Finding Food

How often do you go into the freezer and find a box or bag, without a label and no identifying features? I did that yesterday evening. I was rooting out a frozen yoghurt for my supper and there it was. A box with a pink lid, no label and a reddy, brown tinged bulk inside. It could be a chicken curry, casserole, meatball spaghetti, tomato sauce, large helping of soup. I had no idea. So it was repositioned and pushed to the back of my mind; I was more interested in my frozen yoghurt!
We seem to eat out of the freezer. As an ME sufferer it becomes the best option. Being unable to cook main meals everyday the freezer and fridge have become my best buddies. When I became housebound again 2 years ago my energy resources disappeared so drastically that the option we first came up with for my lunchtime meal, was ready meals. Not the real thing though. We bought large and individual pies and quiches from the supermarket. These were cooked, divided up and split into meals with potatoes and vegetables and then frozen. All I had to do every day for my lunch was retrieve a pre-prepared meal and trust the microwave to do its thing. If I was more patient I would put it all in the oven and have a fuller flavour at the end of it.
This worked for a while. The quality of the food was reasonable. Buying sausage rolls and pasties, also breaded fish and fishcakes, for the same purpose, gave it variety, but still didn't give me fresh food with a full nutrient base to aid my recovery. Next link up the chain became finding supermarket food which provided the similar ease of cooking, but a better list of ingredients. I have always read the packets of whatever I buy in the shops, but this was getting ridiculous! We found ready meals without preservatives and flavourings. Perfect, but very expensive. Though finding this all in a different supermarket meant that they had a different list of ingredients for their pies and quiches too and this shop offered ready to cook meat and fish, in oven friendly foil trays, with healthy sauces and marinades. A few choice selections became our monthly shop. As expected these ready meals too became tedious. Who really wants to eat Spag.Bol. three times a week interspersed with a couple of meals of breaded fish and pieces of pie?
By this time we had discovered what most supermarkets were beginning to offer in respect of budget vegetable shopping. Buying fresh organic vegetables is usually the most expensive option. Going down the budget scale, regular vegetables, cheap large quantities of vegetables and then further down the line is tinned and frozen vegetables. I have never eaten any tinned vegetables other than tins of chopped tomatoes- simply for the convenience. The frozen vegetables, it was discovered, have gone through a whole new phase. We began buying frozen everything; chopped onions, chopped mixed peppers, mixed veg, chunky mixed veg, even chopped frozen herbs and garlic. I am now amazed at how we ever survived without it all. From someone who would take pride in throwing together a casserole or fish pie with fresh ingredients and nothing more pre-prepared than a tin of tomatoes or frozen peas I am now someone who eats from the freezer and eats healthily from the freezer. Every weekend my husband and I combine our skills (and energy levels!) and cook two or three meals, each with four or five portions. Baked pasta is usually one of the results, also the ready to cook meats and at least once a month we have a fish pie, a supermarket pie and a curry. When there are weeks when I just don't have the energy to assist he usually digs into the freezer and finds a couple of two portion meals that we have stashed in the back and there is enough also stashed to feed us for the next week too. We make a good team. Giving the carer time and space is a necessity when so much of the day is taken up with fetching, doing, and aiding the patient. By cooking like this and making each meal as easy and skill free as possible we are floating through this difficult time and I look forward to the day when I can be a chef de cuisine again.