I see that everyone has covered everything I wanted to talk about again, but wow that NRA shit is EXPLOSIVE and EARLY in the campaign, showing there was collusion for damned near an entire year. At any rate, I have just been working and cooking and cleaning all day.
I found a chuck roast for about six bucks at the grocery, so I picked up a couple turnips and parsnips, threw in some carrots and onions and celery and some baby portabella mushrooms in my fridge that were going to go sketchy, and am making a pot roast that I can eat for a couple days. It’s just me, so I added some beef broth/tomato paste, along with some other seasonings, but I threw in some hot sauce and cognac just to see what happens.
Also picked up a cheap bag of potatoes so I peeled a few and am going to make garlic mashed to go with it. Going to boil them, then sightly roast them to dry them out, then add some roasted garlic, milk, salt, pepper, and butter and see what happens.
Also found an entire ten bag of gala apples that were going suspect for $1.99, so I made some applesauce for dessert. I’m tired of peeling. Again, since it is just me, I experimented a little bit and left some of the skins on, kept it slightly lumpy, and added a little 100& tart cranberry juice to give it a little color and kick.
Total meal cost is going to be about 18 bucks, and I figure I can get about 4 meals out of it, so that is not bad. It’s hard learning to cook for just yourself after years of feeding a few people whenever you cook. Plus, I’ve always been a cheap cook in the sense that I always buy bargains and buy in bulk, but I am really trying to learn how to live cheap because I honestly think we are going to have another great depression sooner rather than later.
Other than that, Lily sums up the activity level:
How about you all?
rikyrah
Your meal sounds delicious ?
Lily looks beautiful
Roger Moore
I think you’re learning one of the key ways of cooking for one: cook for more and eat leftovers a lot.
TaMara (HFG)
I love to cook in bulk, it’s just easier. But then I love leftovers, so it works. I’m thinking of one of these: Vacuum sealer
JeffreyW has one and seems to really like it. I think it would make freezing easier – my freezer has limited space, making my ability to freeze up bulk purchases and leftovers difficult.
trollhattan
Lily invites all to join her in Sunday torportude (which really needs to be a word, damnit).
Jim Parish
@Roger Moore: Yep; I usually cook a week’s worth of dinners on Sunday.
debbie
Cooking for just one and not having a very good freezer makes for lots of sandwiches and cans of tuna. Every time I cook for the week, I get tired of it after the second day. ?
raven
I just bought an Instant Pot and I really like it!
Bobby Thomson
WTF is this NRA shit of which you speak?
CaseyL
I like to eat easy and cheap, so a lot of stove-top meals. For a while I’d make a huge pot of rice as the basis for a week’s worth of meals, then I got tired of eating rice all the time.
I should get a crockpot so’s I can make a few days’ worth of stew at a time. The problem is, like debbie said, you go through all the trouble to do that and then get tired of it after two days.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@CaseyL: But you can freeze the stew in individual servings. If you do that with other things too, you have a nice variety in your freezer.
Mnemosyne
I’m probably going to need to do a bunch of bulk cooking and freezing prior to my knee surgery so I can have meals ready to go and not need to scrounge for food, but that will have to wait until some physical therapy can get me off crutches.
I saw Hamilton for the second time yesterday and still loved it. This time, there were no substitutes in the touring cast, so that was cool. I dragged several friends to see it and they enjoyed it, too, even though we had to sit separately.
schrodingers_cat
That’s the way I cook too, buy things in bulk, also eating seasonal stuff, since whatever is in season is usually on sale and delicious. Our grocery store has a section of slightly past its prime or not so perfect looking fresh veggies and fruit which I will sometimes pick up if I am going to cook for the week. I also buy very little prepared stuff.
Mnemosyne
@debbie:
I can’t think of any titles right now, but I’ve seen several cookbooks where you cook one meal and then use the leftovers to make something different later in the week. So (for example), you roast a chicken early in the week and then use the leftovers to make chicken pot pies a day or two later, that kind of thing.
manyakitty
I’ve been adding a glug of ruby port to my roasts lately. Makes a big difference!
schrodingers_cat
@raven: I was thinking of buying it, but decided not to when my friend gave me a pressure cooker as a gift. I just bought a slow cooker a couple of weeks ago and am still experimenting with it. What do you make in it?
Eljai
I’m learning to cook for myself too. I was motivated to save money, and also to eat healthier. I learned that one of my favorite take-out lunch items has about 700 grams sodium!
Also, I don’t know why I think this, but Lily looks like she reads Jane Austen in her spare time.
Eric S.
@debbie: i have the same problem. I’ve never been a big leftovers fan. I’ve been on an expensive streak oud eating out to often and trying to adjust.
raven
@schrodingers_cat: I have both and used them often but having it all in one unit seemed wise. I’ve made black eyed peas, still cut oatmeal, brown basmati rice so far.
raven
@Mnemosyne: RE Filmstruck, the closed cations on english language films suck.
Ryan
I agree, the third Great Depression in 90 years. I never went full ramen, but I did subsist two months in grad school on only Mac and Cheese. Ah well, I’d rather go back to that than cat food.
Jamey
I’m with you, John. I get so much satisfaction from sourcing and cooking real food. Being able to feed myself and my kids (the nights they’re with me is a huge boost to my self-worth! (Even when my daughter wears me down to get Chinese take-away from the place down the corner).
Three-bean turkey chile made with Thanksgiving leftovers and funky-looking heirloom tomatoes that were being blown out for $.99/lb at the town market. Cost maybe a couple of bucks, but will feed us for 5-6 nights. Perfect for cold late-Fall nights here in the northeast…
geg6
Eating light here tonight. I’m making beer, cheddar cheese and kielbasa soup and we’ll have that with a salad and lovely fresh baguette I picked up this morning. I have a cranberry and pecan cake for dessert. Spent the day cleaning and washing clothes.
I agree about a major depression coming. Which makes my attempt to quit or, at least, cut back big time on my smoking a good idea. Either will save me thousands of dollars per year.
Mnemosyne
@raven:
That’s too bad. It sounds like they cheaped out on whatever service they decided to use.
I’m assuming you mean the closed captions and not English subtitles on foreign films. Subtitles on films from the 1950s and 1960s often sucked ass because American censorship rules meant that they were not always allowed to translate things accurately. Also, they were expensive to add since they had to be done in post-production, so some films have barely enough subtitles to help you figure out what’s going on.
Susan
I also cook just for me and have discovered the wondrous Instant Pot. Now instead of slow cooking, I pressure cook everything with much better results.
Major Major Major Major
@Bobby Thomson: Probably something that’s going on on his personal Twitter feed, so he assumes we’ve all heard about it too.
B.B.A.
Last night, I said, “All men are misogynists. Some of us are just ashamed of it.”
Some of you were offended by it, or tried to tell me I didn’t know what I was saying…
I assure you, I know what I said and I meant every word of it. And I’m not one of those white dudes who attacks “white dudes” in order to prove they’re “one of the good ones.” There are no good ones. There are just those who can overcome their innate evil, and those who give in to it. I try my hardest to be in the first category, and I’m frightened that trying my hardest won’t be enough.
Well, this is a happy post, isn’t it? Now I’m going to go have lunch.
Mnemosyne
@Susan:
I’m starting to think about succumbing to peer pressure and getting an Instant Pot. Several people at work have them and really like them. I have a slow cooker, but cleaning the ceramic crock is a giant pain, and even if I use a plastic liner, the liner ALWAYS seems to leak and require the crock to be re-washed anyway.
HeleninEire
Lily in the bed that I want girl sized. I want that bed.
Also. Cole cooks like my sister. Take a protein that you find. Throw other things into the pot. Add pepper. Then go out to the garden. What’s ready to be picked? Throw that into the pot too.
Go into your neighbors garden. What’s there? Pick it and that’s the side dish.
Serve it to Helen. She swoons.
Really everything my sister cooks is AWESOME. Only one complaint. See how I said “add pepper.” Yeah JoAnn does not add salt to anything. I add salt to McDonald’s fries.
JoAnn now owns a restaurant in the middle of nowhere and she’s raking in the bucks. I assume she has salt on the tables.
Betty Cracker
@B.B.A.: You are wrong, Wrongy McWrongperson. You cannot and do not know what’s in the mind and heart of every other man on the planet. (Neither do I, but I’m not the one arrogantly asserting that I do.) I’ll grant you that misogyny is far more prevalent than generally assumed, but it’s not universal. That said, good on you for trying to overcome your own misogyny!
Major Major Major Major
@B.B.A.: I’ll only buy that argument if you include all women too.
mike in dc
@Bobby Thomson: http://www.newsweek.com/nra-member-invited-trump-kremlin-behalf-putin-according-report-729663
Emerald
@raven:
Have had an Instant Pot for a couple of months. Really like it. It does steel cut oats quickly in the a.m., makes absolutely perfect rice every time (perfect!) and the rest of it depends on your recipe. I’ve found a YouTube channel with recipes called PressureLuck. Fun.
Roger Moore
@TaMara (HFG):
Depending on your space and budget, you might want to consider getting a chamber type vacuum sealer rather than a clamp type. The chamber type are much bigger and more expensive, but their bags are about 1/10 the price of the clamp type, and they work with liquids that won’t seal right with a clamp sealer.
Major Major Major Major
I have one of those fancy Zojirushi rice cookers that does an astonishing amount of things. It’s great. I mostly use it for rice of course, but it makes good porridge too and is a good steamer. Very easy to clean. I like that you can set the clock in the morning and it’ll be ready for you when you get home.
chris
@Bobby Thomson: Cheryl Rofer this morning.
HeleninEire
@B.B.A.: @B.B.A.: Or, you could STFU and stop trying to start a fight. Like you tried last night.
Perhaps you should talk about food. Like the blog master intended.
Lahke
Chopping up all the vegetables in the house, will have to go out for broccoli and lettuce and an avocado and dressing. Plan is to eat salad all week, with protein added in later. A little boring but my innards are feeling much better without carbs. This aging thing is a bitch.
debbie
@Mnemosyne:
The problem is cooking weeknights after work. Just too tired.
I didn’t realize it was your second time, but glad you went and enjoyed Hamilton!
rikyrah
@Bobby Thomson:
Check the next post by Silverman
rikyrah
@Mnemosyne:
Hamilton for the second time?
I am jealous.??
rikyrah
@Susan:
Please tell me about the Instant Pot.
What’s the difference between it and a Crock-Pot?
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
Interesting, because I just got one yesterday. I like the idea of a single multifunction device like the Instant Pot. Space in my kitchen is rather tight, so I’d rather have one device that can serve as a pressure cooker, rice cooker, and slow cooker than separate machines for each function.
coin operated
I have long said that a bachelors two best friends are a crock pot and a seal-a-meal.
raven
@Mnemosyne: No, subtitles on english language films are awful. On foreign language films the are fine.
raven
@rikyrah: It’s a pressure cooker as well as a slow cooker. Nice, heavy stainless pot and a seemingly secure pressure mechanism.
chopper
@manyakitty:
I stock up on coffee stout when it’s in season, it’s a great addition to stews and pot roasts.
Roger Moore
@debbie:
The essential thing is to have a few go-to recipes that you can make quickly. It helps a lot to have some of the basic ingredients already cooked on the weekend so you’re more assembling during the week than cooking from scratch.
chopper
@raven:
Ive had one of those for about 10 years, still going. great for almost everything. got one for my mom last year and she loves it.
Susan
@Mnemosyne: you will love an Instant Pot!
J R in WV
I have some andouille sausage, so I plan to make a Cajun tomato sauce dish with rice. I do a lot of rice, pasta or potatoes. Stew or soup. Last night I had some asparagus, and made a pasta with olive oil, onions, peppers and garlic, threw the asparagus pieces in just as the pasta was done, threw it on top and stirred vigorously in the big skillet.
It was tasty. And we drank fizzy white wine to celebrate Mr. General (ret.) Flynn’s conviction on perjury. We’ve been drinking a lot, the wine shop has had a streak of very inexpensive but very tasty sparkling wines, it helps keep our attitude up out of the gutter. Plus you can use just a dash to steam the things in the skillet.
Roger Moore
@rikyrah:
And instant pot is a multi-function cooker. You can use it as a pressure cooker or a slow cooker. It can also get hot enough to brown ingredients before cooking them using the pressure or slow cooker functions, and it can go to even lower temperatures to keep food hot or incubate stuff like yogurt.
chopper
@geg6:
or you could just buy smokes and put em aside as future currency.
LurkerNoLonger
@B.B.A.: It sounds like the popular “Two Wolves” parable. Don’t feed the bad wolf.
Steppy
If you have a Kitchenaid mixer, the strainer attachment makes applesauce incredibly easy. Cut and cook the apples until they’re soft and run them through the strainer. The pulp goes through the conical strainer part and the skins, cores and seeds go out the far end. No need to peel or core the apples.
chopper
@rikyrah:
“instant pot” is originally the brand name of a combination pressure/slow cooker on the market that has become crazy popular in the last year or so that now the term genetically refers to any brand, kinda like “kleenex”. these combination cookers have actually been around what, 15, 20 years? but the guys who make the instant pot really struck advertising gold and now they’re selling like hot cakes.
there are lots of options. I’ve typically gone with Fagor since they’re deep in the pressure cooking scene and know what they’re doing.
Susan
@rikyrah: it is a slow cooker and many other functions but what has me enthralled is the pressure cooking. My slow cooked meals like stew, Chili, pot roast and soups are better tasting and amazingly quick. Meat is more tender and the only problem I have is believing it can be done so quickly so I up the minutes and shouldn’t.
buckeye666
@Roger Moore:
I got one last week, just started using it yesterday, potato and leek soup for the first dish. I think the prep took longer than the actual cooking time. It seems almost too simple to use, and I keep thinking I’m missing an important step. I’ll give pot roast a try later in the week.
Neldob
I made the goofy delicata towers from the right wing nyt and they were extravagantly weird and tasty. Practice for an Xmas pot luck. Seriously not instant but provided comfort.
trollhattan
@rikyrah:
Instant Pot will be Calif-legal come January 1. Beauregard notwithstanding.
Mnemosyne
@rikyrah:
Yes, but you get year-round Hamilton. We only get it for another couple of weeks.
They did a special thing at work where they had a special show just for us, but we had to pay an extra $50 per ticket, with that money going to #EduHam so high schoolers can participate in the educational program. It was worth it.
Yutsano
@trollhattan: What makes me laugh about that: how little Jefferson Beauregard Sessions misunderstands about that law. It (at least on Washington) says that state and municipal authorities will no longer coöperate wit ATF on sting operations. Ol’Jeffie doesn’t have nearly enough ATF agents to police all the legal states. So that’s at best political posturing.
Aunt Kathy
I have to cook for the week every Sunday. I’m on my feet every day during the week, and if I didn’t already have something ready to throw on a plate & heat up, I’d be at the drive thru every day. Everything I can do ahead, I do. Breakfast, everything.
Citizen Scientist
In the JCPTFOH vein (our house is likely near 100 years old or more), I finally solved the kitchen sink drainage issue we’ve been dealing with for more than 5 years since we had a plumbing leak (due to a previous owner letting their friend who ‘knew what he was doing’ do the plumbing when they renovated at least 30 years ago) result in a substantial home insurance claim. I found a vertical part of the drainage pipe twisted in not one, but two, places due to said lazy “plumber”, and the drainage from the garbage disposal installed incorrectly. Back to resisting and calling useless Pat Toomey (R-Wall Street) Monday morning.
stinger
I love Lily.
SFBayAreaGal
What brand did you select for your Instant Pot and why?
Shana
@TaMara (HFG): I have had a Food Saver for several years. I freeze 2 cup portions of home made chicken stock, meat when I go buy in bulk. We keep kosher so I go to a kosher grocery about an hour away every few months and buy 4 lb packages of ground beef I break down into 1 lb. packages, all sorts of other meats that I either break down into manageable sizes for just to keep from getting freezer burn. I also have some resealable bags that I use for cheese so it doesn’t get moldy. You need an attachment (cheap) to use the resealable bags though.
1000 flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@Steppy: Yes. My mother used a hand-cranked food mill, which does the same thing. She used it for jams and jellies and cranberry sauce as well.
SWMBO
I make a pork roast in the crock pot, then cool it and defat it. The first night we’ll have a blue plate special (roast, green beans, mashed potatoes). The next night we’ll have pork and (refried) bean enchiladas. Next may be barbecue sandwiches. Or if it was a beef roast, vegetable beef soup. Use just a bit of it and stretch it through several meals. Of course I start with a huge roast so there’s plenty to work with.
EL
@CaseyL: I cook on Sundays, usually enough for at least 4 meals. But I often freeze 2 or 3 meals worth of stew or soup. If you have the freezer space for a pint container, a meal that only needs the microwave is wonderful when you come home tired and hungry.
Gravie
A big pot of black beans is a great meal/meal stretcher. Over rice, with a side dish for fish or pork. Or as a meal in itself with crusty bread or cornbread on the side. We serve the beans and rice toppd with chopped sweet onion, and a healthy dollop of olive oil and red wine vinegar, as I learned from my stepmother, who said that was Puerto Rican style. It’s delicious!