Originally Posted by
AZ Jane
I think the trick you might be looking for. To thaw quickly, you need to make small batches. Not a small recipe, small amounts to freeze. Think of a big round bowl of frozen soup. that will take a while to thaw, even if you microwave. Now think of a gallon Zip-loc bag, with a couple of cups of soup, frozen flat. Because more surface space is available to heat, it "should" thaw faster than the bowl. Hope that helps! And makes sense LOL! Good luck with the recipe.
A friend gave me the idea to freeze soups in ice cube trays, then empty the tray into a ziplock. You can "nuke" enough for a hot bowl of soup in about 2-3 minutes at the most. I have also done the soup in a ziplock trick frozen flat, then when ready to thaw, but the whole bag in a pot of tepid water for about 10 -20 minutes then it will bend enough to get it out of the bag with less mess. I have even frozen spaghetti in a gallon bag, folded in half. (Folding it makes it easier to get it into a pan of water to thaw). When I make bean soup, we have cornbread with it, (I think it might be a law, lol!), so I make a 9" x 13" pan of cornbread, cut it in squares, then put four squares in a quart ziplock to freeze and can "nuke" them in 30-45 seconds to get fresh as "just made" cornbread, or we put it frozen under the hot bean soup to cool it a little. After the cornbread is frozen, we stack it in a corner of the freezer, so it does not get crushed by other things. (The two of us can't eat a whole cornbread, so this saves a lot of waste.)
Oh, and for those dear diabetics, beans and cornbread is easy to digest and will not kill their blood sugar. If you eat something with baking soda in it with beans it also removes the toxic resulting "gastric air" problem. Cornbread or any quick bread will do the trick.