Living alone comes with its price. If I prepare a real meal, I get to enjoy that meal for the next 5 days. It brings a whole new meaning to leftovers. I never thought I’d see the day when I had to force myself to eat food I liked. But really, by the 5th day of spaghetti, I’d rather starve than taste it ever again. And yes, 5th day could mean 10th meal!!! I hate wasting food but there comes a point where enough is enough.

Well, since my discovery of Marsh, I have found a solution to my misery, Banquet TV dinners. Now listen to this, I can get 10 of these babies for $8. That’s a meal for 80 cents…some might call me cheap but damn, 80 cents! You can’t even get a stick of gum for that price anymore. Well, at first I was leery about some of the meals…I mean fried chicken or better yet, brownies, in the microwave…it just seemed so unnatural. Well, I started out easy w/ Salisbury steak, a tried & true meal from my childhood. It took a few weeks to get to fish sticks & the brownie, but damn am I glad I made the jump. It’s by far, my favorite meal! Actually, I really just watching the brownie evolve from pudding in the microwave. Does anyone else enjoy watching food in the microwave? I’ve got a special fascination for watching baked potatoes…especially since I got this new microwave with “sensor cook” so these bars on the display go up & down and it determines how long to cook the potatoes. Lemme tell you…I’ve tried to fool this thing, but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t know when I add a third midget potato in there. Minor but necessary sidetrack…back to the TV dinners.

So yes, I decided I would tackle the art of making TV dinners. Yes, not just anyone can successfully make them. Those mashed potatoes are pretty tricky, but I’ve gotten so good at them that they almost taste…good. The trick is stirring the hell out of them after the first microwave run. I mean stir till you can’t stir anymore and w/ a fork of course.

So it’s settled Banquet dinners are my new meals. I can get a complete meal…or two :). TV dinners have released me from the chains of leftovers. It’s a wonderful feeling. I’m free, so very free.