Losing My Touch
Ahhhh! The string of Kitchen misadventures continues with last night’s “apple crap”. It was supposed to be crisp but my kitchen mojo…she has gone done left. Even the stock was vaguely weird and wiggled with a most disturbing gelatinous shimmy (which prompted me to stuff it right the hell back into the fridge to deal with later). When I’ve made stock before and cooled it down there has been a layer of fat on the top or a skim of oiliness but the whole pot has never shook like a bowl full of poultry jelly. I’m hoping it’s just a jelly goo hat and that the congealment hasn’t gone pot deep. Slice of stock anyone?
We went SHOPPING last night and bought…about $100 worth of groceries. OK, that’s not entirely the truth. The bill was slightly over $100 but the bill also included three shirts I found in TheMan’s size (he prefers him the Tall shirts but you don’t always – re: hardly ever – get that choice. Last night? Wala!), heart shaped cookie tins for the G’mas and something else which I don’t consider part of the grocery budget. Can’t remember, not important. What IS important is that the total of food related items came out to $68 and we have enough food to last us into next week. That’s $34 this week, $34 next week which brings the average weekly spending on groceries down to $70 a week. Not good, but better than $100 a week, which was where I was fearing we were stuck at.
I also think I’ve figured something out about the grocery bill: It’s all about the spending money now to save it later. See, while I was planning the foodage for the next week (as I was shopping in the middle of this week and thought “Eh, why not?”) I realized that we have a growing store of frozen foodstuffs. Frozen foodstuffs stores mean that I don’t have to get nearly as much foodage when I’m out if I plan on using some of the stores I have in. Eventually (in theory at least), I should have built up a goodly supply of things I can haul out of the freezer to supplement things I’m buying that the bill WILL be about $50.
A boo can dream.
Also, a boo can stumble upon some fantastic deals (I heart me the Meijers this week) in freezable meat things while shopping and a clever boo is a freezable meat laden boo. You locals, check out the deals Meijers has going on. I got two whole fryer chickens (meals and SOUP STOCK!) for $8. That’s $4 a chicken! K-roget wanted $10 a chicken last time I was there. You gotta get the deals! I also almost got a chunk o’ pork but I’m unsure about pork chunks, unless they are ribs, chops or a whole hammm, so I let it be. So many parts of a pig, so little comprehension on my end as to which is a good cut, medium cut or substandard cut and how you go about cooking anything that isn’t ribs or chops. I lack pig knowledge.
Today I am full of self smugness. I bought those plop and bake character Valentine’s Day cookies about two weeks ago (along with a bag of Hershey hugs and a bag of kisses) with the intension of sending out a little something something to the grandmas. The only problem was that I needed cute Valentine’s Day themed tins. And that I am basically lazy and full of Cheetoness. My “looking for cute tins” consisted of browsing around any store I happened to be in for another reason despite the fact that several of the stores border other stores that would definitely have tins. Hey, if it wasn’t right where I could lay mitts on them, then I wasn’t going to be getting it. Conservation of energy and all. Anyway, last night Meijers had tins RIGHT BY THE DOOR, so I snatched them up. HA! Then I baked the cookies, packed up the tins, packaged them in boxes and even had cards to go in with the goodies. HA!
Who’s your grandkid? Huh?
Of course I *still* haven’t sent out Dirge and Shar’s prezzies. Who’s your Cheetobutt? Heh. I think the fact that I haven’t wrapped them yet (and have lost their address, again! Or at least misplaced it mightily grandly) is slowing me down. Meh. On the plus side, I’m not the latest gift giving person. We just got word from Randal of the 2 Ls and he said he’s sending a little late something something off to us. Or has. Whatever, gifties from Japan! With…Japanese Snack Food!!!! I hope he’s labeled the snacks so I can figure out what to call them. How’s that for cool? Japanese snack foods shipped from Japan. Now all you purist JSFR crybabies can shut it with the off culture snacks for a while.
OH! Good. Found Dirge and Shar’s addie. Damn, now I’m going to have to get the presents together and send them out. Where did I put the presents…
That’s all my yabbering for today. See ya on the flip side.
Last year at the booniverse: [Two out of two critic eyebrows whole heartedly agree]
Last last year at the booniverse: TheMan woke up humming this from his dream and now it’s permanently branded into my subconscious. Damn him!
The year before at the booniverse: Health@mtsbp515.email-deliveries.net (also of OPM derivation…I am beginning to thing OPM is the Beatrice of the internet) just wants me to be able to “Get The Little Unknown Liquid… Get Your Sample Today!!!” Ummm…EW!