Farmer H got a bright idea Tuesday afternoon. The thing with his bright ideas is that they MUST be acted upon IMMEDIATELY, lest they grow dim within five minutes of his announcement. Farmer H roped The Pony into his bright idea, as a little beast of burden. Good thing The Pony has always shown an interest in archaeology. The bright idea was the excavation of the laundry room mini freezer.
Back when the kids were young, and I shopped at Aldi's and Save A Lot, we needed more room to stash our frozen foods. The side-by-side configuration of the Original FRIG did not lend itself to certain shapes, like pizzas, or boxes of french toast sticks or corn dogs or assorted kid-friendly items. The narrow confines were more suited to bagged items, no matter how the shelves were removed or rearranged.
Life was hectic back then. Farmer H decided on a little deep-freeze to keep in the laundry room right off the kitchen. It worked really well for a while, but the more we put in, the less likely we were to dig deep for items at the bottom. So we kept eating off the top, then replacing those foods. Once Genius went off to college in 2013, we didn't go through as much food. I didn't buy as much at a time, or store it in the laundry room. Sometimes clean clothes got put on top of the mini freezer. Lately Farmer H has had a stack of caps, and some of his auction candy on top. I haven't looked in that mini freezer in quite a while.
Farmer H mentioned last week that he was afraid the cold snap had made the BARn freezer section of the Original FRIG not work as well. He thought his five packs of FREE Ponytail Guy hot dogs felt like they were getting soft.
"We need to make sure the FREE food doesn't thaw out and go to waste. I think I'll clean out the laundry room freezer and put it in there."
I had no objections. He didn't say I would be helping him. At least he waited a few days, due to being busy with his Storage Unit Store. But Tuesday afternoon, the project commenced. The Pony was actually excited at the prospect.
"Oh, Mom. Do you want me to look for the oldest item in the mini freezer?"
"Sure. I know you'll break our current record. I haven't been in there in a LONG time!"
So while I was getting my lunch tray ready, The Pony would pop his head through the door into the kitchen, and hold up an item, or question its origins.
"I have NEVER seen anything like this before!" He said, showing me a box of white meat chicken on skewers. "It looks like something I might have liked."
"Yeah. Me too. That has to be since before Genius went off to college!"
"I couldn't find a date on it."
The BEST thing they found was a FRUITCAKE! It was a special fruticake, too, from my best old ex-teaching buddy Mabel. She used to give them to me for Christmas. It was in a round tin, from the monks at Assumption Abbey in the Missouri Ozarks. They are DELICIOUS! I was leery of this fruitcake. But it WAS near the top of the freezer. And Farmer H said that fruitcake never spoils!
"I don't know... the monks probably don't use preservatives. But it HAS been frozen all this time. And the plastic wrapper inside hasn't been opened. I might thaw it out and try a little... Maybe it's preserved with alcohol!"
I'll let you know how THAT adventure turns out.
Anyhoo... at the end of the excavation, with two trash bags full of frozen foods, The Pony said the OLDEST item was on the very bottom. As expected.
"Mom. It's Pizza Snacks."
"Oh, I remember those! We used to get them from the school fundraisers, when you guys were in elementary school. You both LOVED them! It's like a pizza crust with sauce and cheese, in strips you break apart, and a dipping sauce."
"Well. I don't think I would have been eating any of THIS one. The date on it is 2001."
"That's when we first moved into this house!" Said Farmer H, once again painfully oblivious to the space-time continuum.
"No. We moved in at the end of 1997. November. We lived here when The Pony was born, in February 1998."
"Oh. Close enough."
The Pony carried out all the food to the dumpster, to be picked up Wednesday morning. Farmer H drove the Gator over to the BARn to bring back the FREE Ponytail Guy food. He had it in three cardboard boxes, two of which he left on the front porch while he carried one in. Jack was sniffing around, but calls through the cracked-open door of "JACK!" kept him from nibbling.
The guys carried in the food to the cutting block, then chipped the giant icebergs off the side of the mini freezer, which they had left propped open for thawing. Those were tossed off the back porch, and the FREE foods installed in the mini freezer.
We're good to go. Now the FREE food is just a step away from the kitchen, and I can "shop" there with ease. Our next meal is going to be sausage patties, eggs, biscuits, and sausage gravy. After that it will be crumble sausage in sauce for spaghetti, of which we still have many boxes. Then I'm thinking some BBQ chicken with the boneless dark meat chicken.
I'm looking for a recipe for five packs of hot dogs.
4 comments:
I once made a corn dog casserole from all the corn dogs that didn't sell one season. I sliced them into round discs that made me think of eyeballs staring up at me. HeWho loved it. Hashbrown potatoes, mustard and ketchup and corn dog slices. He was in junk food heaven. He also used to like his hotdogs baked inside a crescent roll. You could drag out the crock pot and make that grape jelly bbq sauce stuff that you would use on little smokies, just use hot dogs.
A recipe for 5 packs of hot dogs? I think that's a recipe for indigestion... or a heart attack.
That's a really handy spot to keep the free food! Now you don't have to rely on Farmer H and whatever he brings from the barn in place of what you asked for. Your DON'T need a recipe for five packages of hot dogs. Just use one package at a time. Have a Hot Dog night once a week.
Kathy,
I could try the hash brown thing. Farmer H would probably like it. I asked if he thought my cabbage/sausage/potato cauldron would work with the hot dogs, but he said probably not. That you need the smoked sausage for that.
He likes hot dogs wrapped in biscuits, but the FREE biscuits are already formed, frozen in a bag. Good thing I have regular biscuits in a tube.
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Sioux,
I should put them in a baggie in the back of FRIG II, and Farmer H would probably "sneak" a couple of them each night.
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River,
Yes, if I can get Farmer H to take off all that crap he laid back on top of the mini freezer! We can have regular hot dogs, Farmer H can grill some on Gassy G Jr, and I can split them down the middle and fry them, to have with mustard and onions on a bun. Then there's beanie weenies. I might try Kathy's version with grape jelly. I made the little smokies that way one time. Oh, and I bet Farmer H would eat the hot dogs cut up in scrambled liquid whole eggs, with a bit of garlic powder.
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