Commentary: Eating restaurant-style at home

I used to love to cook. Now I panic at the thought of putting an actual meal together. Having guests is beyond my capacity — an economic boon for the local restaurants.

It’s not that I love to eat out, but every restaurant meal yields two meals of leftovers. I have a big collection of freezer-perfect take-home containers. I love my microwave.

I had dived into cooking for my blended family. I’d already found the way to Lee’s heart, and I quickly learned that the way to his kids’ hearts was to feed them a variety of good meals.

The decades passed, along with my motivation for combining ingredients. I even hate to go to the market.

My friend Brian recommended a service that delivers fresh ingredients for meals to your doorstep.

You choose from delectable options on the website’s menu, and the following week you receive everything you need. Except salt, pepper and olive oil.

The first carton arrived as promised — two meals for two people twice. That’s eight meals for me, at a fraction of restaurant prices.

I could barely lift the box. The ice-substitute alone weighed 20 pounds.

In the kitchen, I unpacked and froze the meat entrees. The veggie packages — clearly labeled and containing their unique ingredients — I refrigerated.

Also came the recipes. The first night would be Asian meatballs with ponzu sauce, snap peas and rice.

I sliced and diced. I blended the ground pork with fresh green onion, garlic and ginger and pre-measured packets of spices and flour. I poured sesame oil from a tiny bottle into the skillet.

While the rice cooked, I browned and frowned. The meatballs wouldn’t stay round.

OK, a stir-fry would do, a là ponzu.

Lesson one: I can use the ingredients however I want!

Truly, dinner was restaurant-level delicious. I divided the remainder into one small and one large El Ranchito container, freezing the big one.

Lesson two: Choose recipes requiring less paraphernalia.

The next week, another weighty carton arrived, with all ingredients, including two giant ears of corn, yams and an onion.

I emptied the ice packets into my soup kettle, as I had before, the solid slabs nearly filling it, once defrosted. The plastic packaging is recyclable, and the melted ice-type-stuff can be disposed of like water, though not by drinking.

Lesson three: If you “grill” a steak and corn on the cob in a skillet, it can take three days of soaking and scraping to clean the skillet.

For the fourth meal, I set about making pork loin with fig sauce.

I brought out the ingredients and read the instructions, realizing that I hadn’t defrosted the pork. No problem. In a dishpan of cold water, it would be ready to cook by the time I finished my martini and a few rounds of Canasta on the computer.

I roasted my prepped carrots and Brussels sprouts while I seared the meat, smoking up the kitchen. Before the alarm could go off, I turned on the range-fan, making it impossible to hear the news.

I was supposed to sear it on three sides, but this meat screamed to be seared on four sides. I spent the extra time drinking the two ounces of white wine I had put out to attract a sudden home-invasion of fruit flies, but didn’t.

As the veggies finished roasting along with the pork roast, I emptied the container of red wine and pot of fig jelly into the searing pan and stirred it into a fragrant sauce.

The next step was to “plate the dish.” How cute is that phrase! I considered photographing the results, but it seemed just too self-congratulatory.

Eating at home can be educational, delicious and delightful! I suppose I could even have occasional guests over for Liz’s “HomeCooking.”

Oh! Lesson four: Those fruit flies? They can’t resist the artificial ice.

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Author LIZ SWIERTZ NEWMAN lives in Corona del Mar.