The disappearing pancetta

The post has just arrived. While the computer was booting up, I thought I'd fetched it in. I was surprised to find one very thick bulging letter. It was impossible to see who it was addressed to so I opened it. It was the holiday insurance documents. In it they go through all our medical conditions, a sheet a condition. Having read through my conditions to check it was a reasonable statement of what I had said on the phone, I tried to put the letter back in the envelope. Impossible, short of tearing the envelope down one side. Why they used such a small envelope is beyond me. Maybe they just don't have any bigger envelopes because they assume people don't have more than one or two medical problems. We both ave more than that! I'll let the Fox check the sheets on him.

Meanwhile I'm cooking the meal. We're going to do the food shopping today, so yesterday I had a rummage in the freezer. According to my list of  freezer contents the oldest thing should have been pancetta. Could I find it? No. It seems to have literally evaporated.  So much for the mushroom, pancetta & pesto pappardelle meal I was thinking of making for today.


Later on I mentioned to the Fox I hadn't found the pancetta. 

"We could buy some while we're at Morrisons, along with the mushrooms. It's a quick meal that doesn't need any preparation," said the Fox, trying to be helpful.

"But the whole point of doing that meal is to use up the old stuff from the freezer," I protest.

What's next on the list?  Half a tin of red wine cooking sauce. I suggest I could make a beef in red wine casserole. That will also use up some braising steak from the freezer. 


"You can't do that," protests the Fox. "The meal I'm cooking this week is in a red wine sauce." 

He's planning to do sausage meatballs in a tomatoey winey sauce later in the week. I contemplate making the beef in red wine into a pie, though I can't see a bit of pastry on top alters the flavour much. I had contemplated using the sauce to make meatballs in red wine yesterday, but was told the meatballs would be the same as his. The minced beef became a cottage pie instead, not that I thought pork sausage & minced beef would taste the same no matter if they were cooked in the same sauce. Deciding on what to cook has become much more complicated now the Fox has taken to cooking more often. In the end the Fox reluctantly agreed to have the beef casserole.


So yesterday, while the cottage pie warmed up in the oven, I popped out to the freezer to find the meat & sauce. The sauce was where it should be. The meat was down a great pile of other little bags. I ended up emptying most of the freezer in the hunt. I found the beef eventually. As I searched I kept my eyes open for the pancetta. No sign. though I did find some chicken breast which wasn't on my list for that date. Had the pancetta changed into chicken? Unlikely I'd have thought. I also looked for the items for next few month on my list & made sure they were moved up to the top. Hopefully that means they will be easier to find when I want them.


But where  on earth, or more specifically in the freezer, is the pancetta? Or have we eaten it & forgotten to cross the fact off my list!