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I don't like frozen food in general. Well, let me amend that, I think freezing is a fine way to preserve raw ingredients like peas and parsnips. I'll freeze some leftovers, like lasagna, from time to time or maybe leftover soup-stock, but in general I detest (with rare exception) pre-prepared meals and "entrees".

Ugh. "Entree"? Come on, that's just a nice way of saying - here's some almost edible content with the consistency of mushed styrofoam with a double helping of salt, and preservatives. Enjoy.

I do buy a few of these packaged and frozen meals for work expressly for times when I'm too rushed to go out, or am bereft of some tasty leftover from the previous nights dinner. I mentally call these "White-Collar MREs", a last ditch act of desperation to prevent foraging in the vending machine. And while I only buy meals that are preservative free, dairy free and all-natural it invariably comes down to a battle of the carrots.

I suppose carrots are the single most freezer-worthy vegetable. Pile that on top of, cheap, easy to handle and "colorful" there's always more frozen carrots in a meal than I'd ever want to consume. It's almost charming the way they take on the texture consistency of a 'Pink Pearl' eraser, melded with a bland and almost carrot-like taste (actually I think I imagine that last part, because if I were fed some blindfolded I would probably punch the person for trying to pass off silly-putty as food).

On the other hand, if you removed carrots as a fundamental freezer-food building block, what would be left? I imagine a desiccated wasteland of bland rice, dilapidated psudo-meat-like cubes and clots of gummy noodles in some sort of flavor (gravy, sauce, whatever). It would hardly be better or more palatable, and certainly less colorful so I guess, in the end, carrots have their place even if they don't retain their crunch.