cooking w/ meat

[Teluog]

When I was on Bible College campus they fed us every weekday so we would only have to worry about our own food on the weekend. But now I'm living on my own so I gotta supply my own meals all the time now.

I like to use beef a lot, whether ground beef or beef chunks or beef strips. But beef sold in grocery stores always has a due date that is less than 3 or 4 days from the time you buy it.

But I asked in the shoutbox and someone said that if beef is frozen that it is still good to eat for a long time past its due date.

Catholicity26 also gave this advice in the SB earlier:

meat that is frozen is good past the due date if it was bought fresh and then frozen, but you should never thaw and refreeze meat. Its better to divide fresh meat in half and then freeze it in smaller portions

thaw only what you need, fresh meat should be refridgerated for no more then three-four days and meat should never smell except for "fleshy" so to speak...

But what if you're a bachelor rookie like me who thawed out a whole beef package but only needed to cook half of it? What should I do with the rest of it? Should I cook it up and THEN refrigerate and eat it the next day by reheating it in a microwave? Or is it still a bad idea to refrigerate even cooked meat?

And please mention any other meat cooking tips you have. Us bachelors need all we can get!

[Cu Mhorrigan]

If it smells get rid of it, Seriously...
if not then you should cook it and then refrigerate.

[Hamster]

Once it's cooked it's safe... I think. So you could cook it into hamburgers and put it in the refrigerator. Meat seems to last indefinitely once it's frozen though

[Raphael]

When you buy mince, also buy some ziplock bags. before you freeze the mince divided in into the portions sizes you will generally use, then freeze those. (you can do the same with the beef chunks and beef strips)

If you need to use more, you can grab extra packets out, but if you needing just the one packet, then you don't have to worry about defrosting and possibly wasting the rest.