Tag: food

The beef has arrived! Our shipment of beef from 6 Ranch came today and the Aunts and I picked up our orders.

Aunt Pat writing the final check.

Liza Jane and her daughter unloading the truck.

People waiting. In the background you can see two women dividing their order.

It’s nice to have a full freezer of beef again. If you are interested in ordering grass fed beef from 6 Ranch, you can go to their web site: http://www.6ranch.com/

The Transparent apples on my Aunt’s tree are ripe which means it’s time to make applesauce. Last year, Matt and I peeled and cored all the apples, but this year I’m just steaming them and putting them through the Squeezio Strainer.

I took home about 30 pounds and that was just a small fraction of the total number on the tree, even though this was a bad year for apples.

Of late, I’ve been eating this delightful concoction for dinner. It is essentially the same ingredients as scrambled eggs (3 eggs scrambled, a bit of fat for the pan and some salt and pepper) but tastes so very, very different.
Here’s what I do: I scramble the eggs, salt and pepper together while my smallest cast iron skillet is heating on the stove. Then I add some fat (I’m currently partial to sesame oil) to the pan and swirl it around and let it heat for a bit. Then I add the eggs. I don’t stir the eggs, but instead rotate the pan after a bit because my burner doesn’t cook evenly. Often this is a time for me to pine for a gas stove. After it looks like the bottom is set (but not burnt! Burnt eggs are dreadful!) I take the pan over to the toaster oven, set it to broil and let it get to broiling.

Even when I make this for more than one dinner in a row, I can never remember how long it takes to broil. Here’s what happens. The egg mixture will puff and brown on top and I think it is done and pull it out because of my fear of burnt eggs. Then I notice there is still a lot of liquid egg on top under the brown part, sigh, reset the broiler and put the pan back in. When the egg is puffy and nothing moves–meaning I’ve got a solid now, not any liquid left–I take it out, admire how pretty it is, invert it on a plate, cut it into sixths (my Pizza Hut training comes in handy here) and eat it with some rice and vegetables. So good and delicious!
Of course, if I fried up some potatoes before adding the egg mixture, or put some greens in there I would have a fritatta, but that is somehow not as transcendent as three eggs scrambled, then puffed.

The white beans in the container on the right are the ones I soaked and cooked to make white bean, sausage and cabbage soup. After I cooked them, I put them in the refrigerator until I had time to make the soup. Time passed, and they went bad.

Not to worry. I unearthed the white beans in the center from the freezer. I had soaked and cooked a batch some time ago and put extra in the freezer for quick use in the future. I put them in the refrigerator to defrost and once again time passed and they went bad.

The white beans on the left I happily discovered on the pantry shelf. They made it into the soup, which was delicious.

I’m contemplating a resolution for next year to use all my food up and not let any go bad. There are some staggering statistics about how much food people in the United States throw out. I, unfortunately am part of that statistic. It’s such a waste. The food had been created and transported, I pay money to buy it, in some cases I invest time to cook it and then, into the compost or trash it goes.

You might hear more on this topic later.

My goal is to cook vegetables five times per week. This week I have not even come close to meeting that goal. The drawback is that when I don’t have a bank of veggies to draw upon, it is difficult to feel full. Today I had red beans and potatoes for lunch with some leftover squash. By 4:00, I was very hungry, a state in which I don’t really like to spend much time. I ended up standing at the PSU Bookstore before my class started debating between the overly large package of saltines, the overly large package of potato chips, the even bigger bag of Cheetos. I rejected the various nuts because they were either hideously flavored, or had shells. I ended up with a package of frosted animal crackers to go with my apple.

Not surprisingly, I was ravenous by the time my class ended. I stopped by Cafe Yumm! before getting on the train and had a Yumm Bowl with Greens. It set me back $6.95 which leaves me with $30.80 for the month. I’m about to go out in the dark and find some diakon radish greens to steam. I’ve got to have more food for tomorrow.

Sometimes this being an adult is no fun.

I’ve been trying to get a US Savings Bond for a bat mitzvah present all week long. It took five trips, three to one bank, two to another, and I succeeded. In the middle of all that, I bought a brownie at whole foods. So my remaining money for the month is $37.75.

Often I will cook or bake things for presents and I had promised to bring a cheesecake to the bat mitzvah for the Sunday brunch. However, the ingredients for said cheesecake are expensive and I knew that they would eat up the majority of my remaining funds. What to do? I did what all poor artists do: find a patron.

“Sweetheart, if I make a cheesecake for Peri’s bat mitzvah, will you pay for the ingredients as your part of the present?”

“Uh, I guess. How much would it be?”

“Probably eighteen or twenty dollars.”

He agreed. It turned out that I low-balled the estimate a bit, though I didn’t do that intentionally. The ingredients for the Chocolate Zebra Cheesecake cost $25.50 at my local Fred Meyer. And that was with the chocolate on sale for $1.99 per bar, down from $2.79. Expensive? Yes. But incredibly rich and worth it? Indeed.

I heard it today and ended up buying a bar of fancy chocolate at Whole Foods. It was $2.79 which brings me to $39.74 remaining for the month. “Less than forty dollars,” seems much less than “More than forty dollars.” I think I’ll be alright because I have enough vegetables from the garden to get through the week. That gives me $20.00 each week to spend on vegetables for the following two weeks. Assuming I don’t hear the call of chocolate again.

I’m building up a bit of a cushion to my food budget. I want to leave a little left over every month, partly so I don’t accidentally bounce a check and partly so I have enough to get my quarter of beef next August. So here is what I ‘m doing.

I’ve made a list of staple food I eat each month. At the beginning of the month I am doing a “big shop” so I have all my basic food. My goal is to only shop one other time that month, however now that the meager amount of vegetables I harvested this year are beginning to peter out, I may need to go more often for vegetables.

I’ve done my “big shop,” as I’m calling it, for the month and have figured that to have an extra $10.00, I need to keep my spending on food for the rest of the month to $45.00. Is this possible?

Yesterday I bought thyme (they never had it in bulk and I had to give up and buy a regular jar) for $1.99 and a cup of dried beans for $0.48. This leaves me with $42.53 for the remaining 25 days in the month.

I’ll report in now and then, so you can follow along. In my opinion, the only way to save is to make things fun. It’s a fun test for me, and it will also probably keep me from spending $3.00 on cookies at The Pearl Bakery. Every time I do that I picture my grandmother rolling over in her grave. Sorry grandma, sometimes that shortbread just calls to me. Perhaps not this month, though, eh?