FROM THE FREEZER, WITH LOVE

"TV dinners.

Boil-in-bag lasagna.

Frozen pizza, waffles, pancakes.

Where would my family be today if not for the wonders of frozen food?

Starved, I tell you. We'd be be starved.

Well, not really. John is the cook in the family -- and an excellent one, I might add.

But these days when John isn't in the mood to cook...and it's my turn to cook...well, nothing beats a frozen Tony's Pizza. 

Just ask my son, Daniel.  I am sure college cuisine seems like a banquet fit for royalty after enjoying frozen pizza on my "cooking" nights throughout his high school days.  Poor kid.

Oh, there were the occasional non-frozen food nights when Daniel was in grade school when I stepped up to the plate, as it were, and made boxed macaroni and cheese or Hamburger Helper.  But that only prompted Daniel to ask, "Why doesn't Grandma cook everything out of a box like you do?"

Then there was the time I  slaved over some sort of boxed rice-and-sauce concoction for dinner, and for a brief moment I actually had John convinced I had made the sauce from scratch. So impressed with my newfound culinary skills was he that he was "oohing" and "ahhing"...until Daniel dashed over to the kitchen garbage can, pulled out the box and said, "Mommy made it from a box." 

Busted!

Suffice to say that  Clarence Birdseye, the beloved Father of Frozen Foods (he developed the flash-freeze method that makes all our lives a little easier today), is a patron saint at our house. 

One of my husband's favorite memories from the early days of our marriage is the time he was bedridden up in our loft bedroom, and he had to rely on me to bring him up a meal. What to do? Frozen boil-in-bag lasagna ( drop bag in boiling water for 5 min.), as it turns out, was the frozen food entree du jour.

Unfortunately, I was somehow distracted, boiled the sucker dry, and poor John was a mighty hungry man that night...

I believe that instance was the impetus for the Swanson HungryMan frozen dinner line, but I can't say for sure...

Anyway, March is Frozen Food Month, and Tuesday is National Frozen Food Day, so celebrate accordingly.

If your significant other asks you out for a fancy dinner, protest alluringly and whisper seductively in their good ear, "Sorry, darling, but it's National Frozen Food Day. We're having Stouffer's Frozen Meat Lasagna."

And then stand back and watch the romantic sparks fly!