About Freezing Part One

I absolutely love Facebook and totally advocate the use there of! For several reasons, life has drastically changed so much from when I was a little girl. The older I get the more limited time has become and it passes by so quickly, one minute you are celebrating New Year the next thing you know it’s Christmas and a whole year has passed you by, friends and family relationships have been unintentionally neglected. Facebook is an easy and convenient way to stay in touch with everyone, even more so now with the Facebook app on your mobile/cell phones, if you have a spare five minutes there you are updating your status or commenting on that of friends. Aside from the obvious facebook advantages, the other brilliant thing is how you can use your status thing. Yes I’ll admit I normally use mine to abuse my husband in some way or to post something utterly ridiculous, but sometimes the opportunity arises to ask questions and get answers back.

About a year ago now my husband bought me a chest freezer, not a silly tiny sized one that is pointless owning, but a medium sized one, which doubles up now as work surface area as well. I posed the question “What sort of stuff can I freeze?” specifically I wanted to know about tomato sauce for pasta. I got several answers and for the most part it seems as though pretty much anything can be frozen, but this peaked my curiosity even further what are the best freezing techniques, freezer care and management? So I decided to do a little research of my own, so I could truly see what is what, in the freezing world. What I really discovered is that not everything is really suitable for freezing, you can freeze it, just the quality and texture can become compromised, which sort of explains why frozen meals are so horrid!   

So just to help you along a bit here are some freezing rules I have discovered;

• Only freeze really fresh food, freeze meat straight away when you get home from the store and don’t freeze any fruit or vegetables which have bruises, or spoilt in any way.
• The official line given out is you should never refreeze, frozen food after it has thawed. However if you follow the guidelines on the fsis.usda.gov website under the refreezing section it states that provided you have properly thawed your food in the fridge you can refreeze it, I don’t know if I would or wouldn’t – but if you are interested I would certainly recommend reading it for yourself, it is quite interesting.
• Make sure all the large cuts of meat are properly thawed before you cook them. So they can reach the proper core temperature, to kill off any harmful bacteria. (Also if you think about it logically the outside will cook and burn before the middle is cooked properly which is just daft)
• Only store food for the recommended time. In most cases it would probably be fine, after all it was only recently that explorers found a mammoth and tasted it, if something can remain ok that long, well? There are no guarantees though and even if it hasn’t spoilt the quality is bound to have been compromised. Please be aware that I have sourced my information from several books and the internet, each with different opinions, so use caution and common sense! My philosophy is better to be safe than sorry!
• Ensure that all food you put into the freezer is completely cooled first
• Open the freeze as little as possible, this keeps the temperature regulated, it also makes it more energy efficient, keeping electricity costs down.
• When you defrost your freezer make sure you follow the manufactures instruction exactly.
• If you have a fast freeze button, use it, I’ll explain this later.
• When preparing food for your freezer, make sure everything is well sealed (I recently discovered the freezer bags I have aren’t very good, so I double bag everything, labelling the inside bag so I can still reuse the outside one), and this may seem obvious but rotate the food so the new stuff is at the back or bottom and the older stuff up front or on top.
   
  The fast freeze button
   
  There are two reasons to use this button, it drops the temperature of your freezer so that food freezes more rapidly. Which makes it ideal if you are putting several item in there or if you are freezing fresh fruit and vegetables. Food which has been frozen more rapidly will stay fresher for longer, and the ice crystals will remain smaller so when the food is thawed again it won’t be mushy, it also retains its flavour and looks better.
   
  How to prepare food for the freezer
   
  Polythene bags or plastic boxes with air tight lids are ideal for freezing. The bags should be fairly thick to provide enough protection, hence the reason I double bag mine and it works just as well, it is a pain though. The bags should be tied with one of those wire freezer ties, or better still use the Ziploc style bags, not forgetting to squeeze as much air out as you can, amongst other things this will save space in your freezer, no point freezing air is there? As for the plastic boxes, I am not so keen on this method for freezing I find that the ice crystals tend to build up in these. The good thing though is that you can “batch bake,” making extra for the sole purpose of freezing. Making “hot” leftovers, a doddle for lunch because you can simply go all nuke-tastic on it at work. I used to send my husband to work with frozen leftovers for his lunch all the time, then he would use the microwave to heat it, In those sorts of cases the plastic pots are invaluable.
   
  Freezing Liquids
   
  The best way to freeze liquids is to put it into a freezer bag and then place that into a plastic box. Then stick it in the freezer to freeze (obviously). When it has frozen you can take it out of the box, leaving you with a block of frozen, soup for example. Aluminium foil is also a good way to freeze your food, you can  wrap your food in it, or use it to cover foil dishes which are ideal for straight from freezer to oven dishes, certainly a brilliant option for those busy days, or lazy days. Things like casseroles, stews and pies can all go straight from freezer to oven. It may seem super obvious but the most important thing to remember is to clearly mark what’s in the bag and the date you put it in there. I keep a piece of paper on the fridge door, with a detailed list of everything in my freezer and approximately where it is placed so I can easily find it, then all I have to do is cross it off when I take it out. You could also keep a spreadsheet on your computer logging everything that goes in and out, you could also keep better track of the dates maybe.
   
  Freezing Fruits and Vegetables
   
  Freezing your fruit and vegetables is a good way to preserve your fresh produce for later. It’s a sneaky way to eat fruit and veg out of season, provided that it has been prepared properly, making it portion sized will make it easier to remove from the freezer later. It’s a fairly simple process;
   
  DRY: This is a method which is suitable for freezing fruits that you intend to cook for pies, puddings or jams. Fruits like raspberries, blackberries, gooseberries, currants or rhubarb. Prepare, by pulling off any leaves and trimming them, clean the fruit, and put them into freezer bags of containers.
   
  DRY WITH SUGAR: Good for raspberries, strawberries, blackberries and black currants, prepare the fruit but only wash it if absolutely vital, if you do have to wash it, make sure it is properly dry before moving on with the next step. Mix the Fruit with sugar, to a ratio of 100g/4oz per 500g/1lb of fruit, pack into bags or boxes.
  IN SYRUP; Use this method for fruits that aren’t juicy, for example plums or rhubarb, the syrup is just basic sugar and water, dissolve the sugar and bring the solution to a boil, allow to cool completely before mixing with the fruit and packing into bags or boxes.
   
  PUREE; you can puree, apples, gooseberries, blackcurrants and raspberries to name but a few. Prepare the fruit. With about 4tbsp of water for every 500g/1lb of fruit, in a saucepan simmer the fruit gently over a very low heat with a lid on the saucepan, until the fruit is very soft. Add about 75g-100g of sugar for each 500g/1lb of fruit, stir to dissolve the sugar, and don’t allow the fruit to boil. Once the sugar is dissolved put it in a blender, until smooth.