A grocer, a freezer and a micro are God’s blessings for anyone who cooks for one or two, for with that trio anyone can eat lavishly, easily, and quickly, too.

This is my method: Every meal needs a Protein, and I keep one freezer shelf for only such, and it’s stocked with a sack of Swedish Meat Balls, deli-baked chicken thighs and legs, sliced turkey, a meatloaf cut and frozen in single servings, fish cakes or what you like.   Each ready for a moment in the micro, and it’s as if you had cooked for hours.

Vegetables. Again you’re not cooking for a family, and want to be able to serve just one or two and so this is how to get around that problem. Open a can of peas, (beets, whole kernel corn, or whatever) but work with one can at a time.

Open, and Drain the can (of peas or whatever vegetable you chose). Discard the water, (or save and freeze to use as a base for your next pot of soup) and then spread the peas in a single layer, on an empty cookie sheet, or a flat surface that will fit in freezer, and freeze. That will be in less than an hour, AND each pea will be single unit and NOT a solid mass.

Put the frozen loose peas in a freezer bag, seal, label and when you want to have a serving of peas with your Meat, take out the amount you want, tuck the rest of them back in the Freezer. That one can has 5 or 6 single servings and can be used whenever you wish. Tomorrow or a month from now.

Repeat the same steps with sliced beets, string beans, asparagus, or whatever vegetable and soon you will have a variety of such to use as you wish.

Fresh veggies are a cinch. Take a sack of small carrots, put in a sack and toss in the freezer. They don’t freeze into a lump and I sometimes put them in the freezer in the sack they came in, but just be certain you can open and seal again.

Fresh veggies such as broccoli, cauliflower, or zucchine must be cut into serving-sizes and then, into the good ole plastic freezer bags and then the freezer. They do not freeze into lumps and so, require none of the special treatment cans of small veggies need,

And then come tomatoes, cream corn, cream soups. These are easier than the veggies. Open the can of tomatoes or such, put them, surprise, surprise, in an ice cube tray, and freeze. When frozen, again take from the tray and put into a freezer bag. The cubes will stay separate. You must dilute the cream soups before the freeze, (see my reponse at end of blog) but do as YOU want.

Your freezer is beginning to look like ‘something else’, but follow me. Take a full ‘stalk’ of Celery, (not just a stick) trim off brown or such spots, and then, starting at the root end, begin slicing, through the entire stalk and with each cut of your knife, dozens of small semi-circles of celery are yours. Do this next to a sink half-full of water, slide the slices into the water to clean of any sand. Drain, put in a freezer sack, freeze and voila, celery at your fingertips. Do the same with big white or purple onions, cutting as to how you will use them.

And do a white Baked Potato, and a yam. Get big potatoes and wash well, puncture once or twice, micro them until done, but firm, NOT mushy. Don’t peel, cut in half-inch slices, put single layers on the cookie sheet and freeze.   Then into freezer bags, and they will not stick to each other. And for months, you can brown a slice of white potato in a skillet, at the last moment break an egg alongside, and you’re in heaven. Same with the yam, only not for breakfast. Yum.

Canned beans, navy, pinto, lima, or any sort are blessings in disguise for dieters, or health-eaters,   Open a can, put in frig, not freezer,and eat a tbsp of them in the middle of the morning or afternoon or as you go to bed.  They are applauded by every health-menu planner, for health and good eating.

And for instance . . . for one of my meals, I will put 3-4 meat balls in a soup bowl, and then I go wild. I get ten or so sacks from the freezer, and add to that bowl, some celery, corn, piece of broccoli, another of cauliflower, peas, beets, green beans, and on and on as I please.

Salt, pepper, put a cover on the bowl, micro for 4 or so minutes, and while that’s going on, I get a wheat-bran slice of bread, a cup of my choice, and by the time ‘the table’s set’ and the daily paper at my side, it’s all ready. Well, you’ll have to stir your ‘meal in a bowl’ once, but, big deal, stir away.

Once you catch on to making these sacks, you’ll come up with your own ideas. So get with it. Today. You’ll eat like a queen or king, and no one will know how easy it all is.