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The best appliance I have bought is the Food Saver.
I had thought about buying one of those, but haven't yet because 1) I didn't want another bulky appliance to store, and 2) the bags are so much more expensive than regular freezer bags.
Hardly worth buying a freezer if you won't eat frozen hamburger. Does your aversion to frozen meat include other meats? If so, what are you going to put IN the freezer?? We buy a quarter of beef at a time, the steaks are gone LONG before the roasts and hamburgers that's for sure!
Ditto on the crumbly cheese. Shredded cheese and butter do great in the freezer, but not blocks of cheese. I buy family packs of chicken legs and drumsticks and put 4 into a freezer bag, squish out all the air I can and put them in the freezer. (there's only two of us)
We keep our bread and rolls in the freezer too. Gluten free bread keeps better that way.
We also put fresh corn in the freezer. Roll the unhusked ears in tin foil and then put 4 in a zip lock. It takes about 40 minutes in the oven when you're ready.
I freeze individual servings of soup too. My husband uses them for lunch.
I tried diced green peppers once. Didn't like them, too mushy.
The only things I do not freeze are cream based sauces,
I make a potato soup that uses cream of chicken and mushroom soups, and I've frozen and reheated it many times.
It always looks funny at first, until it gets heated all the way through (slowly!), and then the texture returns to normal. Even the potatoes don't seem to suffer. If there is any effect on them at all, it is not detectable to me. But then, I don't have the most discerning of palates.
I had thought about buying one of those, but haven't yet because 1) I didn't want another bulky appliance to store, and 2) the bags are so much more expensive than regular freezer bags.
while the special bags are expensive, they can be washed and reused several times.for example...if I have l lb of meat in one after I cut it open it is much shorter but not too short for a fist full of berries, cheese, bread crumbs and all sorts of other uses.
I freeze casserole which have cream based sauces all the time...chicken and noodles, chicken and rice, you name it. never taste funny to me.
I'll make a double batch of Toll House cookie dough and freeze it. Homemade cookies in a instant. I hate making protein shakes, as I use so many ingredients, so I'll make about six at a time. I put them in 8oz plastic cups, cover with foil and then you can let thaw or even nuke for a few seconds. I freeze just about everything. lol
I'll make a double batch of Toll House cookie dough and freeze it. Homemade cookies in a instant.
My mom tried freezing them already baked, but my dad would go into the basement and taken them out one or two at a time and eat them frozen. Mom would get the bag out of the freezer to thaw, and find the bag only 1/4 full. LOL
My mom tried freezing them already baked, but my dad would go into the basement and taken them out one or two at a time and eat them frozen. Mom would get the bag out of the freezer to thaw, and find the bag only 1/4 full. LOL
That's when she started freezing the dough.
Our mom froze the dough but it backfired because we loved eating cookie dough even more than the cookies.
For hamburger a fun trick-Buy the big roll packages, chop it into 2lb sections. Place in ziplock bag and flatten. Seriously turn it into one giant square hamburger patty with the top open, then seal it with no air inside.
Benefits:
it freezes fast
Plain ziplocks are relatively inexpensive
You can stack them in a cube shape in your freezer with little wasted space.
They thaw and cook VERY fast compared to other methods as they have a much larger surface area.
Overall for me it has worked incredibly well for hamburger.
We buy those large packs of muffins in the bakery and individually wrap each and freeze them until the day we want to eat one. If you wrap them better than we do, freezerburn obviously won't get into them... haha.
My husband is also a major "toss a burrito in the microwave to eat nearly 2x a day" person. In order to get him off the frozen ones in stores that are just full of crap, I make big batches of bean and cheese burritos, wrap them in 2s and freeze them. haven't had freezerburn issues with those.... but then, he typically eats them all within a week.
I don't freeze much else besides standard freezer stuff. I even stopped buying ice cream b/c our freezer keeps getting freezerburn in EVERYTHING and it's ruining the flavors.
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We buy a quarter of beef at a time, the steaks are gone LONG before the roasts and hamburgers that's for sure!
Mom would get the bag out of the freezer to thaw, and find the bag only 1/4 full. LOL
