#my dad used to hoard frozen waffles

[lifblogs]

“If there’s anything I could eat forever, it’s waffles.” — Barbara Lake, 1x06 “Win Lose or Draal”

Dad?

[evilwriter37]

I See Your Dads and Raise You Mine: The Dad Stories to Rule All Dad Stories

He hoards waffles. Like, his freezer is just filled with boxes and boxes of waffles. That’s it. That’s all there is in his freezer. He pretty much clears out all the frozen waffles in a store when he goes shopping. He tells my sister and I that he’s preparing for the Waffle-Pocalypse.

A few years ago we were having dinner, and the whole time he was insisting that he was a ninja. We all just laughed along with it but denied that it was true. Later, I’m cleaning up from dinner with my sister, and he disappears. This is oddly a regular occurrence for him despite his size. I finished cleaning up from dinner and I’m walking by the basement stairs, and all of a sudden someone dressed in black and yelling in Japanese jumps out at me. It was my dad. Dressed as a ninja.

He somehow speaks fluent German. He’s never taken German. His family speaks French and he took three years of it but he hardly knows a single word.

He’s obsessed with broccoli. He started singing about it while we were cooking and had my sister and I both join in. Then before we ate, he had us say a broccoli prayer. I led the prayer.

He’s the straightest straight man to ever straight unless your name is Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Hiddleston, or Jared Padalecki. Steve Rogers is also an exception to this.

He once tried grounding me for not drawing Benedict Cumberbatch. I refused to be grounded for such a thing so then he tried bribing me with ice cream.

When he’s on the phone with my sister all he wants to talk about is Matt Murdock.

When I told him I was bi, he just nodded his head and proceeded to ask me if I thought Scarlett Johansson was hot.

Had an imaginary friend named Johannsen. But he now denies he ever had an imaginary friend. When we ask him about him he just says, “Who?”

He took me to a doctor’s appointment because there was something wrong with my nose, saw there was an automatic door, and when it opened he spread his arms and yelled, “I am Magneto!” He accidentally hit me in the nose with the dramatic arm flair.

Began practicing Tai Chi in the pool and when I asked him what he was doing he told me he was a waterbender and then splashed me in the face.

Goes in ‘exit’ doors and out ‘enter’ doors.

Sounds like Batman when his voice is hoarse.

Gave me an empty cereal box on my birthday and insisted that I keep it with me all day. I did.

Can do spot-on impressions of Palpatine from Star Wars and Gingy from Shrek.

Showed me an essay that he wrote in which he was a potato. There was also another essay that he wrote as a bar of soap. (The bar of soap died).

Started writing a dystopian-humor book in which the characters are broccoli (and cannibalistic).

There’s an incident I like to call the Benedict Cumberbatch Hangover. One day he spent all afternoon and evening watching everything with Benedict Cumberbatch in it. He was still at it when I went to bed. He came downstairs the next day at around noon clutching his laptop and looking like he’d been drinking all night, mumbling “need more Benedict Cumberbatch” over and over again.

Fashion is very important to him in online gaming. He’ll often call my sister and I over for help with picking clothes for his characters. He’ll spend hours on making sure they have the perfect outfits.

My dad vacuumed my sister. He was vacuuming the apartment, saw her on the couch, and then started vacuuming her leg.

He cries while watching movies. He watched Braveheart for the millionth time and when my sister checked on him ten minutes after the movie ended he was still crying.

He named our 70-inch flat screen TV Zûl and had us all bow to it when we first “met” it. He also bowed.

“You’re the bad guy. I know it. You just shaved your little bald-ass head.” - commentary on Zaheer while watching The Legend of Korra.

He calls people motherless goats as an insult.

An exclamation of his is “Jesus Christopher Columbus!”

“It’s great. Instead of playing on the computer, you can just go outside in the woods and shoot your friends.” - explaining airsoft to his mom.

My dad calls me strange things such as Pumpkin Patch and Brown Cow.

He insists that my sister is now a were-husky since she was bitten by a Siberian Husky.

“Get a job, cat! You party all night, then you freaking throw up! Do something with your life!” - talking to my cat Loki after he ran around the house all night, threw up, and then continued to run around before passing out.

We were coming home from seeing a movie and we were at a red light on a bridge with a waterfall. He rolled down the window, stuck his head out, and then screamed: “Hi, Mr. Waterfall!”

He gives my sister and I fake boyfriends and often asks us how the relationship is going. Then when I came out as bi he started giving me fake girlfriends as well.

He calls my cat Loki “Mr. Floppers.”

One time I went in his desk to look for something and all I found was cookies.

He has a locked box filled with rubber bands.

Calls himself the “Supreme Being.”

He blames everything on sharks. He drops a fork on the floor? “Those damn sharks.” The dishwasher is broken? “The sharks did it.” He felt justified when Mary was killed in an aquarium in season 4 of Sherlock because they showed a shark: “I knew the sharks did it.”

I was at physical therapy with him one time. The physical therapist asked him how the ice was and he just responded with: “It’s cold.”

He made up a character for himself called Dr. Cornelius because one time he got something in the mail that had his name as Cornelius instead of Neal. Dr. Cornelius has a German accent and is an “ear doctor.” One time my dad called and left a message as Dr. Cornelius. Still one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard.

He often makes jokes about his own name. He was told to kneel in physical therapy one time and he just said: “I am.” Then, while watching The Avengers, he got all exasperated during the Germany scene when Loki yells for everyone to kneel and just shouted: “I’m right here! Stop yelling!”

One time just left a note saying that “Broccoli was here.”

He wants to be Jackie Chan when he grows up.

He tried giving my sister and I theme songs that he would start playing whenever we walked into a room.

He and my sister broke the ceiling together.

He’ll hand my sister and I pieces of trash as “gifts” without saying a word.

One New Year's he ate an entire bag of licorice (after eating a large bowl of frozen yogurt) while watching Kung Fu Panda and crying because it was so beautiful. Then he pretended to do Kung Fu while the credits were rolling.

Used me as a towel even though there was a towel right next to him.

He dropped an ice cube down the back of my shirt and then ran away.

He and my sister chased each other around the house with spray bottles. (He started it). They got soaked and so did the floor.

He insisted upon being a princess while playing a board game and was excited that his character had a unicorn.

Everything is a movie reference.

He once asked my sister to write a Supernatural fanfiction.

He came up with a character who is a stable boy at an inn (he has an accent too) and he pretends to be him sometimes. His character has a crush on a girl in the village, but he’s too shy to talk to her, and he doesn’t have enough money to provide her with a proper home. One time he told my sister (as the character) that he’d taken to eating dirt out by the roadside of the inn because he couldn’t afford bread. According to him, it’s rich in minerals. Rainwater is good too.

I went to ask him a question once and he ended up turning on his lamp and shining it on himself, and then started acting like he was being interrogated.

He’s had holy water thrown on him.

He likes to put boxes on his head.

He occasionally tries to talk to my sister about women because he forgets she’s straight.

One time I came downstairs and found him and my sister in the dining room with the lights dimmed and a candle lit, holding hands and speaking in gibberish. His explanation was that she needed to find inner peace.

He likes to pretend he’s Darth Vader.

He treats grocery shopping like it’s a secret mission.

The payment for overdue books at his personal library is hugs.

His version of a bedtime story is telling my sister and I about Loki running around the Asgardian palace completely naked. (His clothes were eaten by a giant version of our cat Alley who is called the Witty Witten in the story). He occasionally gets requests from our friends to tell a Witty Witten story.

I was passing him in the hallway and he gave me a version of the One Ring without any explanation and just said: “Keep it secret. Keep it safe.”

He added his name to a bunch of the school clubs in his high school yearbook during senior year even though he wasn’t in any of them, so every once in a while he’ll claim to have been on the basketball team and in the jazz band. He even showed up for the club pictures.

My sister was at his apartment and she had to go to the bathroom so he made her write out a hall pass that he signed.

He decided it was a good idea to play a fantasy RPG while high on pain medication, and he ended up using all his character’s supplies to make hundreds of meatballs. He was shrieking while doing it.

While sitting at the dinner table and playing a card game he walked by and dumped a bottle of ice water down the back of my sister’s shirt.

He’s convinced his sister is a hyena.

My dad’s response to the suggestion to go to bed is, “Yeah, probably,” and then he doesn’t.

He celebrates his “birth week” instead of just his birthday.

Once he wanted pasta so badly he cooked up enough to last a whole week.

While peeling potatoes with my sister he claimed he could predict the future and then proceeded to tell her she was going to marry a potato.

I asked for an apple and he grudgingly gave me one while saying he didn’t support cannibalism.

He randomly yells out words in French like “fish” and “chicken”, going as far as to mix the two words and yell “poulet-poisson!”

He told me he could do a magic trick and then put a nickel in my ear.

Sometimes while sitting in the movie theater waiting for the movie to start he’ll poke me and tell me to “pass it down”.

While checking my sister in for an appointment he started sparring with her, but instantly stopped and pretended to act all normal whenever the receptionist looked up.

Whenever the trunk of his car is full he claims we can’t use it because that’s where the bodies are.

For dessert he just eats chocolate chips out of an ice cream bowl. He doesn’t even use a spoon.

He throws his clean socks on my sister and pretends they’re filthy.

Claims my sister is also a Frost Giant, and when she was complaining about shoveling a lot of snow he said, “Don’t even start. You can probably swim in this shit.”

Says he has Tony Stark on speed dial and that they’re besties.

Whenever he wants my sister to bake something he’ll just leave out a box of baking mix on the counter or have a recipe book open to what he wants and he just waits until she notices.

Claims that the moon is evil because it’s made out of cheese and he’s lactose intolerant.

His mortal enemies are peas.

My sister caught him outside on the deck howling at the moon one time.

Bought a walking stick that looks like Gandalf’s staff just so he can be “cool”.

Once took my sister and I upstairs to show us a surprise. It was nunchucks that he had hidden under the bed. He has nunchucks.

Owns a bunch of wooden poles and won’t explain why.

At breakfast my sister complained that her ear was itchy so he left and came back with a screwdriver.

Had to drive my sister to morning gym one time and he saw McDonald’s on the way there and started screaming because it was “too early in the morning for anything to be that bright”.

Wants to be a vampire but hates blood.

He sometimes lounges around in a red cloak.

He’ll pretend to be James Bond and have a conversation with himself (usually while leaving a room).

He keeps a jar of dirt under his bed.

He tried putting candy wrappers in my sister’s hair.

Keeps a velvet-lined pouch of dice in his desk for “special occasions”.

Bought my sister and I Game of Thrones shirts to ensure that we’d watch the show.

Always puts two pickle slices in every bowl of salad he eats.

Is sad that he never got his Hogwarts letter, and says that they must have mixed up his age and thought that he was older than 11.

Occasionally checks the back of his closet to see if it leads to Narnia.

He was outside and decided it would be fun to ding-dong-ditch his own house.

Recently prank called his mother.

After bingeing Trollhunters with my sister he told her to “stay crispy”.

Kept my sister up in the middle of the night because all he wanted to do was talk to her about Lucifer from Supernatural.

Laughs every time he sees a gnome.

Once wanted to audition for American Idol dressed as a banana.

He gave my sister a pan lid and had her hold it like a shield. He then proclaimed that she was Kitchen America; like Captain America, but instead of saving the world she saves him by baking his favorite foods.

[easyfoodnetwork]

11 Useful Items to Keep Hidden Away in Your Freezer

Frozen mixed berries | CLICKMANIS/Shutterstock

From cooking fat to freezer cake, these are the items that make cooking easier for Eater editors

For active home cooks or even those who generally dread the task, the freezer deserves credit for helping get dinner (or dessert) on the table. It’s a place that offers a wealth of shortcut meals and snacks, from exceptional frozen dumplings to nostalgic treats like tater tots. Frozen ingredients like chicken stock or marinara sauce can get a home cook most of the way to a finished meal. As long as people know the best way to store and defrost their freezer items, whether they’re cuts of meat or bagels, a freezer is undeniably an indispensable tool, during a pandemic and otherwise.

Here’s a roundup of the useful items Eater editors are most likely to keep hidden away in their freezers.

Cooking fat: Meat isn’t an everyday item in our house, so when we do cook with it, my partner and I like to save every last bit. That means saving the fat. Grease is one of those pesky residuals of cooking that’s harder to dispose of. It really shouldn’t go directly down the drain. Some people wait for it to cool in a container and then pour it in the garbage. However, I recommend saving that flavor. When you cook chicken, duck, bacon, or anything else particularly precious and tasty, save the drippings in a glass container and stick it in the freezer. Then use it in place of butter or oil in your cooking to impart more flavor. Duck fat is particularly tasty for cooking fried eggs at breakfast time. —Brenna Houck, Eater Detroit editor

Ice cube tray and ice cubes: The most important items in my freezer are my two ice cube trays and the ice they hold. Since shelter-in-place has coincided with my pregnancy, I’m drinking a lot of non-alcoholic beverages, each of which is greatly improved by being even colder. I make cheater iced almond milk lattes by stirring drip coffee with ice and then adding more ice and almond milk. I cool down cups of herbal tea I discover I’ve left on the counter and enjoy iced tea. I drink so much more tap water when I remember to put ice cubes in it. The trick: Refill your tray with water every time you take cubes from it. Just make it part of your routine and it’s never empty. —Hillary Dixler Canavan, restaurant editor

Frozen fruit: My biggest freezer staple is frozen fruit, mostly because I love a good smoothie. Great for breakfast or anytime you feel like you need a Vitamin C boost, the secret to a thick, filling smoothie is to use a fresh banana and frozen fruit without adding ice. I just buy the bags frozen from my local grocery store (even tropical fruits like pitaya are now pretty easy to find), but this is also a great way to store those final few strawberries before they go bad. Other uses of fruit in your freezer: cocktail ingredients, drink garnishes, a snack (especially frozen mango). —Erin Russell, Eater Austin associate editor

Dino nuggets: Why eat boring chicken nuggets when you can eat chicken nuggets shaped like dinosaurs? It may be childish, but I will never stop getting a kick out of dino nuggets. It’s an easy lunch on a hectic day; just toss them in the toaster oven. Flip once. I guess you could make a side salad if you’re feeling fancy. But the only required side, as far as I’m concerned, is a dipping sauce — ideally barbecue sauce from Dinosaur Bar-B-Que because (a) it’s good and (b) obviously dino nuggets go best with Dino sauce. —Rachel Leah Blumenthal, Eater Boston editor

Homemade gumbo: Gumbo is one of my favorite meals to make at home, but let’s be real; it’s a project, a cooking task that’s going to clock in at a couple hours before it’s done. Luckily, since there are only two of us at home, making gumbo always means gumbo leftovers, and I don’t think there’s a more satisfying freezer meal for me than a bowl of gumbo that I simply pulled out of the freezer (stored in a quart container) to defrost the night before in the fridge, and reheated for dinner that evening. Gumbo doesn’t really deteriorate significantly in the freezer; all you have to do is throw some rice in the rice cooker, and you have an easy weeknight dinner that totally makes up for all the effort you initially put into making a roux, simmering your ingredients, and just having patience for the gumbo to finish the first time around. —Missy Frederick, cities director

Frozen dinners from mom: Being far away from my family is hard, especially now that I don’t really know when I can safely go back home to New York. Thankfully, I usually have deep-frozen containers of my mother’s home-cooking in my freezer, from my last visit home. Whenever I fly home, my mother usually asks me what foods I want to bring back (my favorites: shrimp and potol, a Bengali pointed gourd; chicken with squash), along with biryani. My mom batch-cooks everything and my dad portions out the food into 16-ounce deli containers, labels each one, and carefully packs everything into a disposable cooler with ice packs, ready to be placed in my overstuffed suitcase. This way, I can hold onto tastes of home even though it’s 1,700+ miles away. —Nadia Chaudhury, Eater Austin editor

Banana ice cream: Forget cookies and cream or chocolate chip cookie dough. Banana is the best ice cream flavor, and I make sure to keep a half-gallon in my freezer at all times. Living in Newark, I’m lucky to be within walking distance of the scoop shop that makes it best: Nasto’s. I have three scoops after dinner every night, always with a drizzle of chocolate syrup, and it’s pure bliss. I understand that ice cream isn’t the most exciting thing in a freezer compared to frozen dumplings or mochi, but the flavor takes me back to sitting on my late grandmother’s balcony in Ankara, where we would split a bowl of fruit — mostly bananas — together. —Esra Erol, senior social media manager

Freezer cake: I don’t remember what life was like before I discovered Freezer Cake. I don’t care to look back on that era. There’s something special about knowing a slice of banana upside-down cake or a thick slab of banana bread is waiting there, whispering my name gently from the back corner of the freezer. In these not-very-sweet times, being able to eat a slice of cake without ever cracking an egg or dirtying a bowl feels like a victory. All you need to do is let whatever cake you’ve so wisely frozen defrost slowly on the counter. Because sometimes turning on the oven is just too much work. —Elazar Sontag, staff writer

Stock: The one thing I always try to have in my freezer is stock. Usually it’s chicken stock, either made from the carcass of a roast chicken or from a big pile of chicken wings I dumped in my Instant Pot, because so many recipes call for it, whether a little bit to help finish a sauce or several cups to make a soup or stew. Homemade stock tastes noticeably better, and since it’s easy to keep in the freezer, making up a big batch doesn’t risk any going to waste. To freeze stock, I measure it out into plastic baggies in rough one or two cup amounts, using a ladle with a half-cup measure on it, and then lie them flat in the freezer one on top of the other, so when they harden, they’re easy to stack. When I need to defrost, I zap a frozen bag for 30 seconds or a minute in the microwave and break off roughly as much as I need, or drop the whole cup or two into the pot. I have endured the shame of throwing out all sorts of things from my freezer, but I have never, ever wasted stock. —Meghan McCarron, special correspondent

Homemade pesto: My frozen secret weapon is an ice cube tray full of homemade pesto. Pesto sauce, to me, is a special thing. Basil is a precious, flavorful commodity that seems expensive if you don’t have a farmers market nearby, and it doesn’t stay for very long either. Pine nuts are also quite pricey, so when I do make a big batch from scratch, I make sure to make it last. Pesto is so flavorful that you don’t need to use a lot for any single dish. That’s where the ice cube tray comes in. Filling a tray with pesto and freezing it into cubes is a trick I learned long ago when Pinterest was new on the scene and basically church for those interested in recipe ideas and hacks. Popping out one or two cubes of pesto as needed is a great way to make use of the sauce you may have made months ago when basil was in season, without having to defrost an entire Tupperware. It’s such an easy and fast way to add flavor to a quick pasta dish, some beans, a sandwich of any kind, and even to make into a vinaigrette for a salad on the fly. —Terri Ciccone, audience development manager

Salted caramel ice cream: If it’s freezer junk food you seek, I present Lotus Biscoff Salted Caramel Ice Cream, something I started hoarding during the pandemic. I swear it’s the softest ice cream I’ve ever found. The instructions even recommend leaving it out for five minutes to soften before you dig in. There is a straight Biscoff cookie version, but I like the salted caramel mixed in. I buy it at Target, and do a search before I venture out to make sure it’s in stock. —Susan Stapleton, Eater Vegas editor

Honorable mentions: Fresh herbs frozen in ice cube trays, bags of pre-peeled garlic, brownies, Eggo waffles, tortellini, peas, pierogis, homemade marinara sauce, cooked beans, rice cakes for stir fries, cookie dough.

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/3dAswSL https://ift.tt/3i4YvxC

Frozen mixed berries | CLICKMANIS/Shutterstock

From cooking fat to freezer cake, these are the items that make cooking easier for Eater editors

For active home cooks or even those who generally dread the task, the freezer deserves credit for helping get dinner (or dessert) on the table. It’s a place that offers a wealth of shortcut meals and snacks, from exceptional frozen dumplings to nostalgic treats like tater tots. Frozen ingredients like chicken stock or marinara sauce can get a home cook most of the way to a finished meal. As long as people know the best way to store and defrost their freezer items, whether they’re cuts of meat or bagels, a freezer is undeniably an indispensable tool, during a pandemic and otherwise.

Here’s a roundup of the useful items Eater editors are most likely to keep hidden away in their freezers.

Cooking fat: Meat isn’t an everyday item in our house, so when we do cook with it, my partner and I like to save every last bit. That means saving the fat. Grease is one of those pesky residuals of cooking that’s harder to dispose of. It really shouldn’t go directly down the drain. Some people wait for it to cool in a container and then pour it in the garbage. However, I recommend saving that flavor. When you cook chicken, duck, bacon, or anything else particularly precious and tasty, save the drippings in a glass container and stick it in the freezer. Then use it in place of butter or oil in your cooking to impart more flavor. Duck fat is particularly tasty for cooking fried eggs at breakfast time. —Brenna Houck, Eater Detroit editor

Ice cube tray and ice cubes: The most important items in my freezer are my two ice cube trays and the ice they hold. Since shelter-in-place has coincided with my pregnancy, I’m drinking a lot of non-alcoholic beverages, each of which is greatly improved by being even colder. I make cheater iced almond milk lattes by stirring drip coffee with ice and then adding more ice and almond milk. I cool down cups of herbal tea I discover I’ve left on the counter and enjoy iced tea. I drink so much more tap water when I remember to put ice cubes in it. The trick: Refill your tray with water every time you take cubes from it. Just make it part of your routine and it’s never empty. —Hillary Dixler Canavan, restaurant editor

Frozen fruit: My biggest freezer staple is frozen fruit, mostly because I love a good smoothie. Great for breakfast or anytime you feel like you need a Vitamin C boost, the secret to a thick, filling smoothie is to use a fresh banana and frozen fruit without adding ice. I just buy the bags frozen from my local grocery store (even tropical fruits like pitaya are now pretty easy to find), but this is also a great way to store those final few strawberries before they go bad. Other uses of fruit in your freezer: cocktail ingredients, drink garnishes, a snack (especially frozen mango). —Erin Russell, Eater Austin associate editor

Dino nuggets: Why eat boring chicken nuggets when you can eat chicken nuggets shaped like dinosaurs? It may be childish, but I will never stop getting a kick out of dino nuggets. It’s an easy lunch on a hectic day; just toss them in the toaster oven. Flip once. I guess you could make a side salad if you’re feeling fancy. But the only required side, as far as I’m concerned, is a dipping sauce — ideally barbecue sauce from Dinosaur Bar-B-Que because (a) it’s good and (b) obviously dino nuggets go best with Dino sauce. —Rachel Leah Blumenthal, Eater Boston editor

Homemade gumbo: Gumbo is one of my favorite meals to make at home, but let’s be real; it’s a project, a cooking task that’s going to clock in at a couple hours before it’s done. Luckily, since there are only two of us at home, making gumbo always means gumbo leftovers, and I don’t think there’s a more satisfying freezer meal for me than a bowl of gumbo that I simply pulled out of the freezer (stored in a quart container) to defrost the night before in the fridge, and reheated for dinner that evening. Gumbo doesn’t really deteriorate significantly in the freezer; all you have to do is throw some rice in the rice cooker, and you have an easy weeknight dinner that totally makes up for all the effort you initially put into making a roux, simmering your ingredients, and just having patience for the gumbo to finish the first time around. —Missy Frederick, cities director

Frozen dinners from mom: Being far away from my family is hard, especially now that I don’t really know when I can safely go back home to New York. Thankfully, I usually have deep-frozen containers of my mother’s home-cooking in my freezer, from my last visit home. Whenever I fly home, my mother usually asks me what foods I want to bring back (my favorites: shrimp and potol, a Bengali pointed gourd; chicken with squash), along with biryani. My mom batch-cooks everything and my dad portions out the food into 16-ounce deli containers, labels each one, and carefully packs everything into a disposable cooler with ice packs, ready to be placed in my overstuffed suitcase. This way, I can hold onto tastes of home even though it’s 1,700+ miles away. —Nadia Chaudhury, Eater Austin editor

Banana ice cream: Forget cookies and cream or chocolate chip cookie dough. Banana is the best ice cream flavor, and I make sure to keep a half-gallon in my freezer at all times. Living in Newark, I’m lucky to be within walking distance of the scoop shop that makes it best: Nasto’s. I have three scoops after dinner every night, always with a drizzle of chocolate syrup, and it’s pure bliss. I understand that ice cream isn’t the most exciting thing in a freezer compared to frozen dumplings or mochi, but the flavor takes me back to sitting on my late grandmother’s balcony in Ankara, where we would split a bowl of fruit — mostly bananas — together. —Esra Erol, senior social media manager

Freezer cake: I don’t remember what life was like before I discovered Freezer Cake. I don’t care to look back on that era. There’s something special about knowing a slice of banana upside-down cake or a thick slab of banana bread is waiting there, whispering my name gently from the back corner of the freezer. In these not-very-sweet times, being able to eat a slice of cake without ever cracking an egg or dirtying a bowl feels like a victory. All you need to do is let whatever cake you’ve so wisely frozen defrost slowly on the counter. Because sometimes turning on the oven is just too much work. —Elazar Sontag, staff writer

Stock: The one thing I always try to have in my freezer is stock. Usually it’s chicken stock, either made from the carcass of a roast chicken or from a big pile of chicken wings I dumped in my Instant Pot, because so many recipes call for it, whether a little bit to help finish a sauce or several cups to make a soup or stew. Homemade stock tastes noticeably better, and since it’s easy to keep in the freezer, making up a big batch doesn’t risk any going to waste. To freeze stock, I measure it out into plastic baggies in rough one or two cup amounts, using a ladle with a half-cup measure on it, and then lie them flat in the freezer one on top of the other, so when they harden, they’re easy to stack. When I need to defrost, I zap a frozen bag for 30 seconds or a minute in the microwave and break off roughly as much as I need, or drop the whole cup or two into the pot. I have endured the shame of throwing out all sorts of things from my freezer, but I have never, ever wasted stock. —Meghan McCarron, special correspondent

Homemade pesto: My frozen secret weapon is an ice cube tray full of homemade pesto. Pesto sauce, to me, is a special thing. Basil is a precious, flavorful commodity that seems expensive if you don’t have a farmers market nearby, and it doesn’t stay for very long either. Pine nuts are also quite pricey, so when I do make a big batch from scratch, I make sure to make it last. Pesto is so flavorful that you don’t need to use a lot for any single dish. That’s where the ice cube tray comes in. Filling a tray with pesto and freezing it into cubes is a trick I learned long ago when Pinterest was new on the scene and basically church for those interested in recipe ideas and hacks. Popping out one or two cubes of pesto as needed is a great way to make use of the sauce you may have made months ago when basil was in season, without having to defrost an entire Tupperware. It’s such an easy and fast way to add flavor to a quick pasta dish, some beans, a sandwich of any kind, and even to make into a vinaigrette for a salad on the fly. —Terri Ciccone, audience development manager

Salted caramel ice cream: If it’s freezer junk food you seek, I present Lotus Biscoff Salted Caramel Ice Cream, something I started hoarding during the pandemic. I swear it’s the softest ice cream I’ve ever found. The instructions even recommend leaving it out for five minutes to soften before you dig in. There is a straight Biscoff cookie version, but I like the salted caramel mixed in. I buy it at Target, and do a search before I venture out to make sure it’s in stock. —Susan Stapleton, Eater Vegas editor

Honorable mentions: Fresh herbs frozen in ice cube trays, bags of pre-peeled garlic, brownies, Eggo waffles, tortellini, peas, pierogis, homemade marinara sauce, cooked beans, rice cakes for stir fries, cookie dough.

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Frozen mixed berries | CLICKMANIS/Shutterstock From cooking fat to freezer cake, these are the items that make cooking easier for Eater editors For active home cooks or even those who generally dread the task, the freezer deserves credit for helping get dinner (or dessert) on the table. It’s a place that offers a wealth of shortcut meals and snacks, from exceptional frozen dumplings to nostalgic treats like tater tots. Frozen ingredients like chicken stock or marinara sauce can get a home cook most of the way to a finished meal. As long as people know the best way to store and defrost their freezer items, whether they’re cuts of meat or bagels, a freezer is undeniably an indispensable tool, during a pandemic and otherwise. Here’s a roundup of the useful items Eater editors are most likely to keep hidden away in their freezers. Cooking fat: Meat isn’t an everyday item in our house, so when we do cook with it, my partner and I like to save every last bit. That means saving the fat. Grease is one of those pesky residuals of cooking that’s harder to dispose of. It really shouldn’t go directly down the drain. Some people wait for it to cool in a container and then pour it in the garbage. However, I recommend saving that flavor. When you cook chicken, duck, bacon, or anything else particularly precious and tasty, save the drippings in a glass container and stick it in the freezer. Then use it in place of butter or oil in your cooking to impart more flavor. Duck fat is particularly tasty for cooking fried eggs at breakfast time. —Brenna Houck, Eater Detroit editor Ice cube tray and ice cubes: The most important items in my freezer are my two ice cube trays and the ice they hold. Since shelter-in-place has coincided with my pregnancy, I’m drinking a lot of non-alcoholic beverages, each of which is greatly improved by being even colder. I make cheater iced almond milk lattes by stirring drip coffee with ice and then adding more ice and almond milk. I cool down cups of herbal tea I discover I’ve left on the counter and enjoy iced tea. I drink so much more tap water when I remember to put ice cubes in it. The trick: Refill your tray with water every time you take cubes from it. Just make it part of your routine and it’s never empty. —Hillary Dixler Canavan, restaurant editor Frozen fruit: My biggest freezer staple is frozen fruit, mostly because I love a good smoothie. Great for breakfast or anytime you feel like you need a Vitamin C boost, the secret to a thick, filling smoothie is to use a fresh banana and frozen fruit without adding ice. I just buy the bags frozen from my local grocery store (even tropical fruits like pitaya are now pretty easy to find), but this is also a great way to store those final few strawberries before they go bad. Other uses of fruit in your freezer: cocktail ingredients, drink garnishes, a snack (especially frozen mango). —Erin Russell, Eater Austin associate editor Dino nuggets: Why eat boring chicken nuggets when you can eat chicken nuggets shaped like dinosaurs? It may be childish, but I will never stop getting a kick out of dino nuggets. It’s an easy lunch on a hectic day; just toss them in the toaster oven. Flip once. I guess you could make a side salad if you’re feeling fancy. But the only required side, as far as I’m concerned, is a dipping sauce — ideally barbecue sauce from Dinosaur Bar-B-Que because (a) it’s good and (b) obviously dino nuggets go best with Dino sauce. —Rachel Leah Blumenthal, Eater Boston editor Homemade gumbo: Gumbo is one of my favorite meals to make at home, but let’s be real; it’s a project, a cooking task that’s going to clock in at a couple hours before it’s done. Luckily, since there are only two of us at home, making gumbo always means gumbo leftovers, and I don’t think there’s a more satisfying freezer meal for me than a bowl of gumbo that I simply pulled out of the freezer (stored in a quart container) to defrost the night before in the fridge, and reheated for dinner that evening. Gumbo doesn’t really deteriorate significantly in the freezer; all you have to do is throw some rice in the rice cooker, and you have an easy weeknight dinner that totally makes up for all the effort you initially put into making a roux, simmering your ingredients, and just having patience for the gumbo to finish the first time around. —Missy Frederick, cities director Frozen dinners from mom: Being far away from my family is hard, especially now that I don’t really know when I can safely go back home to New York. Thankfully, I usually have deep-frozen containers of my mother’s home-cooking in my freezer, from my last visit home. Whenever I fly home, my mother usually asks me what foods I want to bring back (my favorites: shrimp and potol, a Bengali pointed gourd; chicken with squash), along with biryani. My mom batch-cooks everything and my dad portions out the food into 16-ounce deli containers, labels each one, and carefully packs everything into a disposable cooler with ice packs, ready to be placed in my overstuffed suitcase. This way, I can hold onto tastes of home even though it’s 1,700+ miles away. —Nadia Chaudhury, Eater Austin editor Banana ice cream: Forget cookies and cream or chocolate chip cookie dough. Banana is the best ice cream flavor, and I make sure to keep a half-gallon in my freezer at all times. Living in Newark, I’m lucky to be within walking distance of the scoop shop that makes it best: Nasto’s. I have three scoops after dinner every night, always with a drizzle of chocolate syrup, and it’s pure bliss. I understand that ice cream isn’t the most exciting thing in a freezer compared to frozen dumplings or mochi, but the flavor takes me back to sitting on my late grandmother’s balcony in Ankara, where we would split a bowl of fruit — mostly bananas — together. —Esra Erol, senior social media manager Freezer cake: I don’t remember what life was like before I discovered Freezer Cake. I don’t care to look back on that era. There’s something special about knowing a slice of banana upside-down cake or a thick slab of banana bread is waiting there, whispering my name gently from the back corner of the freezer. In these not-very-sweet times, being able to eat a slice of cake without ever cracking an egg or dirtying a bowl feels like a victory. All you need to do is let whatever cake you’ve so wisely frozen defrost slowly on the counter. Because sometimes turning on the oven is just too much work. —Elazar Sontag, staff writer Stock: The one thing I always try to have in my freezer is stock. Usually it’s chicken stock, either made from the carcass of a roast chicken or from a big pile of chicken wings I dumped in my Instant Pot, because so many recipes call for it, whether a little bit to help finish a sauce or several cups to make a soup or stew. Homemade stock tastes noticeably better, and since it’s easy to keep in the freezer, making up a big batch doesn’t risk any going to waste. To freeze stock, I measure it out into plastic baggies in rough one or two cup amounts, using a ladle with a half-cup measure on it, and then lie them flat in the freezer one on top of the other, so when they harden, they’re easy to stack. When I need to defrost, I zap a frozen bag for 30 seconds or a minute in the microwave and break off roughly as much as I need, or drop the whole cup or two into the pot. I have endured the shame of throwing out all sorts of things from my freezer, but I have never, ever wasted stock. —Meghan McCarron, special correspondent Homemade pesto: My frozen secret weapon is an ice cube tray full of homemade pesto. Pesto sauce, to me, is a special thing. Basil is a precious, flavorful commodity that seems expensive if you don’t have a farmers market nearby, and it doesn’t stay for very long either. Pine nuts are also quite pricey, so when I do make a big batch from scratch, I make sure to make it last. Pesto is so flavorful that you don’t need to use a lot for any single dish. That’s where the ice cube tray comes in. Filling a tray with pesto and freezing it into cubes is a trick I learned long ago when Pinterest was new on the scene and basically church for those interested in recipe ideas and hacks. Popping out one or two cubes of pesto as needed is a great way to make use of the sauce you may have made months ago when basil was in season, without having to defrost an entire Tupperware. It’s such an easy and fast way to add flavor to a quick pasta dish, some beans, a sandwich of any kind, and even to make into a vinaigrette for a salad on the fly. —Terri Ciccone, audience development manager Salted caramel ice cream: If it’s freezer junk food you seek, I present Lotus Biscoff Salted Caramel Ice Cream, something I started hoarding during the pandemic. I swear it’s the softest ice cream I’ve ever found. The instructions even recommend leaving it out for five minutes to soften before you dig in. There is a straight Biscoff cookie version, but I like the salted caramel mixed in. I buy it at Target, and do a search before I venture out to make sure it’s in stock. —Susan Stapleton, Eater Vegas editor Honorable mentions: Fresh herbs frozen in ice cube trays, bags of pre-peeled garlic, brownies, Eggo waffles, tortellini, peas, pierogis, homemade marinara sauce, cooked beans, rice cakes for stir fries, cookie dough. from Eater - All https://ift.tt/3dAswSL

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