Food stuff
Aug. 30th, 2017 05:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kengrVarious interesting things involving food in the last week or so.
To start with, I had trouble with a large jar of green olives with pimentos I got cheap off the clearance Rack. Even with rubber gloves I couldn't the lid to move. I sat there glaring at it and decided to try something weird.
I took a small screwdriver ( about 4.5"/11 cm) and stabbed it through the middle of the lid. Jar opened with no problem after that. This is now on my list of ways to deal with stubborn jar lids. :-)
Oh yeah, I slapped a hunk of duct tape over the hole. If that sounds icky to you, you can always transfer the contents to another container.
I've also been clearing out the freezer some. I've been getting frozen meats from the food boxes faster than I've been using them up. I'm working on thinning the herd.
I'd dug out this *huge* bag of chicken drumsticks and but it in the refrigerator to thaw. At 0-dark-thrity on Sunday morning, I dug out the crockpot to make some crock pot chicken. the spice/sauce packs I use are cheap and work well. Basically you need the appropriate meat, a couple cups of celery (sticks now, they used to just say "roughly chopped), a couple cups of carrots (now they say baby carrots, but they used to say roughly chopped), a chopped onion, and some cut up potatoes.
I had the baby carrots from a huge bag I'd gotten in a food box, Celery I had actually gone out and bought. I had a couple of onions but I had a *huge* number of scallions (green onions) that needed to be used up. and as usual, I had lots of potatoes.
Using the scallions is something I'll think twice about. Since they needed dried and icky parts removed rather more than usual, it took *forever* to come up with a cup of them...
But other than that, things went well, put in the disposable liner, added the various veggies, and finished off with half the drumsticks (I'll use the rest in a day or so). They were still partly frozen, but that's the nice thing about crockpots. I cooked things for 8 hours on low (got done around 3 pm)
Ate the last of the drumsticks late Monday, and will likely finish off the veggies Wednesday. Then I'll make up another batch to clear up the rest of the drumsticks and excess veggies.
Since my pension got deposited Tuesday, I was able to pick up a few things at the store. I splurged a bit and got some meat from the deli. Turkey pastrami was really cheap ($4.99) and they had "Spicy Pineapple Ham" for $5.99 (actually wound up even cheaper for some reason, I'm not complaining!)
Got a ring cake (lemon pudding, yum!) for only $1.99 from the bakery markdown, and I picked up a coupleof rice cracker thingies from the clearance rack. Kameda brand. One Wasabi and one Sweet Chili.
Also a few other things.
The ham is good. Interesting flavor. And I figured out why the Kameda stuff was on clearance. Unlike the *other* snack things with Wasabi, these actually taste like wasabi. Not as "hot" as some stuff Trader Joes used to sell, but enough to exceed typical "white people" spice levels. Ditto for the chili flavor.
At the original price I probably wouldn't have bought them. But marked down 50% they were worth a try. I probably still wouldn't get them at the old price, but I may buy more of the ones on clearance.
We cleared a lot of chard out of the garden last week. A lot of it was damaged leaves (those brown/yellow spots from the insect larvae eating the leaves from onside) but those parts can be cut out. and in the process, you wind up with "pre-chopped" leaves for cooking :-)
We also got a few cherry tomatoes and a couple of the Indigo Rose tomatoes. It's *really* hard to tell when the Indigo ones are ripe. They turn black starting from the stem, and it spreads over much of the surface fairly fast. You have to look at the bottom to see if they are still gree.
That's how I got one of them, it broke off when I was checking (gonna have to take a hand mirror out there next time). It was still green on the bottom. The other was red on the bottom and I picked it on purpose.
The one with the red on the bottom was ripe. Tasted good. The other one was still green inside. Fay and I ate them anyway. I just cut both in half, and we each got a half.
They *do* look like somebody breed up a giant variety of deadly nightshade though. :-)
To start with, I had trouble with a large jar of green olives with pimentos I got cheap off the clearance Rack. Even with rubber gloves I couldn't the lid to move. I sat there glaring at it and decided to try something weird.
I took a small screwdriver ( about 4.5"/11 cm) and stabbed it through the middle of the lid. Jar opened with no problem after that. This is now on my list of ways to deal with stubborn jar lids. :-)
Oh yeah, I slapped a hunk of duct tape over the hole. If that sounds icky to you, you can always transfer the contents to another container.
I've also been clearing out the freezer some. I've been getting frozen meats from the food boxes faster than I've been using them up. I'm working on thinning the herd.
I'd dug out this *huge* bag of chicken drumsticks and but it in the refrigerator to thaw. At 0-dark-thrity on Sunday morning, I dug out the crockpot to make some crock pot chicken. the spice/sauce packs I use are cheap and work well. Basically you need the appropriate meat, a couple cups of celery (sticks now, they used to just say "roughly chopped), a couple cups of carrots (now they say baby carrots, but they used to say roughly chopped), a chopped onion, and some cut up potatoes.
I had the baby carrots from a huge bag I'd gotten in a food box, Celery I had actually gone out and bought. I had a couple of onions but I had a *huge* number of scallions (green onions) that needed to be used up. and as usual, I had lots of potatoes.
Using the scallions is something I'll think twice about. Since they needed dried and icky parts removed rather more than usual, it took *forever* to come up with a cup of them...
But other than that, things went well, put in the disposable liner, added the various veggies, and finished off with half the drumsticks (I'll use the rest in a day or so). They were still partly frozen, but that's the nice thing about crockpots. I cooked things for 8 hours on low (got done around 3 pm)
Ate the last of the drumsticks late Monday, and will likely finish off the veggies Wednesday. Then I'll make up another batch to clear up the rest of the drumsticks and excess veggies.
Since my pension got deposited Tuesday, I was able to pick up a few things at the store. I splurged a bit and got some meat from the deli. Turkey pastrami was really cheap ($4.99) and they had "Spicy Pineapple Ham" for $5.99 (actually wound up even cheaper for some reason, I'm not complaining!)
Got a ring cake (lemon pudding, yum!) for only $1.99 from the bakery markdown, and I picked up a coupleof rice cracker thingies from the clearance rack. Kameda brand. One Wasabi and one Sweet Chili.
Also a few other things.
The ham is good. Interesting flavor. And I figured out why the Kameda stuff was on clearance. Unlike the *other* snack things with Wasabi, these actually taste like wasabi. Not as "hot" as some stuff Trader Joes used to sell, but enough to exceed typical "white people" spice levels. Ditto for the chili flavor.
At the original price I probably wouldn't have bought them. But marked down 50% they were worth a try. I probably still wouldn't get them at the old price, but I may buy more of the ones on clearance.
We cleared a lot of chard out of the garden last week. A lot of it was damaged leaves (those brown/yellow spots from the insect larvae eating the leaves from onside) but those parts can be cut out. and in the process, you wind up with "pre-chopped" leaves for cooking :-)
We also got a few cherry tomatoes and a couple of the Indigo Rose tomatoes. It's *really* hard to tell when the Indigo ones are ripe. They turn black starting from the stem, and it spreads over much of the surface fairly fast. You have to look at the bottom to see if they are still gree.
That's how I got one of them, it broke off when I was checking (gonna have to take a hand mirror out there next time). It was still green on the bottom. The other was red on the bottom and I picked it on purpose.
The one with the red on the bottom was ripe. Tasted good. The other one was still green inside. Fay and I ate them anyway. I just cut both in half, and we each got a half.
They *do* look like somebody breed up a giant variety of deadly nightshade though. :-)
