How to Defrost Frozen Meat Quicker - Without a Microwave or Warm Water

This will be a quick and easy post just as it's a quick and easy answer to a problem most of us have had at one time or another. You need to cook something and the meat is frozen. Ugh!

In the past I have done the slow and tortuous microwave method. I have even tried the soaking in warm water method.  

But high school chemistry came come to the aid of us all.

Plop your frozen meat upside down into a room temperature cast iron pan.

 That's it! Don't preheat the pan. Don't try to pry the packaging off the meat.

For my experiment, I took 2 separate packages of frozen ground beef out of my freezer. I put one upside down directly in my pan and I put one on my cupboard.

The one in the pan defrosted in about an hour and the one on the cupboard took over 3 hours.

What's happening here is basic physics. 

Metal is a wonderful heat conductor. The cold from the meat meets the warm from the pan. It creates a cold spot on your pan and the cast iron wicks the cold away in an effort to return to room temperature. 

They actually sell products for meat defrosting which is one more thing you don't need in a cluttered kitchen. Even though you don't need it, you can read more about it here.

I prefer to have items that serve multi purposes and now my cast iron pans serve even more purposes. Yay!

I have only tried it so far with meat. Have you tried it with other foods? The physics should stay the same.

I will also take a moment here to tell you about one of my favorite kitchen gadgets. When I first heard about it, I thought it would be silly and add to my clutter but this tool really helps when you are frying up ground beef. It makes the meat mix and cop so easily and uniformly. I mix onions in with this and it makes it super easy. I used this tool when I made ground beef rocks and it was super fast.

It's a  Ground Beef Meat Chopper and Mixer. Love it!

Cherry Dump Cake

I do love dump cake.
It's easy and delicious. You can use many different types of pans and many different types of fruit.
For this recipe, I used a casserole dish because I wanted the cake part to be cakier.
If you use a flatter pan, it will be less cakey and more like cobbler.

12 oz canned cherry pie filling.
One box vanilla cake mix
1 stick of butter
1 can of soda or (in this case Logenberry) 
Walnuts

Use cooking spray to cover the bottom of your pan.
Dump the fruit in.
Dump the cake mix on top of that.
Dump the Logenberry or soda on top of that.
Dump the stick of butter on top of that.
Dump the walnuts on top of that.

Put it in your preheated (350 degree) oven and check it after 45 minutes.
Depending on your pan, it will either be done or need another 15 minutes. 

Enjoy!
It's perfect after a dinner of Popalack. It's great with vanilla ice cream, too!

Popalak AKA Potato Pizza

I don't know where the name Popalak came from except that I know it from my mother in law. This is what my husband's family calls it. This post is dedicated to her with great amounts of love.
My MIL was able to feed a very large family for very little money with her creative recipes. Sometimes I have learned that what she calls something isn't what other people think that thing is.
For Popalak, I don't even see it being something that other people think is even a thing : )
I tried to Google it.
It's really good, pretty easy to make, inexpensive for a large family.
It also probably has almost zero nutritional value. When we make this, it's because it's a comfort food on a cold winter day. Not for healthy eating reasons.

Here's what you need:

1 pizza crust in a tube (like a crescent roll container, only it's pizza crust)
5 lbs potatoes. You can use which ever type you like best.
10 slices of American cheese.
Onion salt 
Pepper
20 oz shredded mozzarella cheese.
Paprika
Baking spray

Baking spray, aluminum foil or a cover for your pan, and a 13x9 glass pan. 

Cut your potatoes in half and then quarter them again. Plop them into a pan of water (make sure the water covers them)  and get them boiling on the stove. Your going to boil them until they are just tender when stuck with a fork.

In the mean time, spray the bottom of your 13x9 baking pan and lay the pizza crust over the bottom only of the pan.
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
Lay your slices of American cheese over the pizza crust. Now you wait until your potatoes are ready.

Again, you want to boil them just until a fork can easily be stuck in them, but don't go too far or they'll be mushy.
Drain your potatoes, rinse with cold water to stop the cooking and drain all water.
Use your shredder and grate the potatoes over the pizza crust and cheese in the pan. You will be making an even layer here, Maybe an inch tall.

Most of the parts of this recipe can be adjusted for your taste. Less potato, more potato. Less cheese, different cheese. Add diced onions, what ever you want. 
Season with onion salt and pepper.
Once you have your potato layer, you will add your mozzeralla cheese layer.
Add paprika, cover with aluminum foil and bake for about a half hour.
You will know it's done when the pizza crust is a beautiful golden brown on the bottom.

While the oven is already hot, why not make a Cherry Dump Cake for dessert?



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