When I left you Friday I was pretending to be a behaving kinda adult. That lasted until I got to the grocery store where rather than an avocado and a mango (both of which would have had to ripen for who knows how long) I got a bag of chips on sale for 2.04 on sale including tax- which I'm counting, btw, because I'm generally still behind on spending. Well, for where I planned to be.
So I ate a bag of chips and some rice with soy sauce on Friday. I thought I had something else, too, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was. Oh, and RM#2 bought big drinks to share (I'll have to reciprocate eventually), so I also had a really big bottle of Heineken. Which tastes like dirt to me. Oh well.
Saturday was better, I needed to use up the rice I made last week, and the cabbage was racing to it's toss by date. So I made fried rice.
I was going to put carrot in this, but when I pulled the bag out, the carrots were both fuzzy and furry. I guess I don't use them fast enough. So they went to the great root veggie patch in the sky. Kinda wish is were possible to buy individual carrots more easily and cheaply. I waste a lot of carrots.
So the carrot colored stuff in the fried rice is actually sweet potato. RM1's bf thought it ended up a bit too salty, but I thought it was fine. I'm also a total salt-a-saurus, so who knows. Didn't have ginger either this time, guess I left it at mom's last time I tormented the zoom zoom monster.
Yesterday I made a crock pot full of pinto beans. Not my favorite, but pretty cheap, easy, and creamy, oddly enough, if you cook them long enough.
First bowl-
Just beans, salt, cajun seasoning, oil, vinegar. No real surprise there.
Second bowl-
Beans, ancient salsa, salt. Ended up picking the bell peppers out of the salsa mix. They make my stomach and mouth unhappy.
Third bowl-
All the stuff from the first batch plus chopped tomato, avocado, and onion. Oh, and some pepper. yum.
Did I mention that I went to the store? Save-a-lot is my friend. Kinda scary sometimes, but still my friend. Don't know it it's because most of their customers speak spanish as their first language, but they are always the best price for tomatoes and limes, and they always have perfectly ripe avocados. I've yet to get a dud there. So for $2.14 I got two huge roma tomatoes, an avocado, a lime, and a good sized zucchini. There might have been something else in there too, but I don't think so.
And since I've used only a quarter each of a tomato and the avocado, I have plenty left over for later. Om nom nom.
Now if only I were un-lazy enought to make something else to have with the beans. Otherwise I think they'll probably be gone later today. Oh well.
Batch cooking, why must you fail me so!
Hope everyone else had a good weekend.
I frequently have furry carrots; I just peel off the fur (roots, I think) and eat the middle...aint died yet. As for batch cooking, sometimes I take a whole bag of carrots (1, 2 or 5 lb, depending on sale) wash and/or peel, slice into sorta 3" strips and roast with oil, garlic powder and thyme for 45 min or so on 400, turning once. Eat what you want and freeze the rest which can then be warmed and eaten or thrown in soups or whatever. I'm not good at batch cooking either, but I can usually manage this.
ReplyDeleteYeah, roots alone I'd be fine with. It't the blue/ white mold and the icky black rotting bits that killed it for me.I'll have to try roasting again when it isn't going to kill the inside of my house. Or find/ make a solar oven.
ReplyDeleteThought you might find this article interesting/relevant...
ReplyDeletehttp://shine.yahoo.com/event/green/50-healthy-foods-for-under-1-a-pound-1677000/
Some of the foods the author happened to find on special and some methods require prep-time/freezer space which, quite frankly, a lot of people my age don't have. Also, I have never seen Bok Choy in my area for less than $1.69/lb, may need to hit up some Asian grocers.
Shana, I actually have that open in another tab right now. I'm working my way through the comments. It's interesting to see how many people insist none of them can ever be found for less than $1 a pound. 'Specially since I think I have half of that stuff in my kitchen *right now*. Not the asparagus or broccoli, though. QQ
ReplyDeleteLove the idea of this blog -- and I've been enjoying reading -- but it kills me that you don't feel great most of the time and I think you'd feel better if you ate more nutritiously and slept more regularly. You're not giving your body any of the nutrients it needs. :( (Nutrition and sleep are super important for a healthy state-of-mind.) So... that might be a good challenge for you to try?
ReplyDeleteOh, lol. The chip monster bites again.
ReplyDeleteI think batch cooking might work better for you if you make twice what you're making now (and freeze half), and maybe two or three things at the same time. That way you've got more to eat than just this one thing that you eat until it's gone.
I've never had a carrot mold, but sometimes mine dry out. I still use them anyway.
jb- I'm glad you're enjoying the blog. re: sleep, I'm still adjusting to a daytime life after 2+ years on 3rd shift, and 1.5 years on the other side of the world. My body is *convinced that I should go to sleep at 4pm and wake up by midnight. working on it. Nutrition is something I do need to work on more. I'm, to some degree, skating on it and using vitamins to catch what I'm missing. While it's an ok strategy for a month or two, it's really not so good in the long run. I'm trying to remember to get fat, carbs, protein, and veggies every day, but it's an uphill battle. It's pretty much the overall challenge behind the whole thing.
ReplyDeleteAllie- Chip monster indeed. I don't know that my crock pot will hold twice the beans, but other wise I can try it. I'm going to make the biggest batch of something (still working on how) I can manage for the challenge. so that should take care of a couple days or a week. I'll just need to fill in around it with veggies and "other" meals.
On the mold- I think I'm just talented. Also, they'd been in there since February. I should have roasted them months ago.
Oh lol. I cut the moldy parts off that squash I ate the other day. There wasn't a ton, but it'd been sitting there since October or November I think. So I feel ya on that one.
ReplyDeleteSmall crock pot, gotcha. I have a little dipper one, and a massive 5 or 6 quart one. I really need a midsized crock pot so I can do stuff somewhere in between "barely feeds me" and "feeds an army." Is there a pressure cooker in your house? If so, that might be a good way to make your beans super-fast and in somewhat larger batches. Of course, I say that but I have a pressure cooker and have not once used it to make beans.
Nope, no pressure cooker- Sent it along with my last roommate, who was moving further up a mountain and needed it more. If I had one I'd probably can beans- super easy after the first time, just fill the jar about 1/3 of the way with clean dry beans, fill the rest of the way (1/2" headspace, I think) with hot water, and process for about ever (an hour, maybe?) Om nom nom.
ReplyDeleteMy crockpot will cook about a pound of beans from dry, but I don't want to try with more than that- I'm not sure how evenly it cooks, and I don't want to risk melted beans on the bottom while the ones on top are still crunchy with no space to mix.
Yeah I buy most of that stuff for ultra-cheap so I'm not sure what a lot of those commenters were talking about, found the Bok Choy for 89cents/lb woop woop! (Hooray ethnic markets!)
ReplyDeleteMaybe they only shop the "pretty" stores? Dunno...
ReplyDeleteAre you putting them in there cooked, or not cooked, when you can them?
ReplyDeleteYeah, I don't know if I'd want to cook more than a pound of beans at a time either!
They go in uncooked and dry- there's information on the interwebs somewhere. Also, I think it's one of the things you *have to* use the pressure canner for. They cook/ rehydrate while canning. Pretty neat, right?
ReplyDeleteThat is beyond cool. I need to start looking into that!
ReplyDeleteI totally forgot about those little adzuki beans that were in the crock pot yesterday. We'll see how they did after 24 hours in there. :o