Quick Questions on reheating

thisismoneysaving

Sazzy, I think the rule is that you can freeze it ONCE when raw ONCE when cooked.

Hope I've helped.

zippychick

sazzy6 wrote: »

Okay I'm going to try to explain this but might not do a good job! LOL!

I have lots of meat in the freezer and I would like to spin them out to 2 or 3 meals per joint. Can I de-frost them, cook all the meat for 1 meal and then with the remaining meat make stews, pies etc... and then re-freeze them? I don't really understand the rules regarding this. Cheers

BTW my main meats are beef, lamb and pork

The rule i follow is

Once it is cooked, it can only be reheated once more.
If it is defrosted raw meat , then cooked, it can be refrozen and heated once more.

So in your above I think you would (for my taste) be reheating it once too many. So if you cooked a leg of lamb for example, then let it cool and then made a tagine - it is then cooked for the second time (which for me would be final). If you then froxe it and reheated once defrosted, it would be the third time so too much IMO

To show you how i got round this a few weeks ago, i was making chicken and leek pie to be cooked at a family do. I cooked the chicken in the oven, then put it straight into the sauce for the pie filling - so it was on one big chain of cooking. I only counted this as being cooked once as it never cooled inbetween.

Then the pie was cooked - so that was the second time. I could also have frozen the pie instead ready to be cooked another time.

Is it possible to cook the joint as you intend to use it - so instead use the leg of lamb in a tagine sauce? (eg of lamb, i dont know what you are thinking of cooking)

I may be wrong here, and others may cook it more than I do, but i am paranoid of poisoning myself.:o

Hadley

I hope this is not a daft question but I bought a smoked ham from Sommerfield and I was going to make several recipes from it and freeze them but it says on the packaging do not reheat.
I normally buy my ham from the butchers but Sommerfield had a good deal on and at the moment every pound is a prisoner.Hope someone can help.

piglet6

I think that as long as you bring the dishes with the ham in them back up to a "proper" heat before serving them (i.e. hot enough to banish any bacteria), you will be fine. Manufacturers have to err on the side of caution when labelling their products because of the whole "compensation culture" we are living in today.

Presumably, the dishes would either be cooked well before being frozen, or cooked well after being defrosted (or possibly both!). I think you should be fine in this case and I would certainly use the ham in this way without worrying... :D

Piglet
x

Penelope_Penguin

As this has fallen from the front page of OS, I'll add it to the existing thread on reheating

Penny. x

Katgoddess

Just made this chicken casserole for tea tonight with chicken thighs with bones in them. How would I reheat the casserole for when OH gets in from work later? I normally buy without bones so I'm a bit confused.

Sorry, for the stupid question. I have a bit of a bone phobia, so it's all new to me. :o:o

Edit: Also can I freeze with the bones in?

zippychick

Hiya! I would just reheat and freeze as normal. The bones don't make any difference (as far as I know anyway, but now you've questioned it you're making me wonder.....)

I would just treat it normally, if you are freezing it, i would freeze some now rather than reheat it all again, then freeze as it will have been cooked too many times (for my personal taste anyway). So only reheat what you need x

Barneysmom

Looks like a tasty recipe, next time you could throw in a handful of red lentils or presoaked dried beans to make it go further

I usually freeze mine in little tubs so we don't have to defrost th whole lot in one go.

Mm I want some now I've seen that recipe.

Katgoddess

It smells gorgeous! I added a tin of green beans that I had lying around as well.

So if I was going to reheat in the microwave it would be ok, even though the chicken thigh is thicker?

How would you reheat it?

CCP

You should be able to reheat it either in the microwave, in the oven or in a pan on the stove - whatever's best for you. Just make sure it's piping hot all the way through, including the chicken pieces, and you'll be fine.

Enjoy your casserole - I wish that's what I had for dinner now!