Thursday, August 12, 2010

Day 179- A Mostly Unplanned Overage

I don't know how it works everywhere else, but here the grocery sales start on Wednesday. Sometimes we get the ads on Tuesday, but the new sales themselves start Wednesday. Yesterday was Wednesday.

So, in a fit of crazed overspending (kinda) I went to save-a-lot and Publix. I ended up spending about $5 on food that I wasn't planning on, and probably shouldn't have done. You see, I love potatoes. I haven't really had potatoes lately. The ones at the store have mostly been gross. Or almost a dollar a pound, and I'm not paying that for potatoes.

But this week, well, save-a-lot has potatoes on sale. $1.99 for a 10 pound bag. I can make a whole lot of everything with 10lbs of potatoes- trust me, I've already started. So I bought them. Then they had the huge Florida avocados on "sale" for 99 cents each. I grabbed one. They might not be as flavorful or fatty as regular avocados, but there's a heck of a lot more fruit for the cost.

Then I wandered over to Publix. I wasn't sure what I wanted, but knew I'd find something that would work. I ended up with a bag of tortilla chips- the $2 ones. I plan to use them with the avocado and the black beans I have sitting in the pantry.

When I got home, I mixed up a not-so-flavorful batch of breakfast potatoes. The would have been better, but I didn't spice them enough. Oh well. I used 3 good sized potatoes and about 1/6 of the super expensive onion. When I got hungry for dinner I decided to make fries. It'd been a while since I'd had oven fries, and they just sounded good.

True story- I lived on microwave baked potatoes, oil, and salt once for close to a month. It sucked. Eventually I added cheese and butter. Then later I had "real food" and life was good again.

Back to dinner- I spiced my fries with hot curry powder. Might sound strange, but since I normally toss my fries with Thai sweet chili sauce before baking, I thought it was a perfectly reasonable flavor choice. Of course, my house now smells like a really bad curry take-away joint, but whatever. The fries were spice and salty and not bad.

With any luck, the avocado will be ripe in the next day or two. I want to mix it into a big bowl of black bean salad and eat it with those chips. Until then, they'll both just have to wait. I hope the avocado is still tasty. Most of the WIN in an avocado is from its' tasty fat.

I think yesterday was my most blatant act of cheating yet- There's no way even a super-dedicated j could eat 10 pounds of potatoes in 3 days.

Have I told you lately how much I love carbs?

9 comments:

  1. If you're feeling industrious:

    http://www.ehow.com/how_4875395_freeze-potatoes.html

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  2. I have to try that Thai sweet chili sauce seasoning to bake fries. Sounds yummy.

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  3. Alyse- I don't know that I've *ever* been that industrious.

    MrsG- you totally should. They don't go well with catsup, though. I usually dip them in homemade roast garlic "mayo". To, you know, fix the low fat thing.

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  4. You can't put the taters in a closet or something so they won't go bad? I thought that was the point of potatoes D:

    but maybe the weather there isn't good for that? anyway, spiced fries sound AWESOME. I wish I could find whatever spices they used in them at Kasper's when I was a kid - "seasoned" is not specific enough, haha.

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  5. So I'm planning on making my first batch of gnocchi - just potato, not sweet, and my recipe calls for a ricer, which I don't have. I can't remember if you use one for your gnocchi, but I was planning on just winging it with a hand blender. Thoughts?

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  6. theresa- they're in a closet. Somehow it doesn't seem to help. They don't turn green, they just sprout or start to smell like rotting body.

    Kim- I just attack them with a fork. If you have an old-fashioned potato masher, that can also work, if you're very strong, or your potatoes are very soft. Just remember to try and evaporate out as much water as you can before adding the flour.

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  7. Do you have a basement to store said potatoes in? Here in Wisco basements are run of the mill, but I know not so much elsewhere. Sometimes it helps to let them breath a bit too, to take them out of whatever packaging their currently being smothered in.

    We used to make salt crusted baked potatoes in the microwave with the help of a paper lunch bag. Delicious! I justify my love of potatoes with comments about "potassium" and "good for your muscles". I've actually been dreaming about a tofu potato stir fry all morning.

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  8. Another thoughts, potato pankcakes!!! You should totally make that! A bit of onion, shred those babies up, a little oil for frying....salt to flavor. Go for it!

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  9. Nope, no basements. Some of the newer houses around here have to be built close to 20 feet off the ground, up on stilts. Something about hurricanes and low elevation. That's what you get for building a city in a swamp, though, right?

    Now potato pancakes, that has some serious possibilities. Dunno about shredding, though- no grater!

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