Someone left the freezer door ajar! ACK!

[Leader of the Club]

I am feeling very frustrated! One of my dear sons has left the door of my big freezer ajar. All of the ice cream, pops, ice cream sandwiches etc. are grossly melted everywhere.

All of the meat is thawed, but still cold. I'm boiling all of the chicken tenders and breasts and ground beef right now. I thought if I cooked it, I could repackage it into portion/cooking sizes and refreeze it. I cooked the breafast sausage and we ate that for breakfast today and will probably have it the next few days.

What about the frozen waffles, french toast sticks and veggies. Think those will successfully/safely refreeze or should I dump them.

Oh, BTW, my dear boys, said, "Oh, well, we'll have to get more ice cream." FAT CHANCE BOYS! You melted it, you can do without it for a few weeks!

 

[JoiseyMom]

This has happened to me way to many times. We have a stand alone freezer in the basement. I am paranoid about it being closed!! I have wasted way to much money because of the careless kids!! The veggies can be refrozen...will just have more ice crystals. I don't have frozen waffles so I am not sure.

So sorry this happened to you!

 

[pilesoflaundry]

The waffles and french toast sticks will be ok but may have ice crystals on them. BTDT before!

Mine left the freezer open yesterday too but thankfully I caught it after only a few minutes. It's out in the hot garage, that would have been a nightmare!

 

[Leader of the Club]

I have a key for the freezer. I could lock them out, but I don't want to do that. I wonder if I could convince them that it has to be locked all of the time and that they have to lock it after they get into it. I could hang the key right by the freezer door.

My 12 y/o is always freezing his "experiments". He wants to study cryogenics so he can successfully unfreeze Walt Disney one day.

 

[wovenwonder]

We keep our freezer door locked and it works well. This after our door was kept open one time too many! The key is where we can all access it but getting in the habit of locking the door assure's that it is closed tightly!

 

[Melynny]

This happend to us about a month ago! I feel your pain! All of our ice cream pop were grossly melted too! I tried eating them in a bowl, but they were terrible, I finally gave up and pitched them. The waffles made it thru ok, as were the roasts and meats, my low cal dinners were kinda frosty, but I ate 'em anyway! I am glad I am done with them! I hated it! Our freezer did need a good thawing and a clean out, so It gave us a chance to do that.. but it was not really when I wanted to!

 

[Mrs. Bradbury]

You can re-freeze meat. It may affect the quality, but it's not detrimental healthwise to do so.

 

[darrengs]

I suggest a freezer alarm:

http://store.appliancezone.com/servlet/-strse-57426/8171458-freezer-temperature-alarm/Detail

Or just google freezer alarm

 

[PHXscuba]

I feel your pain.

A few years back a similar thing happened to us (garage freezer, ajar overnight, August in AZ). The worst was that we still had a bunch of meat from a side of beef we had bought. Some of it wasn't packaged tightly, and as it defrosted, it dripped all down the freezer insides. Oh, the smell and the mess.

We saved a little of the meat that was still frosty buried under other meat, but it was almost a total loss. At least DH (who left it ajar) got to clean the whole thing out.

PHXscuba

 

[KarenW]

This happened to us a couple of times, so my husband bought one of those straps that is used to keep little ones out - ours doesn't have a lock. It works great! You just have to get in the habit of doing it each time. Our problem was that our freezer is in the laundry room and towels and things that had been thrown on the floor (heaven forbid they actually throw them in the hamper) would get caught in the door and it wouldn't be closed all the way.

 

[Mickey527]

I had that happen more times than I care to count on my basement freezer thanks to the boys grabbing and running. they would grab an ice cream or something and run out the door without checking to see if the door was shut.
I went out and got a long bungee cord, long enough to go around the fridge without having to stretch it too hard. I didn't want it to snap when someone puuled it off, it was just a reminder to shut the door tight.
I clipped it onto the door handle and around the freezer and then back onto the door handle.

 

[Goofyzgurl]

I've had that happen about six months go...it was me that left it open...I think...It was open overnight. The meat was still cold so I just refroze it. It was fine. We usually keep the ice cream in the side by side, so the kids don't keep the going in the big freezer unless they're getting meat to cook dinner...