your freezer is your friend

“ ’This must be Thursday,’ said Arthur to himself, sinking low over his beer. ‘I never could get the hang of Thursdays.’ ” Douglas Adams – Hitchhikers Guild to the Galaxy 

It’s cold, I’m tired, however; since the Vogons aren’t going to blow up the Earth to make way for a new hyperspace bypass - at least I think they’re not - I guess I had better get on with things.  

Last night’s dinner turned out to be Cowboy Chili, or at least, that’s what it’s called in this house. It wasn’t the meal I was planning to make, but the plan got changed. I used to make this with a large can of baked beans from the store, now I use home made but the process barely merits a recipe.  

I sautéed one small – less than baseball sized –diced onion in a little bit of vegetable oil (because it was close to the stove) then I browned off 1lb of ground beef and added 1qt of baked beans that I had made previously and stored in the freezer. With a couple tablespoons of chili powder, the same of brown sugar, a couple pinches of red pepper flakes, and then seasoned with salt and pepper, I was in business. It was, what I’m told in baseball is called a punt, but it was quick and it filled us up. And, after a two hour drive home going a maximum speed of 35mph [~56kmph] on the expressway, those are the only two functions it needed to perform.  I washed it down with some a bottle of Christmas Ale from Bell’s Brewery.  

Once again, I say a chest or deep freezer, even a small one, is the absolute best ally any home cook can have. Today’s lunch is another example of this: we’ll be having leftover Creamy Broccoli Soup. I prefer to freeze leftovers because it has a way of stopping the countdown on when they have to be eaten, or at least slowing it down to give you time in which to actually want to eat the thing you made again.  It seems every time I think to myself, “oh, I’ll just stick that in the fridge and eat it tomorrow,” I just end up throwing it out at the end of the week.