Freezer failure - insurance and what can I refreeze

bluep

Major disaster here - our fridge freezer failed yesterday (the freezer bit only) and in pulling it out to look at why, my other half switched off the plugs and didn't turn them all on again, meaning our small box freezer has now also defrosted....

So, I have lost all the baby food I've made and frozen in small portions for our toddler. The rest of the two freezers were full of chickens, organic mince, sunday joints etc.. basically whatever I've been able to pick up on nearly out of date reductions and special offers.

So, our household insurance is pretty comprehensive and I'm sure freezer failure is in there - am I best to claim for the plugs being accidently switched off and both freezers going defrosting, or just to say the one freezer failed and we lost all the food in that one? I reakon we've lost around £100 of food at least. Plus what evidence will they ask for? Photos? The repair reciept for the main freezer?

Secondly, I now have a fridge full of partially defrosting meat - its been frozen once raw, can I use it in recipes like sausage casserole, chicken risotto, etc... and then freeze it cooked? I think I read somewhere you can freeze food once raw and freeze it once cooked but I'm not sure and want to use the organic stuff to restock all our toddler meals. Help!!

thanks!

freda

Yes, if the food has defrosted and not sat around for ages, get cooking! I'd cook all the chickens, joints etc. Let them cool, and chop them up into:

- sliced meats that you can defrost for salads, sandwiches etc (freeze in portion sizes, or make up sandwiches and freeze them to take out in the morning for quick and easy lunch)
- bits of meat you can use in stir fries, pies, pizza toppings etc (freeze in portion sizes)
- remnants of meat you can use with the bones to make soup (and freeze in portion sizes)

Use other meats to make casseroles/stews, rissottos, meat in tomato sauce.

Cook the meat up into bolognaise sauce and either freeze as it is, in portion sizes, or make up into lasagne, shepherd's pie, meatballs etc.

bluep

Thanks! I can do stuff with it all, but didn't know whether it was safe to refreeze once cooked. It all went partially defrosted into the fridge to finish defrosting so not been left anywhere that's not cold! Going to cook it up tomorrow so it will just be properly defrosted by then.

The main pain was a) not plannign to spend my bank holiday monday doing a super cook and b) I'd recently restocked our toddler's freezer drawer with lots of home cooked portions for easier feeding dinners! Cooking all that lot again and all the variety of dishes will take a while...

tawnyowls

bluep wrote:

So, our household insurance is pretty comprehensive and I'm sure freezer failure is in there - am I best to claim for the plugs being accidently switched off and both freezers going defrosting, or just to say the one freezer failed and we lost all the food in that one? I reakon we've lost around £100 of food at least. Plus what evidence will they ask for? Photos? The repair reciept for the main freezer?

Probably the latter - the first makes it more your fault! Depends on the insurance - as someone mentioned in the Sunday Times yesterday, some insurance companies insist on you keeping the food until a loss assessor comes round (as the columnist pointed out, nice in a heatwave!), while others will just send you a claim form. Usually these go through pretty easily, because it's a small claim - if you have receipts, great; if not, they may ask you to replace the food and send the new receipts, but my insurance company accepted Tesco's price checker as proof of how much stuff cost.

Sutty

Our chest freezer defrosted in the summer but it took us about a week to realise so as you can imagine it was awful. I got the meat straight down the tip because the stench was unbearable. When I spoke to the insurance company (Tesco) they told me I should have kept all the defrosted food for them to look at. I told them not to be so stupid as it was all rancid meat and there was no way that was staying in the garden until they could be bothered to have a look. They then suggested photos which may be a good option in your case. I ended up not bothering because I had to pay the first £50 anyway.
Photograph and document everything and give it a go.
P.S I blamed mine on the kids which worked well.