I was surprised to learn that you can actually freeze most cooking oils the other day so I was wondering what the hell else there was that you can freeze that I hadn’t heard of.
Not too hard on the eyes either for once.
How about you guys., you freeze anything kind of weird?
Any thoughts on food preservation ?
It’s an open thread, what else is on your mind?
1. Trust me, frozen milk is great for cooking, but on cereal? It will keep separating and separating and sucks ass. Spent 3 years on an island where there was no fresh milk, only powdered and frozen, and though frozen was better than powdered, frozen isn’t that much better. Though mixing thawed frozen with powdered makes a good thick cooking milk. Still sucks ass but…
2. Frozen veggies. I’ve always bought big honking onions, chopped them up and frozen the excess. Same with celery and red/green peppers. There will be some textural loss, but if you’re using it for flavoring, doesn’t matter. Same with cilantro, half of a clump goes into this week’s fajitas or enchiladas, the rest (after chopping) gets shoved into the freezer.
Big thing is, get rid of as much excess air as you can out of your freezer bag. You can squeeze the bags, push the bag into a water-bath, or be an animal and suck it out of the bag using your mouth like a savage.
As to freezing cooked pasta and cooked rice? Why? Seriously, why? Easier to store uncooked and spend the 15-25 minutes it takes to cook. Seriously, geez, if you have leftovers of rice or pasta eat it for lunch the next day or days. Some people.
Now, of course, great, you have all that frozen food. Betcha you don’t have a backup generator or generators, do ya (referring to the lady on the video.) Having all that freezer space with no backups and/or on a faulty grid system does you no good. Like if you’re living in California or in Europe and dystopian times have come upon you.
Dried or freeze dried are the way to go for a lot of stuff. Just like people had to live before the great electrification of the world.
Would a submersion (stick) blender reconstitute the milk after separating? Submersion blenders have very high speeds.
The fats in the milk change “state”, so… no.
What Igor said. Once frozen, you aren’t coming back to the original form. It’s better than nothing, but still sucks ass. Which it’s why it’s good for cooking but not as good for drinking or cold cereal.
We (my family) looked forward to the tracking ships stopping by on the way out from Pearl Harbor as they still had those lunch containers of fresh milk.
We’ve been buying milk in bulk and freezing it for years and we have seen no problems with it. We store it in 1/2 gallon containers and leave about 2″ of headspace.
Use an Ecoflow Delta Pro with (4) 100watt panels to power our 9cf freezer for the past 2+ years. My large scale double computer rig is powered off that set up too.
Makes me want to go buy a bigger freezer. We do freeze bread, but here lately the brand we buy,Oroweat, doesn’t seem to taste right after it thaws. There are many methods of food preservation. My thought on that is I think we gonna need that stored food pretty soon.
When your neighbors are hungry they will follow their noses to where you are cookning. Got a plan for that?
What will you do? Not cook?
Kill and eat the attackers.
The most secure food storage I’ve found is canned or dehydrated. A freezer/refrigeration is dependent on electricity unless you have an old-fashion gas refrigerator/freezer, like what my folks had out on the farm back in the mid-fifties. Then, you have to worry about keeping that 500 gallon propane tank full. I’m still in possession of my mother’s 5-quart canner, canning tools, a bunch of jars, lids. Disadvantages of pressure canning is finding replacement lids, replacement gaskets for the old canner, annual testing of the pressure gauge and being VERY diligent with pressure and timing.
I have found that dehydrating is less troublesome. You can reuse the lids indefinitely; doesn’t heat up the kitchen as much; and botulism isn’t as big of a concern, if you don’t get the pressure and time exactly right. The biggest draw back I can find for it is it uses electricity. I saw plans for dehydrators that didn’t use a powered fan or heat for temperature regulation but have no experience with it.
If you can’t use up your milk fast enough, you can freeze it. BUT, let it thaw completely in the fridge. Then shake the bejeezus out of it before using, and that was with 2% milk. Full-fat milk will separate and you can’t shake the butterfat back into it.
One more point, BLANCH, fruit and vegetables you are going to store in the freezer longer that a couple of months. The enzymes in the food will destroy not only the flavor but also the nutritional value. You have to do that to the stuff you are going to dehydrate too. She left a lot out, do your research so you don’t waste your money, time and food.
I’ve been storing food for about 50 years and agree with Judy that freezing is the least secure method of food preservation. From having a freezer break down when you don’t notice for a few days to being dependent on an unsecure grid, your food stores can evaporate. I keep enough jars on hand to can the most expensive and vulnerable frozen stuff should freezing be a dead end. I can run the canner(s) with out electricity.
There are ways to avoid the caning draw backs mentioned above. The All American brand of canners does not require a replaceable seal, mine has been going for close to 50 years. The pressure gauges are another weak point, you can buy a calibrated exhaust weight that will jiggle at a regulated pressure and eliminate the need for pressure gauges.
I also am big on dehydrating, vegetables have been one of the weaker points in my preps, buying frozen vegetables eliminates a lot of prep time. No cutting up and no blanching, just throw them in the dehydrator. Cooked meats dehydrate well, I do a lot on burger and sausage. Drying eggs and making powder with the result, I use a blender, is an excellent way to store eggs vacuum sealed in glass jars. The best thing about dehydrated food is how little volume the results take up. I can get over 3 dozen dehydrated eggs in a quart jar, and vegetables give an even better outcome.
There are about a thousand things I could say here, just do something as too late is right up on us and the time to learn new skills is extremely limited.
One last thing, maybe the best way to store vegetables for long term use is as the Chinese learned long ago. Store food grade seeds and use them as sprouts. The equipment is simple and cheap and the seeds store for a long time, done properly.
Some good info here. When storing rice, freeze it first to kill any residual bugs, then vacuum seal it. Rice stores well using this method. Also (for the same insect reasons), freeze flour for about 72 hours before vacuum storing it; I keep our rice and flour in a cool, dark place inside the house.
When I freeze things no matter what I always make sure I put a little bit of water in it now this can be sort of problematic when you’re using a vacuum system but it always works very well..
I’m*-rightwingterrorist
Froze a bunch of tomatoes last night in straight sided canning jars.
We’ll see how it turns out.
Was gonna do my first water bath canning, but not really enough harvest to bother with, so we went with freezing.
Salsa with the tomatoes not 100%. Will be making that up and freezing tonight.
Just picked up 22 pounds of polish kielbasa at $1.35 a pound. All I have in my tiny senior apartment is the freezer/Fridge combo. So I canned most of it. 14 quarts worth. This left just enough in the freezer for a few meals.
2 of my boys are already requesting kielbasa, sauerkraut, and dumplings for one of there visits. LMAO
Somebody gave me 3 pounds of carrots, which I promptly dehydrated.
Back when I was married we had a 20 cu ft chest freezer for meats and an 18 cu ft upright freezer for fruits and vegetables. We also canned, had a root cellar and a smoke house. Good times
Cat, you and me both, I live in a “senior apartment” and I do have space in a overly large closet to put in a small chest freezer. I plan on doing that for extra meat and veges. You know I lived in Mountain Home, Ark. and drove by your area a few times…