Refrigerator Tapas

The theme of tonight's meal was "things in my freezer I had almost forgotten about."

You wouldn't think that one could lose anything in my freezer. It's literally the size of a shoebox, a plastic shoebox that has been fitted with a little hinged door and nailed to the top of my dorm-style refrigerator.

But over time, that little box becomes encrusted with ice. It's gotten to the point where I must shove freezer-bound groceries through a hole the size of a mail slot.

So I thought that the items closest to the front of the freezer--frozen broccoli and garlic cubes--were all I had. But when I opened the fridge tonight, the broccoli fell out and I saw that it had been hiding a veritable dinner bonanza.

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Refrigerator Tapas #1:
Freezer Finds

Ingredients:
Vegetable Dumplings
Morningstar Farms* Veggie Nuggets with spinach-artichoke filling.
Soy sauce and rice vinegar
Barbeque sauce.

1. In a medium frying pan, sauté the dumplings in oil.
2. Pre-heat oven to 375f.
3. Get tired of waiting for oven to preheat, and eat a still-frozen nugget. (Not bad!)
4. Mix three tablespoons of soy sauce and one teaspoon of rice vinegar in a small dipping bowl. Taste the sauce; drink rather more than is strictly necessary.
6. Once the dumplings are brown, pluck them one at a time from the frying pan, dip them in the soy sauce and eat them.
7. Bake the few uneaten frozen nuggets for 17 minutes.
8. Take them out and find that they are pretty bland.
9. Put the nuggets on a plate with barbeque sauce, balance it on your belly and eat the nuggets while watching a Daily Show rerun.

*Isn't it weird that Morningstar Farms, the makers of many meat-substitute products, uses a euphemism for Satan as their company name? That has always bothered me.