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Freezer Broke! Need Ideas for what to make with n


KateinChicago

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Argh! My bottom mount freezer of one year and one month broke last night ( no I didn't get an extended warranty :angry: ). I just ended up chucking a lot of stuff but decided to let a few things thaw in the fridge with the hope that I could do *something* with them. Who better to ask for suggestions than this group?!

The salvaged items include a 14 oz package of Dufour (all butter) puffed pastry dough, a 12 oz package of Trader Joe artichoke hearts, home made veal stock (about a quart of very concentrated stock), homemade chicken/meat stock (about 3 quarts of equally concentrated stock) 1 1/2 lbs of Bari Foods (Chicago) "Barese" mild Italian sausage, lots of frozen corn, lots of unsalted butter (obviously not a huge problem) homemade glace de viande (2 ice cube trays worth), kafir lime leaves, bacon (1 lb) and pancetta (about 1/2 lb).

My larder is pretty well stocked with onions, garlic, shallots, lots of vinegars and oils plus several different cheeses (maytag blue, gruyere, mild chevre and sharp cheddar), condiments of many types and most dried spices, many types of dried pasta and grains etc..

I figure that I could make some different things to serve to friends and family over the Fourth of July holiday. Nothings has totally defrosted yet as I keep the fridge fairly cold.

I'm thinking appetizers and side dishes and this is just is the wrong time of year for hot soups but the thought of the stocks and glace going to waste just has me sick!

Maybe an artichoke and puff pastry appetizer that has a sauce that uses the glace or the stock or can be incorporated into the filling? Other thoughts would be greatly appreciated. I hadn't expected to be doing much cooking for the Fourth as it is my birthday and I'm not hosting the back yard BBQ but obviously this has changed things. I had originally planned to make a roasted potato salad but now I need to get creative and salvage some of this stuff. As I look at my list it all seems fall and wintery to me and I am in need of inspiration!

Thanks in advance.

Kate

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You could use the puff pastry as a crust and top it with the pancetta and bacon, with some caramelized onion and something acidic to cut through the richness -- tomatoes, maybe.

If you braise the artichoke hearts in some of the chicken stock, you could then chill them and serve tossed in a vinaigrette as an appetizer.

I wonder if you can borrow a friend or neighbor's freezer space temporarily for the stocks and glace de viande -- it would be such a shame to lose that, but as you've noted, it's not something that's easy to use up this time of year.

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I would make an artichoke/pancetta/ caramelized onion puff pastry tart. Quick and easy. Roll, saute, fill and bake.

Then corn chowder with the corn, bacon, stock, and potatoes etc. Corn chowder is good as an evening summer meal even if it is hot . . .

The sausage can be cut or rolled into bite size pieces, put on a skewer with onions and peppers if you have them or just plain if you don't, and grilled slowly.

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Or you could use the sausage, broken up and browned with lots of onions, to fill the tart with the addition of mozzarella.

And make a corn and bean and artichoke salad tossed with frizzled pancetta and vinaigrette .

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I would find a friend with a freezer for the extra glace and stock. Of course you could always make jellied madrilene but that's probably pretty passe. :biggrin:

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Hi there,

If it were me, I'd let the stocks defrost, and just boil, chill, and then refreeze. Since you can do this to stock when it's in the fridge every three days or so to keep the stock for supposedly forever, I'm sure it would be fine to do with stuff that was frozen (as long as it defrosted under 40 degrees).

As for the rest, how about throwing an impromptu "Iron Chef" type party, where your friends have to come up with things to cook with the ingredients of the day (and cook for you, since it's your birthday!).

Also, the bacon and pancetta should last for at least 3 weeks once defrosted (unless you waited 3 weeks to freeze them in the first place).

What about using the puff pastry as some sort of base for a grilled dessert? With grilled peaches, pineapple, etc. and some sort of custard? Maybe even try grilling the pastry on the grill a la Raichlen's grilled pizzas?

If you don't mind standing over a frying pan of oil, the corn would be good for corn fritters (a nice alternative for corn on the cob for the 4th).

And marinate the artichoke hearts and chop and add to your potato salad! Actually, add some of the bacon or pancetta into the salad too (or make German-style potato salad with a bacon grease dressing--my great Aunt Helen made a killer one).

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Anna'a suggestion for boiling, chilling, and refreezing the stocks and glace de viande is a good one, but if that's not an option, don't forget you can also preserve them. Boil to sterilize jars and lids, salt the stocks and bring to a simmer then jar, lid, and process for 10 minutes.

The artichoke hearts could also be marinated and preserved, or even just kept marinated refridgerated for several months so long as there's a natural preservative in there.

For the lime leaves I'd either dry them completely, or infuse an oil with them and refridgerate.

If worse comes to worst you could dry the sausage. The bacon and pancetta are relatively small amounts so I'm sure you'll use them up before they go bad but if you had to you could cure and dry those also.

You mentioned the unsalted butter isn't a problem but it kind of is.... only foodsafe at room temp for 4 hours and refridgerated for a couple of weeks. Personally, if it were me and I had a lot I'd start giving it away. Unsalted butter doesn't do well if frozen and thawed more than once, assuming you'll be using it for a pastry, because the fats separate and don't coagulate back again the way you'd like. If you plan to get a new freezer soon you could mix up several buttercreams etc. then refreeze those when you have the space, but don't refreeze the solid blocks.

Good luck, and enjoy your holiday.... :smile:

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Jaz and Carrot Top thanks for the excellent suggestions. I really like the idea of braising the artichokes and tossing them with a vinaigrette in a salad or as a stand alone appetizer. I have to admit that I have never cooked with frozen artichoke hearts before as I greatly prefer dealing with fresh artichokes but these I bought on a whim when one of my local markets was asking $4.00 per artichoke. I was planning on making a potato and artichoke gratin and balked at spending such a ridiculous amount for the required 8 artichokes. I wonder if a quick caramelization/browning in either the rendered bacon or pancetta fat might not be a good idea?

It's so nice to toss thoughts around in this forum. I was bereft of ideas when I posted and honestly couldn't think of any reasonable use for the corn other than adding to a salad or perhaps a pasta salad which seemed lame to me since I was raised in an area of Illinois when summer meant getting your corn fresh from the field and either serving it on the cob or cut from the cob. Some of the corn is in a "low fat butter sauce" and some is, or was, just frozen corn. My SO loves this stuff and it is so easy to serve it for him from the microwave that I actually think it is a good thing even though I don't really crave it myself. I can definitely see the "low fat butter sauce" stuff being incorporated into a soup particularly with the bacon, potato, stock etc. additions. Even if I can't make a go of it over the holiday my SO would definitely devour it between now and then.

I'm leery about using tomatoes in a puff pastry recipe simply because of the sogginess factor but I need to keep it simple and the whole caramelized onion and bacon/pancetta thing definitely works for me.

I like the idea of doing sausage kabobs on the grill. I really like the Bari sausage and it wouldn't interfere with the BBQ theme for the Fourth.

I'm still stymied by the glace de viand problem and the extra stock which is, as noted, highly concentrated (as a freezer space saving maneuver). My problem is that when I made the glace de viande and froze it in ice cube trays I eventually emptied the trays into zip lock bags. These, as defrosted, are semi amorphous blobs of semi-separated cubes that may or may not be easily re-separated. Could I re-heat the glace to make it liquid and re-freeze in an ice cube tray in a friends freezer? Could I do the same with the extra stock without degradation?

As to dry ice - I'm scared of that stuff on anything other than a short term basis and don't think that it answers my concerns about the refreezing issue even if I had a place to store it. The Maytag Man will not be here before the Fourth :huh:

Again, thanks for the ideas.

Kate

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Hi there,

If it were me, I'd let the stocks defrost, and just boil, chill, and then refreeze. Since you can do this to stock when it's in the fridge every three days or so to keep the stock for supposedly forever, I'm sure it would be fine to do with stuff that was frozen (as long as it defrosted under 40 degrees).

Oh my gosh. I just posted my reply to Jaz and Carrot Top's food ideas when I saw your response and that of Sugarella. Do these degrade much? Not that it matters in the long run as I'd rather have a slightly less quality product than tossing these products. They were certainly defrosted at under 40 degrees as my fridge runs cold. Is the 40 degree benchmark merely from the health safety framework or is there some issue with taste degradation involved? I'm merely a home cook so if I am not endangering my family and friends in some flagrant way I'll happily reboil and refreeze!

Kate

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Hi there,

Re: boiling and refreezing stock. I'm just a home chef too, but regularly keep stock for more than a month in the fridge following the guidelines in many basic cookbooks (Julia Child French Chef, Bittman How to Cook Everything, among others). Usually you boil it every 3 to 5 days, and it's supposed to keep indefinitely. To be completely honest, I've left it for over a week and then boiled, and I've never gotten sick. Eventually I usually freeze what's still kicking around (in ice cube trays also). So, assuming you froze the stock soon (within a couple days) after making it (and chilled it fairly quickly), I would just let it defrost, boil, cool properly, and then just refreeze. I doubt you'd suffer much degradation of flavor, as I've never noticed this with my refrigerator regularly boiled stocks (although freezing does dehydrate a bit, so maybe it would reduce somewhat--and boiling reduces too).

The 40 degree benchmark is indeed for food safety (actually I think it's supposed to be 36 degrees or something like that). There are some good posts on the subject in egullet if you search on broths or stocks (including one of mine that talks about stock I left without boiling for a really long time but still tasted and smelled fine, so I boiled and froze it, and still haven't had any problems with it). The deal with bacteria, apparently (and I'm no molecular biologist), is that they release toxins over time but the lower the temp, the less toxins (or no toxins)--if you keep things cold enough they can't produce the toxins.

Hope that helps. We had our whole fridge and freezer die last summer. Luckily we have an upright freezer in the basement and a dorm fridge (overflow for parties) and keg fridge for backup plus several cooler, so all was alright in the world (not much defrosted before I caught it). But I tell you, it's a real pain in the butt. Took the fridge guy over a week to come out and fix it, even though it was under warranty! However, we just finished up some mustard and relish that was relegated to one of the coolers during the holding period to no ill effects (granted they're good coolers that really hold cold temps for long term.)

BTW--I'm in Chicago too. Hope you're enjoying this really excellent weather!

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home made veal stock (about a quart of very concentrated stock), homemade chicken/meat stock (about 3 quarts of equally concentrated stock)

Consomme! I perfect cold soup for a hot summer's day. You could also make some sort of pate with the sausages and bacon and top it with cold aspic.

PS: I am a guy.

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