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Freezer broke, my food stash is in peril

N

NetWareHead

THAT guy
Ugh, this really sucks. I buy alot of meat/veggies etc... when its on sale or during promotions. I have a food saver vacuum food sealer and whatever I can;t eat immediately gets sealed and then frozen. Last night I wanted to make a drink and reached into the freezer for some ice. Found partially melted ice cubes floating in water in the ice tray. The rest of my frozen stash was in various stages of thawing.

I have: shaved steak for sandwiches. t-bones, sirloins, ribeyes, 10 pounds of ground beef, pre-made hamburger patties, pork chops, bacon, marinated chicken breasts and whole chickens. In total I must have 60 pounds of meat in there. There is also frozen soup, frozen spices, frozen fresh pasta, nuts, cheeses, veggie dips, and various other frozen vegetables that came from my garden.

Most of the stuff right now is in a cooler with snow shoveled in there to keep cool. Since we didn't catch the freezer right when it broke and noticed when stuff was already partially thawed, it needs to be eaten. We are going to be eating meat everyday for the next 3 weeks. 😵 We are going to also call some family over to help us finish this.

All of the spinach is being boiled right now for spinach dip. 5+ pounds of marinated chicken is going on the grill right now and then chopped to put on top of salads for lunch. We have some pizza dough in there that is going to be baked tonight. And most painful, I have a 3 inch thick cut of bone-in ribeye that I was saving for the charcoal grill. Charcoal grill is put away for the winter, all I have is the propane grill :'(

Oh yeah, forgot the obligatory: first world problems
 
You live up north? Put it outside.

Also put some gallons of water out at night when cold. Freeze them then put in freezer to keep food cool.
 
Jimzz said:
You live up north? Put it outside.

Also put some gallons of water out at night when cold. Freeze them then put in freezer to keep food cool.
Click to expand...

Well, it is going in coolers with snow to keep cool until I can cook it. But I can't refreeze it, it has thawed already. All of it has to be eaten.
 
OP read this:

http://www.foodsafety.gov/keep/charts/frozen_food.html

An excerpt:

Frozen Food and Power Outages: When to Save and When to Throw Out

Adapted from Keeping Food Safe During an Emergency (USDA).

Thawed or partially thawed food in the freezer may be safely refrozen if it still contains ice crystals or is at 40 °F or below. Partial thawing and refreezing may affect the quality of some food, but the food will be safe to eat.

If you keep an appliance thermometer in your freezer, it’s easy to tell whether food is safe. When the power comes back on, check the thermometer. If it reads 40 °F or below, the food is safe and can be refrozen.
Click to expand...

Fern
 
Is there snow outside? Do you have a shovel?


My grandparents don't have enough fridge space, so they keep food on the back porch in the winter. It works really well, actually.

You can take the meat outside and bury it in the snow. Just remember where you put it.

It sounds strange, but I've done this before.
 
Meat every day for the next 3 weeks? What's the big deal? I can't think of the last time I ate a full meal without meat, let alone a full day.
 
We are going to buy a new fridge/freezer, can't continue like this. Currently, the food is mostly thawed and still edible. It just has to be eaten or else thrown out. Last night we had a big dinner of boiled ham and made soup from that. Tonight it will be ribeye steak. Gave away a thawed chicken to mom so she can make something out of that as well as some other items for her to eat.
 
NetWareHead said:
We are going to buy a new fridge/freezer, can't continue like this. Currently, the food is mostly thawed and still edible. It just has to be eaten or else thrown out. Last night we had a big dinner of boiled ham and made soup from that. Tonight it will be ribeye steak. Gave away a thawed chicken to mom so she can make something out of that as well as some other items for her to eat.
Click to expand...

You can refreeze food after you cook it.

Fern
 
ugh, i never thought I would say this but I am tired of steak, pork, sausages, chicken. I opened up a ribeye and detected signs/smells of it starting to go off. Not really spoilage but just that smell when meat is beginning to age too long in a fridge. So I ate it anyway and it wasn't the best steak. It was meh. I figure that anything else in the cooler is just going to get worse from here on.

We managed to finish half of our stash by either eating it ourselves, giving it away or storing cooked meat in a cold cooler. The chicken is all gone, we knew that had to be eaten asap. The beef is now getting too old. I had some pork sausages that I grilled up last night and had for lunch today, those were still excellent. Fried up 2 pounds of crumbled sausage along with some peppers and onions. That's tonight's dinner and leftover for the weekend. I have some pork chops still wrapped up that I'm not sure how they are fairing. Also have some veggies that I think should be ok too by this weekend. But the rest of the stuff; just can't do it anymore... So sad to have to throw away so much food....
 
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