingybase to see what's inside of it.
Remove from inventory
When you're ready to eat an item you'll need to remove it from Thingybase. To do that turn the camera on your phone, hold up the item so the label is clearly visible and a link should appear. When you open that link you'll be taken to that item in Thingybase. All you do now is delete the item and its gone from Thingybase. That's it, well, except for reheating your delicious meal. Enjoy!
