Could what I don't know, kill me?

Framer — Tue, 14 Feb 2006 16:25:56 -0800

Frozen food fiasco filter. My freezer was off for 48 hours. It was not opened during this time. Which items are still safe? Items in question, all store-packaged still: bacon, ground turkey, ground lamb, boneless chicken breasts. Also some home-made lasagne (meat and cheese), frozen after it was cooked. Everything's still cold, but nothing is icy anymore.

I've found information online about some of this, but want to know if anyone here has had personal experience and survived (or made themselves ill). Can I salvage any of my food? How about my pride?

Reconciliing foodie-ism with a low budget. Assets: a freezer.

librarina — Mon, 30 May 2005 18:38:26 -0800

We are looking for foods and ingredients that are unaffected (or positively affected) by being frozen. We've recently become cooks and love having fresh ingredients around rather than prepackaged/prepared dishes or mixes. However, we are only two people, and a whole eggplant is too much for us, and a whole quart of cream goes bad before we can cook enough dishes that include it. And then there's the part where we are both grad students, with the accompanying salaries, so we can't really justify spending a lot of money on foods that we can't eat fast enough. So to support our poor but gourmand lifestyle, we are looking for advice on ingredients that can be frozen and reconstituted.

For example!

Things that can be frozen and thawed unchanged:
- meat
- storebought (cooked) pizza dough
- other breads
- yogurt
- tomato paste
- pesto
- some cooked dishes (eggplant parmesan, soups)

Things that can be frozen and change but are still yummy:
- tofu (which gets kind of spongy)
- cheddar cheese (which gets a little more crumbly than is ideal, but is a good option for when the big blocks of Tillamook go on sale)

Things that we want to know if we can freeze:
- cream/half&half/buttermilk
- fresh homemade pizza dough (or bread dough)
- cheeses other than cheddar -- good parmesan sometimes goes on sale, for example
- eggplant, cooked or uncooked
- other fresh veggies, cooked or uncooked (Pre-portioned ziploc bags of stir fry ingredients? Presliced eggplant for grilling? Portabellas on sale?)
- fresh fruits?
- cooked pasta (carbonara or macaroni & cheese, for example)
- cooked beans & lentils
- fresh herbs

I expect different vegetables (and fruits?) will react differently to freezing, so personal experiences are welcome. For example, I wouldn't be surprised if tomatoes explode when frozen, but what if we sliced and cleaned and blanched them to use in pasta sauce later?

We welcome advice or information about other items that can be bought in large amounts (more than 2 people's worth) and frozen. We are more secure in our understanding of freezing cooked dishes, and are therefore more concerned about freezing (fresh) ingredients, but good freezable large-amount recipes are encouraged as well.

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Could what I don't know, kill me?

Reconciliing foodie-ism with a low budget. Assets: a freezer.