How do I keep frozen stuff frozen while I defrost the freezer!??!??!

[Chirpygirl]

We are in the middle of a bit of a heatwave and the freezer is starting to get a little icy so I am thinking it's time to defrost, but I only have a small polysterene box thing for the most important stuff and my 3 drawer freezer is FULL!
What do I do???!

pop round to a neighbour and ask to squeeze some things in their freezer for a bit?

I'd wait till the weather cools down a bit if you can but if you're desperate, wrapping stuff in a load of damp newspaper and then packing it tightly into the bath works for a short time.

You need to defrost the freezer lickety split quick though.

Can't you eat stuff before you do it?

AND I've just realised it is a fridge freezer (bought it last year and havne't defrosted it yet!) so how do I turn it off?
Can I turn the whole thing off and keep the fridge door shut? will that be okay?

It needs to be tomorrow unfortunately as DH didn't shut the door properly earlier for about an hour so it is only just closing now, plus I can't get 2 of the drawers open now and my sunday roats is in there somewhere...(it might be eaten on monday instead!)

Do you have a spare duvet? Wrap it all up in that and defrost as quick as poss.

I had to do an emergent defrost on Monday, thanks to DP leaving the freezer door open ALL FECKING NIGHT

anyway, I wrapped up all I could in lots of news[paper and bunged it in the fridge, and it was in there for nigh on 4 hrs and didn;t defrost (all the frozen stuff was togethr in a bag as well)

I s[ped the defrosting process by placing bowls of boiling water into the freezer (you have to keep replacing the water, obv) and squirting hot water at the ice with a sqirty biottle thing.

I am really not looking forward to this! Luckily all my towels need washing so I shall soak them and then wash them...

Any hints on how to do it quickly?!

btw, I has to turn my fridge off as well, as they are on the sme switch (although are separate units ) and I didn't open the fridge door. All was well when I swic=tched it back on.

Ooh, squirty bottle, that's a great idea!
Unfortunately I did our monthly massive shop yesterday so fridge is full as well as freezer, so I really can't afford to lose all my frozen food!

heres myu thread from Mon with excellent suggestion

Be prepared for your hand to kill, as it takes a lot of squirting!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I tyhink the duvet suggestion might be your best bet.

If there is any meat that you are worried about, you might have to cook it later or in the morjing and then freeze it. I had loads of mince in the freezer that I ended up defrosting, and then cooking in one big batch, so now I have about a years worth of the basis of chillis/spag bols/shepherds pie in the freezer!

Thasnks for that, am x posting with everyone tonight!
If I have to cook it all it might not be such a bad thing as then I will have food in freezer but it would involve standing over oven all day which I really don't fancy in this heat!

URGENT MESSAGE FOR INTERGALACTIC WALRUS:

so sorry about this, but am quite certain that if you have frozen raw food in the freezer and then defrost it and cook it -

YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO FREEZE IT AGAIN AND EAT IT LATER.

In other words, if anything has defrosted, don't re-freeze and use it later (even if it has been cooked in the meantime).

Just thinking of your health.

If am wrong then sorry for getting the wind up, but I always thought this was the case (?). Someone else on MNet will surely have the definitive answer.

Dobn;t worry Daphne, It was mince that was frozen in the first place, which I was always led to believe is ok to freeze after cooking

I must admit, I have frozen stuff that was frozen raw but I have a cast iron constitution.

If you defrost something that is raw, and then cook it, it is quite safe to freeze the resulting dish.

I always thought that it was perfectly safe to freeze, defrost, cook and re-freeze food. The main thing is to make sure that you thoroughly heat it when you prepare it for eating. If not then I have been slowly poisoning my family for several years!!

As long as you have cooked it properly then it is fine to refreeze stuff, not that I had to as DH couldn't stop himself 'helping', got my hairdryer out and had it done in an hour!

Excellent - mine took several hours the other day, but I had the luxury of neighbours who went on holiday and left their chest freezer completely empty. How nice of them!