Frozen is better!

Nutrisystem Day 2

I took the "fresh-frozen" option on my Nutrisystem order, and while the pre-packaged, room temperature meals I had weren't half bad, I was really looking forward to discovering what kind of culinary delights awaited me in my frozen portion of the delivery. Imagine my delight when the phone rang on the afternoon of Day Two and the Schwan's delivery guy was on the other end looking for my house!

I knew it would take him upwards of 20 minutes to reach me from his location, but that didn't stop me from peeking out the front windows every 4 or 5 minutes like I was waiting for the Publisher's Clearinghouse van to pull up with balloons and a big whiteboard check. I met the driver at the door, brought the enormous puffy insulated bag into the kitchen and then just stood there and thought, "Oh great. Now what? My freezer's full."

Because we're experiencing sub-arctic temps here in the northeast, I considered leaving everything in the bag and just sticking it in the garage, but figured with my luck we'd have a brief heat wave, or I'd coax some little frost-resistant rodent into my garage. Either way, I'd risk wasting enough food to nourish a small third world village.

I donned my sledding gear and dove into the messy freezer, purging it of Tupperware containers loaded with sauces that predate the kitchen renovation, a few 1/2 gallon cartons containing 1 remaining frostbitten bite of ice cream, and a Ziploc bag of Jamie Hollander tortilla chips that I only saved because they came with a remarkably overpriced party platter and Steve was in one of his frugal moods.

I'm happy to say that all of the frozen meals fit quite neatly into the freezer, and though I've only had one so far, I'm looking forward to many more days of staring into that icy contraption trying to choose my next meal.

Breakfast: Maple/Brown Sugar Oatmeal. I give it a 9. Mix the packet with 1/2 cup of fat free milk and microwave. It was delicious and certainly satisfying enough.

Lunch: Chicken with Vegetables and Noodles. This was a little microwave container of semi-goodness. Maybe a 7. The chicken and noodles were moist, thick and tasty, but there was a bit too much sauce for my liking. When paired with a salad though, it was certainly satisfying enough.

Dinner: Frozen Ravioli in Tomato Sauce. Really, it was not bad. It was similar to any other frozen dinner out there... About 6 smallish raviolis with maybe 1/2 the amount of ricotta cheese you'd expect to find elsewhere. The sauce was good though. This I paired with braised brussel sprouts and a nice big salad. 7.

Dessert: Oatmeal Raisin Cookie. I should have known better. Oatmeal raisin is my favorite kind of cookie, so I should never have checked that little box. And I even ordered TWO. *sigh* I'm going with a 2 on this. It tasted like I imagined it would -- like a diet cookie sweetened with fruit juice. Blech.