THIS is why we can't have anything nice!

wifeofadam

Just went into the basement to pull out some meat from the freezer for dinner.  Freezer door is wide open and blood is all over the floor.

We got a whole beef at Christmastime.  We rely on this meat to feed the family for the whole year and it is not something we can afford to buy again.

$2000 worth of pastured beef thawed out.......I'm trying to can and cook what I can to preserve it, but I'm not even sure how long that door was open and if the meat is safe to eat at this point.

None of the kids will fess up and I'm livid.

tamarar5

I'm so sorry!

ally2011

That is terrible! I am so sorry.

brachysira

That is terrible.  Maybe you could email your church, tell people to come get what they can eat, and ask if they want to donate because your family has to now buy a new cow.  

jesuisfatiguee

Wow. This is about as heartbreaking as the story someone posted awhile back (not sure if it was on this board) about losing over 600 oz of frozen breastmilk to a broken freezer.

I just... I am so sorry.

kleigh926

Oh no. I'm so sorry. That's terrible. My heart sank just reading this.

TarheelMama202

That is terrible. I can't even fathom that. An entire cow. So sorry!

SidraJedi

That's terrible

wifeofadam

Thanks, everyone.  I spent three hours cooking meat.  I called a friend who owns a steakhouse and asked his opinion since he deals with food safety and beef, and he told me that as long as it was still cold to the touch and partially frozen I could cook it up and refreeze it.  I just cooked 102 hamburger patties, 7 pounds of ground beef, 4 sirloin steaks, 7 packages of cube steak, and 3 packages of ground lamb.  I was able to refreeze that.  I still have some steaks and hamburger patties left in the fridge that I am going to try to cook tomorrow. 

Luckily, the meat at the very back of the freezer was still frozen solid, so at least half of what was in there was salvageable.  It wasn't as bad as I initially thought.  I'm still heartsick over having to throw away what I did, but it could have been worse, I guess.

I don't know if you guys remember me posting when I bought the cow - how I had underestimated how much meat it would be and I didn't have enough freezer space.  Because of that I had canned all of the roasts and brought a bunch of meat to my parents' house to put in their extra freezer.  I am so thankful for that now!!  At least I still have that meat!!

kleigh926

I'm glad it wasn't as bad as it could've been! If I were you, I would never want to see meat again after cooking all of that, haha.

ally2011

I second the suggestion of a lock on the door!

cinnasugar

So sorry this happened!  Today we got our split side delivered, so now I am going to run downstairs to make sure that our freezer is shut.  I'm all paranoid now!

kelly321

How awful I'm glad it turned out not to be as bad as you thought, though I hate to imagine how exhausted you must be after all that cooking today.

Drea926

You know what would go well with all that red meat? A nice Cab!!! Silver lining!!!

light52

That happened to me one day.  I spent the morning at my son's field trip and had planned to spend the afternoon finishing my mom's 60th birthday cake for her surprise party that night.  I came home to find the door ajar on the freezer and tons of stuff had to be thrown away.  I wound up making icing inbetween checking on meat cooking.  My kitchen was an absolute disaster.  My dad came by for an hour and helped as much as he could.  Glad you were able to salvage a good portion of it.