The Tale of the Defrosted Food

Recently, my life has been pretty boring during the day. Summer classes have ended so I spend eight or nine hours at my desk every day just, you know, doing my job. It's good times, but it can get a bit tedious after a while. Basically, I just spend my time counting down until it's time to go home and the excitement can begin. Or whatever.

Usually "the excitement" is a positive thing. Like taking a hike or going out to dinner. Those are positive things we have done in the past when I get off work. But yesterday, "the excitement" was very, very negative. Oh my, was it ever!

First, some background. The last time we went shopping, we got a big, val-u pak of Hot Pockets. We stuck the box in the bottom of our freezer, with the opening out, for easy access to the sandwichy goodness. I have been taking the Hot Pockets with me to work every day, to enjoy for my lunch. Yesterday, I took the last Hot Pocket in the box and, feeling it unwise to leave an empty box in the freezer (why does cardboard need to be frozen?) I took the box out and put it in the trash. Please remember that I said we had placed the box in the bottom of our freezer.

Nine hours later, I have ten minutes left before I get off work and I get a call from Lewis. "Did you get something out of the freezer this morning?" he asks. "Yes..." I say. "Why?"

As it turns out, when I shut the freezer, it didn't close as tightly as it should have. And since I had pulled a big box out of the bottom, the other contents of the freezer had shifted around a bit, and a carton of ice cream had tumbled to the front, pushing the freezer door open further, and making it stay like that. For nine hours.

Crap.

I get home a little while later, and survey the damage. The good news was, most of our stuff was either frozen enough that it stayed frozen all day (like all of our ground beef, thank goodness) or could be refrozen and be just fine (like our butter and pre-cooked hot wings). But there were a few items we had to throw out (like the solitary creamsicle, sitting in the door) and a few we needed to eat ASAP (like our (luckily) almost-empty bag of chicken and our frozen dinner rolls) (there were twenty rolls left).

Awesome.

First thing first, I got the dinner rolls ready. They are supposed to rise a bit before baking, but I was in a bit of a bind. They normally take three or four hours to rise (it was probably 5:30 by now), but there is a quicker method that takes one and a half hour. However, things were complicated by the fact that the rolls were already defrosted. So I decided to do the quick method, but just keep an eye on the rolls so I knew when they would be ready to bake.

The quick method involves preheating the oven to 200 degrees and placing a pan of boiling water on the bottom rack of the oven. Sounds simple, right? Well, after I poured the boiling water from the pot into the pan, I picked up the pan to put it in the oven and the pan slipped, sending boiling water all over my hand and the dish rack of drying cups. Ouch, ouch, ouch. Miraculously, I escaped the incident with only a few small burns on my hand (which don't even hurt any more), and none of the glasses cracked. However, I was already really ticked off at myself for leaving the freezer door open all day and that combined with my seriously overactive tear glands, I started to cry. Luckily, I have a great husband who just gave me a hug while I sniffled and tried not to laugh at me, which was very nice because I'm sure the whole incident was hilarious to watch.

With Lewis' help, the rolls were placed successfully in the oven, and I turned my attention to the chicken. I got a new cookbook last week (Hershey's Recipe Collection. We're going to get so fat), and I hadn't had the chance to try it
yet, so I pulled it out. There were some recipes for dinners that use cocoa, one of which involved boneless, skinless, chicken breasts (what we had), so voila. However, the recipe also involved some ingredients we didn't have. So, I charged Lewis with the task of keeping an eye on the rolls and off to the store I went!

I decided to just go to the Creamery on 9th, because it's closest and if they didn't have everything I needed, I would just have another excuse to continue in my bad mood. Plus parking there sucks, so that's one more point for bad mood Lyssa. Sho 'nuff, none of their six spots were free so I had to park in the lot across the street. Check one for the mood.

Amazingly, they did have everything I needed and it was all relatively inexpensive, so that actually made me pretty happy (although, if anyone is in need of some cilantro, we've got a ton. It was 50 cents for a bunch, and apparently one "bunch" was their entire stock). I also got some chili powder, tomatoes, garlic, an avocado, and green onions. And then I went home and started cooking.

I began to combine ingredients, but when I got to the chili powder, I noticed that there was no safety seal. The seal had been tampered with. And everyone knows you're not supposed to mess with food that has a tampered with safety seal. It could be poisoned.

Every time I've opened a safety-sealed food container, I've thought about how exciting it would be to purchase a food item with a tampered with safety seal. Maybe a hazmat team'll come swooping in and destroy my safety-sealless food item like they destroy the sock in Monsters, Inc.

But it wasn't exciting. It sucked. I had to go back to the store.

As I was driving home again, I got to thinking. The only thing I had purchased that would have a safety seal in the first place was the chili powder. None of the vegetables were safety sealed. Who's to say they're not poisoned? So far, it would appear that they are not, but I'm sure I'll be eating more vegetables in my life.

Anyway, Lewis and I finished making dinner, and it turned out okay, although I have some changes I will be making to that recipe. Nothing needs a whole tablespoon of salt, I don't care if you are a Hershey's recipe.

The rest of the day was good. We went to Sundance with Lewie's parents and took a full moon ski lift ride. And then, when we got home that night, and I was doing my Google Readering, I came across this article, which reminded me that as stupid of a mistake I made with the freezer that day, at least we didn't get scammed by someone in Nigeria. Also, I've never written anything in my educated life that involved spelling a pluralized last name three different ways (if you take a gander a the article, you'll find that KSL spelled the last name of the family involved "Coxes" "Cox's" and "Coxs'," - all when "Coxes" was correct). Way to go KSL. Thanks for making me feel good about myself and the successfulness of my education. I may say things like "sho 'nuff" and "successfulness" but at least I know how to pluralize a proper noun.