At 2 a.m. on Monday, February 9, Eli padded into our room and told me his head felt "too hot and too big." By Saturday every person in this house had the flu, the last being Matt, who insisted until Thursday night that he was "just tired." We spent Valentine's Day as five people under blankets, watching the same cartoon movie twice, with a box of tissues each.
Nobody cooked that week. I don't mean we kept it simple. I mean nothing went on the stove that didn't come out of a labeled bag. And we still ate real food every night, because of the meals I'd put in the chest freezer in January.
A quick note first: our pediatrician confirmed Eli's flu that Monday and told us what to watch for in everyone else. I'm only writing about the food side here. For anything medical, call your own doctor or nurse line, which we did more than once.
What was in the freezer
January was clean-out month, and part of it went to turning raw odds and ends into finished, labeled dinners. A couple of those went to the ice days in late January. By the second week of February, the "ready to heat" side still held:
- 4 bricks of chicken tortilla soup, about a quart each, vacuum sealed
- 2 quarts of turkey stock
- A pan of white chicken enchiladas, assembled but not baked
- The last bag of chili
- A double batch of red beans, without the rice
- About 20 pancakes left from the ice days, frozen flat between squares of parchment
- 2 balls of pizza dough
How the week actually went
- Monday: Eli down. The rest of us had chicken tortilla soup, thawed in a bowl of cold water and heated in a pot. Eli had toast and called it dinner.
- Tuesday: Rosie spiked a fever. White chicken enchiladas went into the oven straight from frozen, foil on, with the directions right there on the tape.
- Wednesday: Wyatt down. Matt collected our first Kroger pickup on his way home from the warehouse. Turkey stock with egg noodles, the closest thing I make to chicken soup.
- Thursday: Me. I don't remember much of Thursday. Matt says we had red beans over instant rice, and frozen pancakes for the kids.
- Friday: Matt went down. My mom drove down from Denton with a big pot of her chicken and rice soup, set it on the porch, rang the bell, and waved at us from the driveway like we were in quarantine, which we sort of were.
- Saturday: Second Kroger pickup, collected by Matt, who had the mildest case. The last chili, plain buttered noodles for anyone who wanted them, and more of Mom's soup.
The Kroger pickups
Two orders, $46.18 and $29.73. The first had no fee thanks to a promo, the second was $4.95. Matt picked up both in the F-150 without getting out of the truck. Here's what we ordered:
- Sports drinks and electrolyte freezer pops
- Saltines, plain bread for toast, applesauce cups and bananas
- Chicken broth, ginger ale and a box of herbal tea
- A rotisserie chicken, for whoever could face real food by Saturday
- Two gallons of milk, because some things don't stop for the flu
We ordered zero takeout all week, which surprised me. When everyone's sick, delivery pizza sounds like the easy answer, but nobody wanted it, and the freezer food was already in the house.
What worked and what I'd change
What worked: soups frozen in flat bags or bricks, labeled with the name, the date and how to reheat, thawed in cold water in about 40 minutes. Casseroles in foil pans that go from freezer to oven without any thinking. Matt doesn't cook much beyond the grill and the smoker, but he can read a label that says "375, foil on, 75 min," and that's all it took. I wrote it for a version of me that couldn't think, and it turns out Matt was that version.
What I'd change:
- Smaller portions. A quart of soup is perfect for four healthy people and way too much for one sick one. Some of the next batch goes into single-serving containers.
- Plain food for Eli. He lived on toast and buttered noodles. A bag of cooked, buttered noodles in the freezer would have saved Matt a pot of boiling water and a lot of questions.
- Directions on every label. Two bags didn't have them, and Matt texted me from the kitchen to ask while I was ten feet away on the couch.
Everyone's well now. I turned 36 on Tuesday with my sense of taste back, asked for migas for dinner, and cooked them myself, happily. On Sunday I'll restock the left side of the freezer, with smaller bags this time and a marker that actually works.
