Frozen Food Memories

Chicken nuggets and crinkle fries – that is my daughter’s contribution to the Carroll household. Along with her brother, the two hauled most of their valuable possessions to Lubbock last weekend. What they left in our empty nest was a freezer full of indigestion.

For years the kids have tagged along on trips to the grocery store. A quick trip to Lowe’s wouldn’t even get them off the couch but mention a food run and they are suddenly anxious to spend time with mom or dad. The trip would inevitably lead to the frozen food aisle and the negotiations would begin.
“I need some Hot Pockets for breakfast,” one would say. “I think we are also out of tater tots and these new seasoned extra crispy fries look great.”

Between the frozen pizza rolls and rock hard taquitos, there was always something frozen that we “needed” and for years I enabled that need.

I understand their craving for crinkle cut fries because I once filled my freezer with foods of minimal nutritional value. Banquet Pot Pies were a staple in my 1970’s college diet because they were cheap, smelled good when cooking and tasted – well – lousy but that wasn’t the point. Along with Kraft’s Macaroni and Cheese, a frugal college student could spend $10 a week on groceries
The irony of college eating was that I complained about dorm cafeteria food until I started eating pot pies several nights a week. Fancy eating in college was the 4-course TV dinner, a childhood favorite of mine as well.

“Go pick out frozen dinners for everyone,” my mother would say. I knew everyone’s preference – fried chicken for my mother and brother and Swiss steak for dad. Turkey dinners were my favorite even though I always burned my mouth on that boiling cranberry cobbler.

Just days before the kids shipped off to college, we announced that the kids must start clearing out the freezer and that night’s dinner would be a good start. It was a meal fit for a five year-old as we prepared a giant baking sheet of southern chicken patties, crispy fries, tater tots, corn dogs, fish sticks and chicken nuggets.

The smell of that baking smorgasbord was hard to describe but the meal was tolerable with a good dose of ketchup and honey. We never got back to the freezer food and the kids headed off to college leaving us with half opened corn dog boxes and hot pockets and just one Steak umm.
I freely admit that we miss the kids but it feels good to take back control of the meals (and the freezer). We tossed the kid’s frozen foods into the garbage tonight and cooked a nice steak on the grill. I would imagine our half empty freezer now being filled with frozen vegetables and Lean Cuisine meals. Still, somewhere underneath it all you might find a Hungry Man turkey dinner and one Steak Umm just in case of emergency.