Change of Plans

On a weekend not too long ago I had the luxury of having a whole weekend to myself with nothing scheduled and no place I had to be, except for church on Sunday morning. After quite a few busy weekends it was wonderful to be able to do what I wanted when I wanted to do it. I got up about 7:30 that morning, made myself a good, healthy breakfast and started my day.  

The original plan was to get some cooking done to restock my freezer with items that I use on a consistent basis, but take a while to put together. These are items that are used either to supplement a meal or to take to work for lunch, but would take too long to cook on any particular week night. Specifically, I wanted to make a brown rice pilaf that I love as a side dish, some applesauce from apples that were left over from a fruit basket I received (and a bit too sweet to eat for my tastes), and some beef barley soup made from pot roast that I could not finish a few nights before (which was actually reheated once already).  All in all, this was a pretty reasonable amount of cooking that I could get done quite easily on a Saturday with little else to do.

After checking the weather report and finding out that snow was expected some time around noon, I started my day with a trip to the pet supply store. I had to exchange a sweater that I had purchased for my dog because it didn’t fit.  My dog loves to go to the pet store so I brought her along.  After we made the exchange, it was off to the beauty supply store for some good nail files, because doing a nail polish change was on the agenda for tomorrow.

A bundled up Ellie

Back home, I pulled into the driveway just as the snowflakes were starting to fall. I got my purchases into the house and put away, and decided to take my dog for a walk before the snow got too bad. It was actually pretty warm outside (around 25 degrees F), so Ellie and I went on a nice long walk. I know that sounds pretty easy, but it always takes me about 10 minutes just to get dressed to go outside when it’s cold. Jeans off, long underwear on, snow pants, scarf, coat, two sets of gloves (one really warm pair and one not quite so warm pair as I get warmer as the walk progresses), boots, hat, and then Ellie got to wear her new sweater. Ellie always stands looking at me while I’m getting dress with a look on her face as if to say, “Do you really need to put all that on just to go outside?”  I put my garage door opener in my pocket, grabbed Ellie’s leash, and off we went.

We walked for 45 minutes, got home and did the whole dressing thing in reverse. Once situated I started to get my cooking ingredients in order which meant a trip downstairs to my pantry. On the way downstairs I thought I’d check my upright freezer to see if there was any beef barley soup left, as I was sure there was at least one or two bowls in there (there wasn’t). Scouring through the freezer I started to notice how old some of the items in there were. Some I had brought with me when I moved into this house and had been in my freezer a while when I moved them. So I pulled out a few things that had a pretty good layer of frost on top of them. Then I pulled out a few more, and a few more, and a few more after that. Oh what the heck, I’m just going to do a good freezer cleanse while I’m here!  

After multiple trips up and down the basement stairs I had about 40 containers that I took out of the freezer!  Some had been in there quite a while. I hate to waste food, but this stuff was probably way past edible and I didn’t want to find out the hard way that it was no good. Now comes the fun task of figuring out how I dispose of most of this.

Before

The old sauces I thawed out and they went down the drain. A few other things went through the garbage disposal and down the drain. Most other things went into the trash can and then out to the garage. One of the benefits of being in a cold climate is that in the winter the garbage that’s stored out in the garage does not thaw out. After I emptied out all the containers and got everything thrown away I was faced with a sink full of storage containers that needed washing. This was not in my plans for the day. Note to self: don’t store leftovers in the freezer unless you’re absolutely sure you’re going to use them!

After

I filled the sink with some nice hot soapy water and started washing. I would wash a batch, dry that batch, stack them together, and then start on the next batch. This continued for about an hour. Finally, after everything was clean, I found a spot for all the containers in my cupboard, stepped back and appreciated all my hard work, and decided it was time for some lunch.  

In my defense, yes, I should have done this when I moved out of my husband’s house. But to tell you the truth, on that particular day when we were moving the freezer, I just wanted to get the frak out of there. So I packed everything up into coolers and bags and figured I would deal with it later.  

You see this whole stash that I had in the freezer represented something that I knew had been going on for a while. Before I married my husband I used to love to cook and bake and it was a way for me to show my son, and then subsequently my boyfriend, how much I loved them because I would provide good, healthy, homemade meals that would nourish them body and soul. As my marriage went sour, I started to feel my love of cooking dwindle away. It became a chore, and I was tired and stressed out, and I just didn’t feel inspired any more. When I would cook something I would put the leftovers in the freezer, but my husband didn’t like leftovers, so there they sat, taking up space, a symptom of a greater problem.

Being able to clean out the freezer was very therapeutic to me.  It was, in some small part, closure.  I got rid of those things that reminded me of a time when I wasn’t really myself. Now I can fill the freezer with food that I have cooked for myself that will nourish MY body and soul.  

I did end up getting all my cooking done during the afternoon. By the end of the day I had filled about a dozen of those newly cleaned containers with beef barley soup, brown rice pilaf, and one big container full of cinnamon applesauce. Plus, as an added bonus, I had added over 12,500 steps to my pedometer! All in all, it was a pretty good day.