Ok. I know I am a C**k but how do I use a freezer?

[Minkychunky]

I have just bought a freezer- god I am nearly 40. Years of living in tiny flats and houses with no space. I have only ever used ice boxes for ice, Vodka and Ben & Jerry's

I want to know how you use the food from the freezer. I am a bit cinfused as I have seen people cook from frozen but recently I have noticed (looking on packaging) that most stuff needs to be defrosted thoroughly. I am panicking that I will poison my family. What do I do with food that I have cooked and prepared myself?

I thought that meat or chicken needed at least defrosting overnight (out of the fridge) but I read on a thread here recently that a poster was going to cook chicken for her family in a couple of hours from the freezer. Had mum gone to Iceland?

Bread can be put in the toaster straight from can't it? I tried some cream (I was told that would be ok) and it defrosted and looked like scrambled egg and smelt like yuck.

Teach me oh wise ones on the ways of using the freezer. Excluding Turkey Twizzlers if you please.

But someone posted saying they wpu;d defrost in water. WTF you put the chicken in a warm bath?

Isn't that begging for E-Coililly?

Generally things can be frozen and defrosted once only. However, if you have frozen raw chicken or meat, it can be defrosted, cooked and refrozen. Just make sure you defrost and reheat till piping hot.
Hth.

If I forget to take meat out the day before I defrost it in the microwave (on the defrost setting) before cooking. I don't always defrost mince (ditto MDDIS).

Food that has been cooked once needs only to be reheated. I tend to (again) use the microwave for re-heating and do this from frozen. It must be piping hot though, all the way through.

Congratulations! (I didn't get a dishwasher until I was 42!)

I always thoroughly defrost meat before cooking. We don't have big pieces of meat (eg whole chicken or joints for roasting) but things like sausages, steak, chicken breasts etc can take anything from 3-5 hours to defrost. It also partly depends on how warm your kitchen is.

Agree with others re mince - it's perfectly ok to cook if it's still partly frozen.

You can also buy tin foil dishes with lids to freeze your own meals.

But in a warm kitchen doesn't the bacteria muliply too rapidly or is the stuff defrosted in the fridge? It's a minefield.

I don't have a microwave. (am a luddite)
A dishwasher, are you menkle?

Overnight in the fridge or for a couple of hours in the kitchen.

I tend to put chicken back in the fridge once it's pretty much defrosted.

You can defrost stuff at room temperature, the key is to cook it thoroughly afterwards. Nothing is going to go off in that short a time. If in doubt, plan ahead and defrost in the fridge 24 hours in advance.

BTW, cream only works if it is whipped before being frozen, apparently.

I like my microwave as (apparently) the energy used to cook in them is much less, and therefore cheaper, than using the oven or hob top.

"cook your own soup/curry/chilli and pour into freezer bags(more space saving than boxes)"

I actually freeze in boxes and then transfer to bags. They stack better then.

I don't have a microwave or a dishwasher, or a toaster come to think of it!
I do have a huge freezer and a slow cooker though. I love them both

Muggle that is a fabulous idea.

Now I need to search out the meal planners to help me in my quest to be a DG.

Better late than never.

A slow cooker you say?

Tell me more.

Slow cooker fab. Chuck joint of meat in in the morning. Go out all day. Eat lovely tender meat in the evening. Also it makes lots of meat juice so you can make fab gravy.

Yep, I've only had mine a few months and it's ancient, at least 20 years old but I don't know how I lived without it.
Chuck food in, in the morning and then serve at dinner time with minimal fuss and it turns cheap cuts of meat into utterly delicious, tender, really tasty meals.
I love it for soups too, and chicken stock. It goes hand in hand with my big freezer.
Both belonged to my Mum and my Dad just didn't use them so he gave them to me (along with the Kenwood Chef which I am so proud of owning lol) and I would be lost without them now