Two food freezing questions...

[Leaper]

1. I tried to separate two frozen chicken breasts stuck together by running them under cold water and prying with a fork or knife (I didn’t run it under for long, since the breasts were cold and the water just as cold). I succeeded only in ripping pieces off. Disgusted, I tossed the still stuck and rock hard breasts back into the bag.

But then I recalled that thawing and refreezing meat is a bad idea. Should I be concerned in this case?

2. I have a block of cheddar I may not get to in time before it gets moldy. The last time I tried freezing a block of cheese, it came out crumbly, and I usually like slicing it and putting it onto crackers when I’m not cooking with it. Any way to avoid the crumbliness?

Thanks in advance!

[Broomstick]

@Leaper

1. I tried to separate two frozen chicken breasts stuck together by running them under cold water and prying with a fork or knife (I didn’t run it under for long, since the breasts were cold and the water just as cold). I succeeded only in ripping pieces off. Disgusted, I tossed the still stuck and rock hard breasts back into the bag.

But then I recalled that thawing and refreezing meat is a bad idea. Should I be concerned in this case?

First of all, the whole reason you threw it back in the bag is because it wasn’t really unfrozen yet, right? So no problem.

Repeated thaw-and-freeze can change the texture and affect the flavor, but it is not a health risk unless the meat defrosted and sat out long enough to go bad.

2. I have a block of cheddar I may not get to in time before it gets moldy. The last time I tried freezing a block of cheese, it came out crumbly, and I usually like slicing it and putting it onto crackers when I’m not cooking with it. Any way to avoid the crumbliness?

Not really. At least not in a household setting.

[Sigmagirl]

You could slice it and put waxed paper between the slices, and then freeze it. The individual slices still will be crumbly, but you won’t have the issue with trying to slice the block.

[Moonlitherial]

1. No issue with the meat, except perhaps an extra layer of ice on the outside from the water.
2. Anytime I’m freezing extra cheese I grate it first and package it in single use packages, carefully set to be fairly thin. It melts from frozen almost as fast as from the fridge and crumbling isn’t an issue.

[Athena]

1 - what everyone else said about the chicken.

2 - one technique to keep cheese for a long time without freezing is to wrap it first in parchment or waxed paper, then in tinfoil. This is a hint from Cook’s Illustrated, and it works, I’ve tried it. Here’s the explanation:

Storing cheese presents a conundrum: As it sits, it releases moisture. If this moisture evaporates too quickly, the cheese dries out. But if the moisture is trapped on the cheese’s surface, it encourages mold. Specialty cheese paper avoids this problem with a two-ply construction that lets cheese breathe without drying out, but usually requires mail-ordering. To find a more accessible method, we single- and double-wrapped cheddar, brie, and fresh goat cheese in various ways, refrigerated the cheeses for six weeks, and monitored them for mold and dryness. Cheeses single-wrapped in -plastic—whether cling wrap or zipper-lock bags—were the first to show mold. However, cheeses shrouded in waxed or parchment paper alone lost moisture and dried out. The best method: waxed or parchment paper loosely wrapped with aluminum foil. Both papers wick moisture away, while the foil cover traps just enough water to keep the cheese from drying out. Wrapped this way, even super-perishable goat cheese kept for about a week, and the brie and cheddar were almost like new more than a month later. Cheese paper extended the life of these cheeses by only a few days more.

[Cluricaun]

Next time you buy chicken also buy a bunch of cheap tupperware type containers. Fill them with water and put the chicken in and freeze that. Not only do you only have to defrost as many as you want, but the chicken (or pork or steak) will last forever since the sublimiation responsible for freezer burn will effect the frozen water and not the chicken. This trick doesn’t work on ground meat though since the water soaks into it too much.

[SeaDragonTattoo]

There are probably lots of different ways to store frozen meat. If you wanted to store the chicken so you could take individual pieces out separately without having to thaw multiple pieces, either put waxed paper between the pieces, or baggie each piece before putting them together in the same container. Personally, I would think the pieces you put back have one more thaw in them before they have texture issues.

For the cheese, I think I would plan on just cooking with what gets frozen.