two questions about frozen food

[rhondaklewis]

If you forget to take meat out the freezer how do you thaw it out?
Is it safe to put it in a bowl of water and thaw it out like that?

[Amy Jacobs]

with defrost on it that will work.

Yes put it in water that will get it to thaw quicker. I hate when that happens the kids love it though that usually turns into a order out night ~Amy

[robynec]

I don't do this often but if you have a microwave and it has a power setting or a setting for defrost
you can do it that way as well. My old one just had a power setting which you'd want to set on 50%
My new one has a defrost button and then asks me how many pounds. HTH

[81charduck]

My brother is in the food industry & has taken MANY food safety classes. He told me, "When in doubt, throw it out."

That said, I have partially thawed fish & poultry out in a bowl of water. Just before it is totally thawed, I take it out & cook it. I've also put various meats in the microwave on its lowest setting for a few minutes.

[rhondaklewis]

We ended up having pizza. The power outage because of the storm. No electricity,no cooking.

[rhpearson1]

I'm bad about defrosting meat, too. I use the microwave, but even then I usually over-defrost and wind up cooking the meat in the microwave before I can grill it. I need some recipes that start with frozen chicken breasts.

[Aviva B]

I think the idea behind healthy thawing (and food prep in general) is that once cooked food or raw meat, poultry etc. is between the temperatures of 40 and 140 degrees Farenheit for over two hours, bacteria can start growing and producing toxins - stuff which isn't necessarily killed or destroyed even if you cook it. So as long as you can keep the temperature of whatever is defrosting below that (or if it's significantly under two hours), that should be fine. For more details - and for the health of us all - here's the US gov't's guidelines to thawing food: Turkey Basics: Safe Thawing.

[emberhomemade]

Looks like I late to this discussion. You can thaw in a bowl of water like this. To thaw more quickly place bowl into the sink and keep a trickle of water going into the bowl. Our frozen fish has suffered this process of constant drowning many times. You know, before we ate it