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| Part of Mount Protein |
My husband and I just came back from a 2 day vacation, and, having made sure to clean the house thoroughly before we left, were looking forward to relaxing in our spotless home as soon as we arrived.
Already at the front door, we could tell something was wrong, as our lights wouldn’t turn on…
Turns out the circuit breaker tripped. And why? Because somehow, our freezer door wasn’t fully closed, and everything in the freezer melted, dripped down onto the circuitry, and shorted it out, as well as dripping into our fridge and all over the floor…
In addition to all the huge mess on the floor, the biggest headache was that my freezer was packed to the brim with fish, chicken, and meat that I bought on sale… and all defrosted. Fortunately, it was still all cold, so nothing spoiled…
But since that meat couldn’t be refrozen unless it was cooked first… I had the monumental task of cooking it all up tonight and refreezing it. (Once a month cooking style.)
Fun fun.
But first, we had to fix the freezer, make sure it wouldn’t short circuit the house anymore. So we took apart the freezer, removed the bottom, and dried off every last bit of water we could find, then used a blow dryer to dry it the rest of the way, until it no longer was short circuiting.
And then the cooking began.
My challenge was this:
Everything had to be gluten free, egg free, and dairy free.
I didn’t want to cook it all up the same way, since I get bored of the same food over and over, so I wanted my meat and fish to have variety or the options of variety.
I obviously needed to make things that took very little energy, since I had so much to do….
Here’s what I did.
I had 4 beef pot roasts (shoulder and shank) as well as 3 hunks of veal cheek. All needing “low and slow”…
I took 2 shank roasts and stuck them together in my smaller crock pot, added apples, ginger, cinnamon, and date syrup, then put it up to cook. It’s still cooking.
I took my hunks of veal cheek and put them in my larger crock pot with soy sauce, ginger, garlic and onions, intending to make it more Asian style. These are also still cooking.
When they finish cooking and cool, I will slice them up, and freeze each sliced hunk in its respective sauce.
And the shoulder roasts, I boiled away in my cast iron dutch oven, so they can be sliced to used in place of more expensive, softer cuts of meat in stir fries and other such dishes. This gives me the most versatility, that while it is already pre-cooked, I’m not boxed in to only one type of dish to make with it- the possibilities are endless. And the liquid I’m boiling down to make a concentrated beef stock.
Now as for chicken breasts… I had at least 8 halves of chicken breast, probably more. With these, I wanted to cook them up but be able to have as much variety as possible, and be able to stretch them as much as possible. For this reason, I cut up them into cutlets and cooked most of them with just a little garlic and salt, which I can then defrost and add extra seasonings as needed.
I also cooked a portion of them with a simple paprika, cumin, and salt, as these spices are also versatile, and this chicken can then be repurposed into Mexican food, Middle Eastern food, Indian food, etc…
A small amount I chopped up and fried up, with just salt and garlic, to be used in stir fries and other cooked chicken dishes.
I had 2 lbs of ground beef, which I sauted up in a bit of oil, as cooked crumbles. I can then use this in so many different dishes, from tacos/enchiladas to chili or spaghetti bolognese to stir fries…
My 2 packages of not so bad for you hot dogs were boiled up then re-frozen.
I had a bunch of chicken gizzards, 2 wings, and a chicken neck, and those are currently boiling away on the stove. The broth will be turned into soup, and the gizzards will be frozen in meal sized portions, to be repurposed in a variety of ways.
I also rendered a small amount of chicken fat that I had, as well as a cook up (steam) a lamb’s head that I had in the freezer.
I still have a bunch of liver and chicken hearts that I will be grilling soon…
And then there’s the fish…
I had about 4 packages of sole fish (probably a good 25-30 fillets) as well as a couple of young hake (bone in)…
I personally find fish to be a little less versatile, and since I don’t tend to cook it in dishes like I do chicken, I didn’t mind having more specific flavors with the fish.
About half the sole was baked with tomatoes, foraged capers, lemon juice, olive oil, and salt.
The rest of the sole I cooked simply by pouring some homemade chili powder on to it and baking.
The bone-in hake was cooked on a bed of salt.
And now my freezer… is no where near stuffed. Because cooked, these take up far less room.
And because unfortunately, I did end up needing to toss some stuff that were in my freezer, like a few bags of cooked of beans that became covered in chicken and beef blood…
But all in all… what could have been a disaster financially has now turned out to be a boon- I now have my food all prepared in advance, and don’t need to cook it every day.
Have you ever arrived home to find a defrosted freezer? Was the food wasted or was there a way to salvage it? If you salvaged it, how did you do so?
