Can I Freeze It?: How to Use the Most Versatile Appliance in Your Kitchen

By Susie Theodorou

Book Overview

What kitchen appliance is a busy home cook's greatest friend? Believe it or not, it's the freezer. Freezers seriously simplify meal preparation--you can plan ahead, save time, and shop economically, yet still serve fresh, flavorful suppers. Freezers are great for those dark winter months when you want to have dinner on the table fifteen minutes after you get home from work--think lasagna, stews, and soups--and they are also useful for entertaining friends when time is short. In Can I Freeze it? veteran food writer and stylist Susie Theodorou explains the tips, tricks, and rules of freezing food, from containers and wrappers (foil or Tupperware?) to the best methods for retaining moisture and flavor to what ingredients and dishes can and can't be frozen. She provides a wealth of recipes, along with color photographs, for whole and partial dishes. Some are completely preassembled (for example, chicken in a marinade), frozen, and cooked later. Others combine frozen ingredients with fresh ones--pair a pastry from the freezer with berries from a farm stand, or defrost a sauce and use it to top fish straight from the market. The recipes include everything from meat and fish to pizza and veggies, plus desserts. Many dishes can be served two ways. For example, prepare classic Bolognese sauce and serve some of it for dinner over pasta. Freeze the rest and use it later to make meat and potato pie. In addition, there is a chapter on cooking for a crowd in which Susie shares her best recipes for entertaining large groups of family and friends. Serve lamb ragu ravioli with rosemary brown butter, Mexican chickpea stew with green salsa, or hearty lasagna--your guests will never know you prepared most of the meal in advance, making dinner parties a breeze And be sure to save room for decadent desserts, including homes favorites such as Chocolate Chunk Cookies as well as showstoppers like Layered Coconut Cake. With Can I Freeze It? flavorful, healthful, hot meals are ready in minutes, without turning to takeout. It's the ultimate guide to saving time and money in the kitchen.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0061802468
• ISBN13: 9780061802461
• Release Date: September 2009
• Publisher: William Morrow & Company
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 1.34 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 7.4" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Great recipes for cooking ahead

As other reviewers have mentioned, this is not a book about what can and cannot be frozen. That said, the recipes are wonderful and it has been so convient to be able to make dinners (other than the all too common casseroles) ahead of time that freeze and reheat perfectly. Paticularly good are Her recipes for pot stickers (she gives 3 varities), salmon cakes, meat balls and her chicken and leek pot pies are simply amazing. Yum! Most of the recipes in this book are perfect for entertaining- and it makes it so much easier as a hostess to prepare some or all of the courses in a dinner party in advance. If you are pressed for time in the evenings but want a homemade dinner every night, this book is fantastic.

Interesting, but not too complicated, fare from the freezer

In the freezer-cooking genre, there seem to be two types of cookbooks: the simple, workhorse, how-to-make-stuff-and-freeze-it variety, and the more "gourmet" variety. The former generally includes a lot of high-fat, uninspiring recipes like meatloaf and cream-of-mushroom soup-based casseroles, and the latter typically involves complicated recipes with fancy ingredients that most families with small children would never serve. Susie Theodorou's "Can I Freeze It?" strikes a lovely middle ground. I especially enjoyed a chapter on meatballs that features several inspired variations, such as a Chinese noodle soup featuring chicken meatballs, and another chapter featuring several variations on gyoza (pot stickers). Freezing techniques are thoroughly explained for each recipe, with specific details about how to get the item from freezer to table (including clear notes about which recipes can be cooked from frozen). The one disappointment in this wonderful cookbook was the complete lack of nutritional information provided for the recipes. Given that this book was published in 2007, I was pretty shocked that this standard information was not provided.

Your most useful special purpose cookbook.

'can i freeze it' by Suzie Theodoru has one of the most accurate, informative, and catchy subtitles I've seen on a cookbook, which more than makes up for the catchy but less than accurate main title. The subtitle points out that while there are stacks of books on how to cook with blenders, food processors, slow cookers, pressure cookers, rice cookers, and sloppy cookers (See Martha Stewart's Housekeeping Manual), not everyone has a food processor, slow cooker, pressure cooker, or rice cooker. But, virtually EVERYONE has a freezer. And, I'll guess that only a minority really know all the tips and pitfalls of freezing. My issue with the title is that a scant 10 percent of the book (the first 22 pages, in chapter entitled `Perfect Freezing Every Time') actually deals with the techniques of freezing. The remainder of the book realizes the subtitle to a tee, in giving one both common and relatively uncommon techniques with which to use the freezer (or freezing compartment of a dual refrigerator - freezer). `Perfect Freezing Every Time' begins with a section on how freezing works, in order to explain why certain techniques work and why certain practices cause frozen food to go bad. Next is `freezing tips and techniques, which may be just a bit thin for the novice. I think a few good picture series demonstrating some basic techniques would have done well here. Next is `containers', which may offer information which is foreign to most people. I'm just a bit surprised that the author doesn't give a stronger warning against using water in glass in the freezer. In spite of the fact that I, Mr. Smarty Pants chemist for 10 years, have used due care in putting water in glass in the freezer, the glass busts virtually every time! Ms. Theodoru's advice is sound, but there should be a black border around being careful with glass and freezing. (Oils in glass, such as bacon fat, do not have the same problems, as fats do not, like water, expand on solidifying). In `organizing the freezer', Ms. Theodoru gives us possibly the two very best pieces of advice. One is that it is a `good thing' to keep the freezer almost full (75 percent). And, be careful about real freezer temperature (especially if your freezer is an automatically defrosting model). `maintaining the freezer' addresses manual defrosting and maintaining frost-free freezer units. `thawing' is a very nice reference on this procedure which may be hazardous to your health if done incorrectly. `how to choose the right freezer' is very nice, especially in its discussion of `integrated freezers', which can be built into a line of cabinets and opened like a drawer. I would have liked to see a picture of such a model, and know who manufactures them. The five pages from 17 to 22 give material which reflect the title of the book, and may be the most disappointing section. It deals only with a few very general categories of foods. A major improvement would have been a glossary covering freezing dos and don'ts for a l

You can cook, but can you thaw?

I probably have more than 100 cookbooks, but this one will be kept in the kitchen. The freezer is the one mystery appliance left in my kitchen and I'd been searching for months for good guides to using the freezer and cooking from the freezer. The Once-A-Month Meals books were helpful with menus but they weren't specific enough about the process of taking food from hot to cold and back to hot. It sounds simple, but I spent plenty of nights delaying dinner by 45 minutes to cook the center of a dish. Thrilled with this book!

Required Reading

At last! The do's and don'ts of freezing anything have finally been de-mystified. This book takes center stage in my kitchen library - it is an essential kitchen tool that everyone should have. Who knew!