Defrosting chickeny thing

[macneil]

I've finally made my first move to meat, in my slow weaning process, and spent the morning making Annabel Karmel's one pot chicken stew, which I've pureed and put in little pots. Now, when I've made the baby carrot/squash/sweet potato mushes, I've just reheated them from frozen in from the kettle water or a sort of bain marie. The thing is, I was in hospital for a long time as a kid, and my mum used to bring me her delicious home cooked meals and use the hospital microwave and it made them taste genuinely disgusting. So she started bringing in cold cooked food instead, which was just as yummy as it always had been. So I'm sort of loathe to use the microwave. But now I've added chicken, I basically don't have a choice, is that correct? Or could I carry on with my bain marie method, but just leave longer? I'm worried it wouldn't get chicken hot enough from frozen. Annabel Karmel doesn't seem to tell me what to do.

[winestein]

I was always a microwave feind when weaning.
If that makes you extremely unhappy though, you could always but a small glass bowl in a saucepan with water in the bottom and heat conventionally?

[Mercy]

I'm a bit confused - can you explain again?

Have you let the chicken stew defrost first?

Or have you reheated it straight from frozen?

[macneil]

Winestein: that's what I do with the veggie ones. I've just made and frozen it so far, never defrosted the meat one yet. I guess I could just microwave and stop being illegally precious.

[winestein]

Well you should be fine if you are actually lighting a fire underneath the saucepan and cooking it until the food is hot, hot, very hot (then allowing it to cool of course!)
But I bet your DC won;t give a hoot whether it is microwaved or not - and it is much much easier.
That said, we are all allowed to be precious over whatever we choose so if you want to make things difficult for yourself....

[macneil]

That is a very smart way of looking at it, and although I do lean towards the insane, doing it a couple of times every day, checking the temperature etc. seems a bit too indulgently wacky. Hello microwave. It's not like I could even stop her eating if I tried. I have to have a dummy ready when the vast bottles of milk are finished because she seems to have no 'I've had enough' mechanism and ALWAYS screams for more.

Thanks for the common sense.

[calordan]

i know what you mean about microwaves back then, they were really crap and made everything like rubber and completely dried up, still not a huge fan but are fine for heating up.

[alexw]

place bag/pot in bowl of cold water to defrost - this will be v quick then reheat either in pan or microwave (should stop that rubbery/hard bit thing happening)

[winestein]

lol Macneil I love the phrase indulgently whacky