let's talk about freezing

T

Thorn Bird

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May 24, 2005
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food.

what can you freeze, and what can you not? so many people talk about freezing stuff..is there anything you CAN'T freeze? i hate throwing food away, but i often NEVER consider the freezer. lots of you are experienced fooders in here, so tell me what i can and can't do...and then how long can you leave stuff in there? and what are the best bagging/wrapping options for maximizing freeze time?
 
and let's start with bread. i bought too much for thanksgiving/family, and so i was left thinking i'd have to throw a lot to the birds, and then my mom suggested freezing it. i don't think about freezing bread. or pies. or cheese. or lunchmeat. can you really do all that and it's ok?
 
Thorn Bird said:
food.

what can you freeze, and what can you not? so many people talk about freezing stuff..is there anything you CAN'T freeze? i hate throwing food away, but i often NEVER consider the freezer. lots of you are experienced fooders in here, so tell me what i can and can't do...and then how long can you leave stuff in there? and what are the best bagging/wrapping options for maximizing freeze time?
Click to expand...

I'm terrible at that kind of stuff but you may want to check out any Once a Month Cooking website.
 
We freeze our bread! My parents buy like 10 loafs at a time and keep the rest frozen forever it seems.

I will actually get a piece from the freezer and throw it in the toaster, tastes exactly the same.
 
I freeze half of a loaf of bread, because if I didn't eat a bunch of sandwiches, the bread would go bad after a week. Everything else in my freezer is your standard frozen items. I take the half loaf of bread out of the freezer, leave it open for like half a day and it thaws out normally. It is slightly moist (LOL up your alley there thorn) in the middle, but not that bad. It's wheat bread if that matters.

I've had frozen milk once. That's.... interesting. Damn ice storm we had up here in '98. I had no power for 2.5 weeks. Had to get creative on how to keep the food from going bad. So I put the jug of milk (along with other items) in a snowbank outside my door. Next morning the milk was pretty well frozen. Had to wait like an hour for it to thaw by the stove.

edit: damnit, b10
 
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Vaccuum packing is the best way to package things. You want to minimize air exposure to prevent "freezer burn". The main drawback with freezing is a loss of moisture in meats and such in the thawing process. Food should be thawed in the fridge slowly.
 
Thorn Bird said:
and let's start with bread. i bought too much for thanksgiving/family, and so i was left thinking i'd have to throw a lot to the birds, and then my mom suggested freezing it. i don't think about freezing bread. or pies. or cheese. or lunchmeat. can you really do all that and it's ok?
Click to expand...

bread is fine. Cheese would be weird I think. Pie would be okay also. What kind of luchmeat? I think it would be fine to eat, but a bit dried out, depending on the meat
 
anything solid that contains a fair deal of moisture in it doesn't keep well under most conditions, because ice has a nasty habit of stabbing everything in sight (like with strawberries, for instance). if you can find a way to keep the moisture level to a minimum either in the method of freezing or in the method of storage, the better off you are and the more possibilities for freeing you have.

also, chest freezer ftw if you're planning on freezing in bulk.
 
My mom freezes everything... there are literally four freezers at my parents' house. The popular candidates being butter, milk, bread, and all sorts of meats. (She's a member of an organic foods co-op, so she gets stuff in large batches and has to keep it for awhile.)
 
If you want to freeze your nuts off, you would need to freeze them to an internal temperature of about 28 degrees Fahrenheit. Then they could actually snap off.

Source: Some show on Spike TV
 
I freeze all our meats, bread, cheese (just thaw in the fridge and it tastes fine), some veggies, I'll steam up a bunch of fresh broccoli for a few minutes, then throw them in the freezer for later, lunch meat is easy, throw the package in, wallaw! frozen.
 
Cook's Illustrated recommends Glad Freezer Zipper bags out of all freezer bags (but theac's recommendation is better...)
 
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