Food Safety and Freezer Cooking

Before we continue with posts about using the macro I want to talk about the very important subject of food safety.  After all, the convenience of freezer meals doesn't mean anything if the food makes your family sick.  Freezer cooking presents some challenges to safely preparing food that I plan to address.

Safely Cooling Food

The Danger Zone in food safety is 40° to 140° this is the range where the bacteria that cause illness grow the most quickly.  It is recommended that food left in this range for two hours be discarded as it may cause food poisoning.  This presents a challenge when creating large batches of food which must then be cooled and frozen.  A large batch can take very long time to cool, leaving the food in the danger zone for an unacceptable amount of time.  As tempting as it may be,  never put hot food in the freezer to cool.  Putting hot food in the freezer can raise the temperature of the foods around it, causing them to enter the danger zone, ruining the safety and quality of the food.  Cool all food to at least room temperature before freezing  Some safe ways to cool food are: