Family Chow Hall

The Mysterious Substance in the back of the Freezer

June 4th, 2006

It’s Sunday evening and I’m pondering what I will blog about all week.

You see, this week’s goal is to eliminate (through eating) most of the strange items that keep getting pushed to the back of the freezer and pantry. Not from the fridge — even I am not that cruel to my family - those items will and do get tossed into the garbage disposal.

You know how it is, it seems like the freezer, fridge, and cupboards are overflowing and everybody is whining, “There’s nothing to eat.” You gripe at them a little, and when you go look you realize they seem to be right. Why is that half-package of philo dough in the door of the freezer? Were you actually going to bake something with it? And what can you do with a half-cup of bow-tie noodles? What is in the unlabeled margarine container on the third shelf of the freezer? You realize that somehow, you must come up with a palatable way to serve these things to your family and free your freezer and pantry space, or admit defeat and toss the food.

Well, in the words of Winston Churchill, I say “Never Give Up!”

Take the block of whatever-kind-of-cheese that is, the half-cup of bow-tie noodles, and the Unidentified Food Substance in the margarine container and invent a new soup or casserole. Do this all week, and you’ve accomplished several things;

For instance, on Friday I thawed out what I thought was Italian Chicken with navy beans. I made a nice Focaccia bread to go with it, and had Brussels sprouts, too. When I removed the Italian Chicken from the oven, I realized it was actually Shredded Pork with Mexican vegetables. Oops. It was good and everything, but didn’t go with the sides as I had planned.

Another time, I remember making chili and took out some frozen tomato juice or V-8. At least I thought it was V-8. It looked like V-8. I’d like to say it smelled like V-8, but frozen foods don’t really exude much of an aroma, so I can’t. Turned out the “V-8″ was actually a frozen strawberry-banana smoothie. Honestly, it made for very interesting chili. Yes, we did eat it. An old family slogan is, “Well, we’ll just have to eat it.” This can be said about anything, good or bad, excellent or ruined.

Because of my strange-food-elimination week, I’m not sure I am going to come up with any exciting new and appealing recipes. I might have a couple more funny stories to tell, though, so stay tuned. In the meantime, I will post some of my old favorites for you, even if that’s not what we’re eating here in the Family Chow Hall kitchen.

Entry Filed under: Leftovers, Mixed bag, Philosophy, Supper, Table talk