Freezing, defrosting, cooking.

edonhill

Oh right, thanks for that. I did wonder if that might be the case. I might give this batch-cooking lark a whirl myself and see how I get on!

morwenna

Cool it down. You will make your freezers internal temp raise otherwise, making it use more elec and also raining the internal temp possibly unsafe

Pink.

Hi edonhill,

It's very important to cool food that you are planning to freeze before putting it into the freezer. If you add hot food to the freezer it will affect the temperature in the freezer and other food stored could be adversely affected.

Pink

edonhill

Thank you all - I will make sure I cool it down first - main challenge will be remembering to go back and put the flipping stuff in the freezer once its cooled!!!

belfastgirl23

a physicist friend of mine advised that you should always defrost your food in the fridge overnight where possible. Apparently if you defrost too fast you can break down some of the cells in the food and this makes it mushy. Particularly an issue with some frozen veg - if you've ever tried cooking broccoli from frozen you'll know what I mean (ugh!). It isn't a food safety issue as I understand it, just a taste issue. That said I regularly defrost pizza dough in the micro (defrost setting) and the only problem is that it can be a bit less stretchy than if I defrost it the normal way.

BTW all my tupperware is stained from tomato foods but I figure who wants pristine tupperware anyway

Kaz2904

The only reason that things say you shouldn't freeze tomato based foods is because tomato stains. If you have ever heated baked beans in your clear tupperware then you'll see tomato juice stains.
Anything glass wouldn't stain. I suspect they say this to stop you wanting to get your money back because of immovable stains!

soappie

With tomato based foods, you could always put the tomato based food in a plastic freezer bag and seal the top. Then put the bag into a tupperware box. Once frozen, you can remove the box and the stuff in the plastic bag is nicely 'box' shaped taking up less room in the freezer

Katgoddess

Does anyone have any recommended recipes? Idiot proof ones with all the correct defrosting and cooking times?

I am having a baby in April and would like to stock my freezer up with wholesome food.

dlb

I always freeze as much stuff as possible, always let it go complety cold before freezing.
I often make up to many plates full when doing a roast, then freeze the whole dinner ready for use another day.
I tend to defrost everything before reheating, i just get out the night before i want it and leave in microwave (so cat doesnt get it) i dont very often defrost in fridge or use microwave to defrost as i find i starts to cook the item but that maybe just my rubbish defrost setting on my microwave.

As for freezing food for babys, i did this alot when mine where younger, i would cook things such as carrots and potatoes, peas ect mash atogether with a little gravy then freeze in small pots (enought for one meal for baby), cod in butter sauce is another great dish my kids like as babys. Again i would get out the evening before how many i would need for next day, then when needed either warm through in small pan or blizt in microwave ( but be careful to leave for few minutes if using microwave to warm up as food will continue to warm after you take out.Just do the top lip test before feeding baby.
Hope that helps.

vanilla

Thanks everyone for all the tips, i'm gonna try the batch cooking tomorrow and when it comes to reheating just put it at 165 degrees or over and check it after 30 minutes or so until the middle is hot, think that's right.