A Costly Mistake

I've known all along that our freezer didn't seal well. Super D and I have even warned the kids about making sure the door is completely closed. But a late-night snack raid (shame on me) produced some natural consequences.

I also know that I shouldn't eat late at night, but Saturday night, I took some cookie dough from the freezer. (I have no will power against the Monster Cookies!) After Sunday morning church, I discovered the freezer door, wide open. Fortunately, this is our garage freezer, which holds anything that won't fit in the kitchen freezer. Inside, I had stored 5 pork chops, fudgesicles, phyllo dough, 2 loaves of bread, 18 hamburger patties, and about 12 pounds of boneless, skinless chicken breasts.

I tossed everything but the hamburger and chicken. Super D quickly grilled a dozen of the hamburger patties, and I cooked the rest as ground beef. With it, I prepared spaghetti sauce and froze it for a later meal. We have already had hamburgers for 2 meals.

The chicken was a bit trickier. Super D hates frozen meat to begin with, so finding something to prep which he would find edible was a challenge. I ended up cooking some of the chicken and prepared 2 pans of King Ranch Chicken which we put back into the freezer. I also cooked another pound of chicken and diced it for Poppyseed Chicken. Later, I will defrost the meat, put the other ingredients with it, and bake it. Finally, Super D put the remaining chicken into a pressure cooker, shredded it, and threw in some barbeque sauce. BBQ Chicken will make some yummy sandwiches.

So, in the end, very little was wasted, and I think we will get about a dozen meals from all of the meat. All it cost me was a trip to 2 different grocery stores, 4 hours on what should have been a lazy Sunday afternoon, and about 250 calories from the lime sherbet I inhaled when it was all over!