| Look away now, foodies, but my freezer is my best friend |
| By Rehaam Romero |
| I’m tired. I work 40-hour weeks, not including the weekends and overtime we spend putting the magazines to bed. I spend at least two hours of my life battling Cairo traffic every day. I have a house that constantly needs cleaning, laundry that never ends and, most importantly, a spousal mouth to feed. I’m probably nowhere near as overworked as people who have child mouths to feed, but I’m still tired.When I was first married, I lived five minutes away from where I worked and the excitement of being a new wife made me cook every meal elaborately and entirely from scratch. But that isn’t feasible for most; heck, it wasn’t even feasible for me at times. Now, I’m a food snob and will happily look down on anyone who uses canned vegetables, prepared supermarket foods or anything instant (instant béchamel should die a slow and painful death). However, there is one convenience gadget I could not and would never dream of living without: my freezer. Now now, foodies, keep your hats on. I am not a proponent of cooking entire meals and freezing them for weeks on end to eat. Meals will last in your freezer but not for very long. The freezer does degrade the quality of a lot of items, I admit, but it can also be your biggest savior when it comes to whipping up a meal on the fly when you have little time. Breads I have it on the authority of many a qualified baker that the only way to retain the freshness of bread is to freeze it unless you plan to eat it all. Sure, keep that one loaf out to go stale for breadcrumbs, but if you have a lot of bread, lay the loaves out on a sheet pan and cover them until they freeze, then toss them in airtight ziplock bags before freezing again. This will ensure that the loaves don’t freeze into one solid block. Speaking of baked goods, this brings me to desserts. This is a lifesaver if you have some free time one day and you’re baking anyway. Bake two batches of your favorite brownies, pound cake or muffins, and while you eat your way through one batch, freeze the other. Just thaw them out in the fridge overnight or on the counter for a few hours and reheat in a low oven if you need to. Fruit No, you cannot freeze an entire orange and expect it to thaw out like it was just picked from the tree. However, if you like smoothies or enjoy fruit baked in cakes, your freezer is your best friend if you want to have fruits out of season. If you know you will drink whole batches of mango, guava or strawberry juice, by all means juice the fruits and store in large flattened ziplock bags. Fill the bag, close it, lay it flat, then open up a small opening and use a straw to suck out the remaining air). Now for whole fruit, lay pieces of chopped mango, halved strawberries, wedged apricots, figs (great in tarts) or cut up guavas on a sheet pan and freeze before transferring into individual bags. Not only will these be great in smoothies but because they’re frozen they can double as ice cubes. Side note: Peel the zest of every lemon and orange you use or eat and store in the freezer for recipes that call for just citrus zest. You should double-bag them in your freezer, though, because they will make their freezer neighbors smell and taste of them. Vegetables Frozen vegetables are typically frozen at their peak freshness, so even the ones you get at the grocery store should be ok to use. However, this is Egypt and you have no guarantee if those vegetables were even washed before they were frozen. So I stay away from all frozen vegetables unless, of course, I’ve frozen them myself. There really isn’t much point in freezing things that are always in season and things like leafy greens because they change texturally no matter what you do. (Herbs are ok to freeze if you plan to just throw them in some soup or sauce). Focus on things like pumpkin, artichokes, cauliflower, broccoli and okra, for example. Freeze them in chunks on a sheet then transfer to airtight bags. If you’re a vegetarian and enjoy veggie burgers, make them ahead of time and freeze individually. If you have leftover mashed potatoes, form them into small patties and freeze to make croquettes later. The possibilities are endless. Soups and Sauces This is really where the time-saving comes in. Soups and sauces freeze beautifully because they’re liquids and do not lose any of their textural qualities. When you buy a whole chicken or any meat or fish on the bone (shrimp peels and tails work too), take those bones and make yourself a huge batch of stock; then freeze it in big batches if you want fresh soup or smaller ones to flavor a gravy. You’ll never use those disgusting stock cubes again. You could also actually make a soup and freeze it too, but we rarely ever want to eat the same soup twice. Lentil soup, corn chowder, tomato soup, anything will work here that isn’t heavy on the dairy to save from splitting the soup later. Egyptians love their red sauce. Koshari, any vegetable, pasta… it all requires red sauce. Why go through the hassle of making a batch of tomato sauce every single time you cook? The effort you exert to make one batch is basically the same as making five batches. Buy several kilos of ripe tomatoes, chop them up and cook them down for at least an hour for the most basic tomato sauce you could use to make marinara. If you know you like a smoother sauce, puree the tomatoes before or after you cook them down. Want something more flavorful? Cook down some onions and garlic before tossing the tomatoes in. Most non-dairy sauces freeze well, but one of my favorite things to freeze because we just don’t go through it fast enough is pesto. I love basil but it goes bad so fast. When I buy some, I make it into a simple pesto of just oil and basil and store it in a jar in the fridge for a week. Then I transfer it into an ice cube tray and freeze into cubes. It’s great to toss into a marinara or some mashed potatoes. Meat Everyone freezes meat, you don’t need me to tell you to do that. However, one of my favorite timesavers is buying large batches of lean ground beef (or chicken legs, really), forming them into hamburger patties, kofta or meatballs and then freezing them for super fast weekday meals. Freeze your chicken breasts, steaks and fish into meal-size portions so they don’t take too long to thaw (always thaw meat overnight in the fridge or under cold running water for an hour or so before cooking). A lot of people like to marinate their meat and freeze, but I find it easier to place frozen meat in a bowl, cover it in marinade then place it in the fridge to thaw overnight while it marinates. If your family likes breaded meat, you could bread your meat then freeze it raw before thawing and frying. This actually has the added benefit of keeping the breadcrumbs from falling off completely when they fry. Dairy Dairy is actually great to freeze because it goes bad very quickly once it’s open. We don’t really eat many dairy products that sit around for a while anymore, but when we did my freezer was my best friend. Butter is a great thing to freeze if you have a lot of it. You don’t even have to thaw it to use it later, just grate it frozen into a bowl and it will thaw in seconds. Cream is another good thing to freeze, although it does change the consistency a bit. It’s fine for use in soups this way. Cheese is by far my favorite thing to freeze, particularly leftovers. Any cheese that’s just about to kick the bucket can be frozen and then used later to bake cheese bread or to quench that midnight grilled cheese craving when you don’t have any fresh cheese left. What are your favorite things to freeze? Contact us on Twitter at @EgyptTodayMag or me personally at @rehaam and let us know. In the meantime, enjoy! |
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