Hello, and welcome to another rousing round of Saturday Steals, where what you get is what you see and what you see is cheap or free!

To participate, simply:

1) Steal a steal.

2) Write a post about it on your blog, mentioning that you’re participating in Saturday Steals (you can steal the above image if you so desire), and

3) Add the link to said post to the list at the bottom of this post.

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Poor Kyle refuses to pack his own lunch for work.

I guess I shouldn’t say “refuses.” He has never actually looked me in the face and said, “NO, I WILL NOT PACK MY OWN LUNCH FOR WORK.” It’s more like he simply doesn’t do it, which, to me, feels like a blatant refusal, but really I know it’s just sheer laziness and disinterest on his part.

He’s not trying to piss me off…he just does.

(I think we need marriage counseling.)

Anyway, I have a hard enough time packing my own lunch; I usually only do it for half the days I’m at school (although ever since deciding to go to Paris I have had double motivation to save money and have thus not missed a single day in two weeks). But with my own lunches, I know what I like, I know what will be exciting to eat the next day, and it’s relatively easy to get my act together and get that dadgum lunch packed.

But with Poor Kyle, a lot of things I send with him end up staying on his toolbox for two weeks only to make an ignoble return home after I realize that every single piece of generic Tupperware™ we own is mysteriously missing, and sit PK down for questioning. And he doesn’t even have the decency to empty the containers out before he brings them home. He just dumps them on the counter for me to deal with: mold, stench, and all.

(Again: marriage counseling. I have a lot of anger in my life.)

This he does on account of his phobia of leftovers, which alleged phobia hails from unknown origins but which I secretly suspect came from his mother coddling him as an infant, and which phobia I myself was never granted the luxury of developing because if I didn’t like what was served for dinner I didn’t eat.

And also which phobia I consider the single greatest barrier in my ability to love my husband unconditionally, even greater than his tendency to leave his dirty clothes all around the house in exactly whichever location he was when he decided he could not possibly stay clothed for even ONE MORE SECOND, including but not limited to: the bathroom floor, the kitchen table, the basement sofa, the basement bathroom, the bedroom floor (not hamper), the laundry room (not hamper), and even, once, the back deck (don’t ask).

Although, I grant, my own homemade meals are never that great even the first time around, so he probably has good reason to avoid them during Round 2.

But then even when I pack sure-fire winners, like PB&Js, even then he sometimes doesn’t eat them and they just go stale. I don’t know why he does this. He claims he gets busy and forgets to eat, but I’m thinking ain’t no one I know’s too busy to eat.

And no, it’s not like it’s so difficult to make PB&Js. But I really hate the idea of wasted food and wasted time. Plus making PB&Js is a tedious task for me, one that I put off because of the tedium, so when I actually do sacrifice the energy to make them for my husband, it really irks me for them to go uneaten.

And now I am 501 words in to this post and thinking it is getting altogether too long and complainey, so I will cut to the marital chase, and the steal portion of this Saturday Steal:

Poor Kyle spends a lot of money on lunches every week, and usually crappy fast-food lunches at that, which, considering both his personal cholesterol and our joint financial situation, is just a really bad idea.

In an attempt to cut down on his spending, I tried packing his lunches.

Which became an even bigger waste of money because not only did he not eat my lunches, but also he still bought lunch for himself at around $10 per diem.

And so, in a greater attempt to make SOME sort of progress, I discovered an acceptable solution to my unacceptable problem:

Frodins.

(Trendy talk for Frozen Dinners.)

Of course, though, out of some exasperating snobbish phobia developed early on in life, Poor Kyle snubs any and all frozen dinners that come compartmentalized with mashed potatoes and mushy vegetables (i.e. the cheap kind).

But, wonder of wonder MIRACLE OF MIRACLES, he will eat this one particular kind we found whilst grocery shopping a couple weeks ago:

Healthy Choice Gourmet Steamers™, also known as the little frodin that could.

Healthy Choice Gourmet Steamers™ are found in the freezer aisle at my local Real Canadian Superstore (actual name), and are often on sale for $3 each, which is admittedly pretty high for a frodin, but is 70% cheaper than the lunches Poor Kyle normally eats from Wendy’s et al.

Also, I see that I now have the opportunity to follow HC on facebook, which might land me at least a coupon or something.

These dinners are pretty tasty, which isn’t much for me to say because I will eat cardboard and enjoy it if it’s all MY WIFE PACKED FOR MY LUNCH THAT DAY, but even Poor Poor Kyle himself acknowledges that they are good (although he prefers the bowls with rice, because why not be picky if at all possible).

Here’s how they work:

Step 1: Remove from box and marvel at the frozen contents.

Step 2: Place in microwave for allotted time (times may vary). Wave the micros right out of that frodin.

Step 3: Remove from microwave immediately after the timer dings, ignoring the recommended wait time, which is for pansies. Remove plastic film.

Step 4: Lift top steamer bowl out of bottom sauce bowl and dump contents of top steamer bowl into bottom sauce bowl. Discard steamer bowl and do your best to ignore the nagging guilt that this meal could’ve been made, by you, without the use of any plastic whatsoever. Rationalise that desperate marital times call for desperate marital measures. If you think it will help.

Step Who Cares: Stir innards into the sauce and enjoy.

This particular version, the Beef Merlot, is my own personal favourite. The sauce has a really good, gravy-ish flavour, but isn’t too thick or heavy. It actually tastes like this really delicious coq au vin I had once in Belgium, which: amazing. The carrots are admittedly kind of mushy, but the green beans are surprisingly crisp, and the beef is really tender and much better than any sort of pot roast I’ve ever come up with. The potatoes are nothing to sneeze at but really, it’s a frodin—what do you expect?

And the best part of all:

Only 210 calories for the whole shebang! Fewer calories than a Snicker’s bar, and much more filling!

The ones with rice and noodles have a few more calories, but I don’t think any of them exceed 300 calories, which is really good for a lunch or dinner. Sometimes PK eats two in a sitting because he likes to undo all my hard work, but even then I can feel good about his calorie intake and his budgetary intake because both are lower than his normal course of action.

So you can think of this steal as a health steal or a money steal, but either way you wave the micros, it’s a dadgum steal.

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Now it’s your turn! What have you stolen lately?

Add your steal to the link list below. It will be open from now till Sunday at 11:59 p.m.

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