Using frozen food in cooking and freezing revamp

[MyTJ]

The problem

So I noticed that recently, frozen food can no longer be used in recipes such as soup or stew.

 

I don't agree with the change as IRL it's possible to use frozen food while cooking (frozen veggies in stir fry, soup, stew, etc.)  There are actualy quite a few lines of items that are meant to be ready for cooking straight from the freezer. I'll grant that it adds a bit of time to the cooking as the heat first thaw them before cooking them, although the thawing process is quicker then at room temperature.

 

Now, frozen vegetables pose no problem with the actual cooking system as you can always use part of the bag and keep the rest for later (for now that applies only to frozen peas).

 

Other produces may pose problem as, when frozen they may be hard to cut short of using a saw. There could be two simple solution to this :

 

1. Use them whole in a recipe (think about a few whole carrots and potatos in a stew instead of bits of them... you can always cut them with your fork or knife when your about to eat them or when you're serving bowls). This lead to some wasted food value compared to using parts of the ingrédients, but I'm ok with that. I agree though that there's a risk of confusion for new players unless there's a warning message of some kind... which would clutter the UI so I don't think it's a good idea.
2. Status quo : Don't use them until they thaw. I don't like this system because it forces to do cooking in two steps, taking time out of other activities such as : farming, fishing, carpentry, etc. and worse of them... looting (because unlike the others, you need to move significantly far away from your base to do it).

 

The opportunity

Now, I could simply suggest the first solution, and that would be fine. But I think this offers a greater opportunity at a better solution. What if, beside canning, we could prepare vegetables (and maybe other ingrédients too) so they can be put in freezer bags and frozen.  This is a simple process my mom and her mom (and now me) have been using for décades (if not more) to keep part of a summer's garden harvest for winter.  Sure you won't be able to use those in any salad worthy of the name, but very convenient in soup, stew or sauce for pasta...

 

But why stop at preparing single ingredient for freezing?  Why not prepare mix of veggies for future stir fry/soup/stew?

 

Let's show that freezer some love and make good use of those new and improve generators

Edited May 10, 2017 by MyTJ

[Kuren]

If you get a microwave and set it to the lowest heat it will thaw items out quickly and bring the frozen bar down in no time Found it to be a nice touch and give me more of a reason to have a microwave to go with my freezer and stove

That being said, I agree not all items should have the restriction when frozen but it works well for meats and things like that that should be thawed in real life. I also really love the freezer bag idea Ever since the car build got released I've been building my playstyle around having a ton of gas stocked up and keeping things running with the generator

[BoogieMan]

I would be a nice convenience to be able to cook frozen stuff even if it made it take a little longer or affects the quality somewhat.

 

I currently deal with it by planning ahead (when I remember) what I plan to cook in the next day or two and move it to the fridge to thaw out.