Mini Stuffed Pizza Cryogenics

Sometimes I miss convenience foods.  I really loved Red Baron personal-sized microwave pizzas.  So quick and easy ... and, yet, even though they were hard-core industrial food, I still enjoyed them. 

Freezing Procedure

I'd made a couple extra mini stuffed pizzas, so I put them in the freezer.  I wrapped them in aluminum foil and let them cool.  Then, I put them into a zip-top bag and put them into the deep freeze for two weeks (these were part of my experimental batch of sourdough crust mini stuffed pizzas, I normally work on a recipe a little before I embarrass myself and post a blog entry on it).

Being the retentive sort that I am, I even included a laser-printed label inside the zip-top bag.  I'm a big fan of labeling things.  It makes life so much easier a few hectic weeks later when you look at a generic bag of food in the freezer and think "Ano?" (What?).

Re-Heating Procedure


This weekend I pulled them out and tried to bring them back to some sort of life.  One went into the oven.  300F (150C).  After 10 minutes it was still solid in the center.  This was not convenient.  Oven re-heating was out.

The other I'd tossed into my 1200 Watt microwave.  Three minutes later and it was back to as good as it was going to get.  Very hot on the outside, but the inside was ready-to-go.  After a minute of cooldown, the pizza was ready to eat.  Freezer-to-plate in under five minutes. 

After part of the Primary Test Team and I got impatient waiting for the oven test ... we just pulled it out and stuffed it into the microwave for a couple minutes.  When it comes to convenience, patience is not a virtue.

Only one problem with the whole process: the aluminum foil got stuck on the cheese.  Next time, I will let the pizzas cool and then just put them into a zip-top bag.  No alumninum foil.

Conclusions

Freezing these pizzas works fairly well.  Into the microwave for three minutes (presuming a 1000+ Watt microwave).  Let it cool a bit or it's going to burn your mouth badly.

Of course, these were nowhere near as good as the fresh pizzas.  I had no illusions that they would be.  These were good enough and very quick.

For frozen and then microwaved ... definite winner.

Cookie Cryogenics

My family loves cookies. I'm a big fan of variety. I don't want chocolate chip, chocolate chip, chocolate chip, chocolate chip, ad nauseum.

I'also m a big fan of things one can make ahead and then prepare at the last minute when required. While I would like to be able to spend eight hours a day in the kitchen, getting paid, doing what I like, that fantasy has yet to venture towards reality. So, I need to be efficient where I can be.

Naturally, I thought ... "can I freeze cookie dough?" I suspected that the answer was "no". The various items in the dough ... butter, eggs, other optional ingredients ... may not take a liking to the bitter cold of my freezer.


A couple weeks ago, thinking ahead for once, I tossed some of the white chocolate chip dough into the recesses of my deep freeze. I keep it at 0F (-18C). Brrrr!


Since my oven is being a bad child, I kept a close eye on the cooking process. That went well.

Unfortunately, the previously frozen cookies did not do so well. While they are acceptable for home eating (and I'm sure the ravenous beasts who masquerade as my Primary Test Team will make sure the cookies disappear), I would not pass them out to friends.


They're cookies only their baker could love ...

Dim Sum Cryogenics

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about making one of my favorite foods ever, Nor Mai Gai. I made quite a lot of them, too many in fact.

So, rather than letting the family devour them immediately, I secreted a couple of these bundles of joy into the freezer. I wanted to test! Can they be made in advance, frozen, and then resuscitated?

Procedure

Put a steamer on the stove. Get it good and hot, lots of steam.


Take one frozen Nor Mai Gai. Toss it into the steamer and seal it in. It's OK, it's not going to scream at you like a live lobster will.

Wait one hour.

Eat.

Test Results

Being the selfish brave soul that I am, I was the lone tester. I must say, it was quite good.

As good as fresh? Not quite. But, close enough that next time I make Nor Mai Gai, I'm putting a bunch into the freezer to have on days when I just don't feel like making a big production.


Conclusions

Definite winner! Nor Mai Gai when I want it without all the fuss ...

Iced Potatoes

Last weekend, I'd planned to make some Shepherd's Pie. Very yummy stuff. We'd prepared and boiled the potatoes and then needed to take a family member to the hospital (everything is fine now).

So, I did what any normal person would do, put the potatoes into the fridge. You know, that really nifty fridge/freezer I just posted about. Well, we'd just plugged it in and I turned it to fridge mode. Hooray! The potatoes will be fine until I get to mash them into fluffy goodness.

Or, so I thought. Little did I know that a small black button that was depressed meant "quick freeze". See, the controls are in Spanish. I don't speak or read Spanish. And, it didn't occur to me that there would even be a quick freeze option.

I check the potatoes the following morning and find them to be frozen solid. Really solid. Harder than I'd ever seen anything frozen outside of a lab where we were playing with liquid nitrogen solid.

Oops.

This is when I discovered the button and took the fridge/freezer out of super freeze mode.

I left the cut and boiled potatoes in the fridge for another 24 hours. It took that long for them to get to the point where I could start to work with them. I could tell immediately that there was a problem.


See, like any critic of cryogenics will tell you, freezing does bad, bad things to cellular walls. They get a bit damaged. The potatoes were watery. Still, I didn't want to just toss 2.5kg of potatoes.

I went to work. First, the basics, I popped them into my stand mixer and let them have it with the blade attachment. My little stand mixer is a 20 quart Hobart. Takes at least two strong people to pick it up. Three is better. Once, for Christmas, I made twelve dozen chocolate chip cookies in a single batch. The mixer didn't even seem to notice. Oh, I love it.


Anyway, as usual, I digress. Needless to say, those potatoes got seriously beaten.

I was wrong about them being watery. They were very watery. These potatoes were begging me to feed them to our pigs. I wasn't about to give up so easily.

I toss the mashed watery potatoes into strainers for let them sit there for a couple of hours.

The potatoes didn't disappoint me. They gave up a lot of liquid. A lot.

Unfortunately, they still had a strange texture. An unacceptable texture. I had more work to do. So, I got a nice pot and dumped the miscreant potatoes into it. Their punishment for being watery wasn't over.


Twenty minutes of stirring, a lot of evaporation, a lot of butter and some seasoning later ... and I had mashed potatoes that were acceptable for use as a topping on Shepherd's Pie.

Please note: I did not say "good", "great", "fluffy", I said "acceptable".

Even so, I'd won. I'd managed to save the potatoes from being pig food.