Another week gone by - and I am a day late, my apologies.
We went on one of our Covid food shopping sprees yesterday. The shopping took about 3 hours and then wiping down and storing the items another couple of hours when we got home. We last went food shopping in mid January on a similar adventure. We have been doing our food shopping trips to a Walmart Neighborhood Market. The Walmart stores around here are much smaller than elsewhere and have only small food departments not the large supermarkets that Walmarts have in other area. Walmart has among their other chains, one called Neighbor Market. These stores are supermarkets and pharmacies and what is normally carried in stores such as this – not the big assortment of items carried in their regular stores. This particular Neighborhood Market is their highest grossing in the US and has been turned into a “retail lab” to find out why – I could tell them why without all the work of making it someplace I really don't want to go, it is the only Walmart supermarket in the bi-county area! The Neighborhood Market is 2 miles along the road from the local regular Walmart near us (where we get our prescriptions) – so it is sort of an add on to the local regular Walmart. We did fill in bread and some items once or twice between January and now at our local Walmart when we went to renew prescriptions or needed something right away.
When we started doing these food runs last May (2020)we were not as organized as we thought and yesterday's trip was actually the most organized and relaxed of all our shopping trips since we started staying at home last March (2020). I am guessing that I have written about our first trip – by the time we were done shopping husband felt so bad that he had to wait in the car for me while I checked out – we later figured out it was due to his blood sugar having fallen from the (negative) excitement, his panic, and the sheer amount of running around we had done.
After our third shopping trip I figured out that what we needed to do was to make TWO shopping trips at the same time. First we go into the store and buy all the items we need which do not have be kept cold – canned and jarred foods, boxed foods, bagged foods, cleaning supplies, OTC medications, soap if we need, any office supplies and such. We then check out and bag all the items – we have to bring our bags or buy paper bags from the store due to a change in law which went into effect in the middle of the pandemic and the paper bags they have are small. I bring A LOT of bags and pre double bag them. We take the bags out to our car, in this case our van as our car is in for service for over a month as they cannot figure out what is wrong, and our van is better for this anyway as it holds a lot more. We then locked the van and took our cart and more bags back into the store. We then bought all of the cold items – refrigerated, meats, and frozen items and then checked out again. We even remembered to use 2 coupons for several dollars each – sent to us by a manufacturer due to a problem with a product a few months ago. By the time we were done we had 16 double bagged bags plus 2 (not really) “gallon” pails of ice cream. Amazingly we were not exhausted and not yelling at either as we have been on these food runs in the past. Two good is that I drink as little water as possible with lunch as I don't want to have to visit the ladies room in a store right now and – husband finally realized this – he has to eat enough for lunch before we go to have enough glucose in system for his blood sugar not to fall while we are out. We also go around 2 pm so the stores have smaller crowds in them – people working, children coming home from school etc then – easier to move around and almost no line checking out – plus not as many people means more space between us and them right now.
When we come home we wipe down most items with alcohol on paper towel. I say most items as some items are double packaged – such as dry cereal in a bag in a box or fruit bars which are individually packed in a box – with these items we open the outside packaging and dump out the inner packages instead of wiping down the outer package and toss the outer packages right away. It is an exhausting process and I came up a way to make it a little less. Since I don't have to worry about canned and jarred goods being out as they will not attract bugs or other vermin, I leave the cans and jars in their bags and set aside the bags until later in the evening.
This entire process took us about 5- 6 hours this week not including later wiping down and storing the cans/bottles. But we won't need to food shop again, other than some fill ins for about 2 months. Why do we do this? Well, we don't want to go out more often than we need to. Hopefully by the time we need to do a full shopping trip again – it will be safer for us to do so, especially as we should get our second vaccinations next week.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
How organized are your shopping trips, especially now? Do you buy only items which are needed (to be honest we were doing that before “stay at home” came into being and I did not like it)? Do you plan ahead to make sure that you don't run out of things? Do you make a list as you run low on food and related items so you will know what you need. (Since we started doing these food runs I actually inventory everything we have and make a list in computer spreadsheet than sit with husband to decide what and how much we need to buy of items – also since stay at home, I sort the list by, more or less, which aisle in the store the items we need are in – and print out the list of what we need to buy and take it with us.)
Showing posts with label cereal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cereal. Show all posts
Friday, March 26, 2021
COVID 19 #28 FOOD SHOPPING
Friday, June 12, 2020
COVID 19 #13 - DEALING WITH LOTS OF FOOD TO STORE AND KEEP FRESH
Sorry – like everyone else – I lost track of the day of the week and did not post yesterday.
Okay – we are all getting tired of the pandemic. I hope that you and yours have either been lucky enough not to be affected or have survived any illness and are well again. I thought I would mention some things we have been doing to deal with a variety of things that arise. This week, one of my favorite subjects – Food!
I recently wrote about finally ordering food and going out to buy food - http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2020/05/covid-19-11-food-delivery-and-shopping.html
But what the heck does one do with all the extra food! We have a rather small house, with our kitchen and dining room also being rather small so of course our refrigerator and freezer are small – 18 sq ft fridge with top freezer – which we bought last summer - see -
http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2019/06/replace-refrigerator.html
http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-refrigerator-saga-contines.html
http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2019/07/refrigerator-at-last-and-on-to-next.html
We also have a dorm fridge sized freezer in our basement. Both are full to the point I could not keep track of what is in them. I cut scrap sheets of paper (all those papers that get printed out of the computer by mistake or run 4 pages when you thought they were one page or only need one page – I use the backs for scrap paper – good for the environment and cheap scrap paper as it would just be thrown out. into quarters across the width so I got 4 from a sheet of a paper and made lists. I have a list of the meats and entrees which are in the basement freezer and how many I have of each. I also have a list of same for the kitchen freezer. I have a list of the frozen vegetables, breads and such in the basement freezer. ( I pack things very well.) I don't have a matching list for upstairs – but I rebag frozen vegetables into quart zipbags – label each bag with which vegetable is in it and mark the end date (not that vegetables sit that long) and I stand them in alphabetical order in the door shelf of my freezer – empty bags (we have run out of some vegetables) are at the front of the bags. It is easy to see how much is in each, generally a new bag of vegetables fits into the quart zip bag – if not I am generally using some when I start a new bag from the store anyway – they are in an order so I can find them, hey are at my eye level to make it easier to figure out and since the bags zip closed, they stay fresher than open bags with bag ties on them. I know that we have a started bag of biscuits, and I know most of the other items in the freezer. I also have a plastic box that fits on about half of the top shelf in the freezer to hold odd shaped items – like freezer paper wrapped meats, open bags of things like fries and pancakes, meal sized amounts of stew meat in small zip bags, etc. the other half of the shelf is boxed and bagged items and the stack of ice cube trays with a bin for ice over them on a wire rack. We did not want to wast the limited space we have in the freezer with an ice maker as we tend to use ice only for cooking related chores – such as cooling down food quickly to put in the fridge.
We have a small closet in our kitchen which holds a variety of items including 3 shelves being used for can, bottle, jar and other storage. What husband bought would overwhelm the entire closet.
I have left most of the items which were in the closet in it. I covered my dining room table with thick towels and stood the cans, bottles and jars in rows sorted by what they are – all of the lentil soup cans together, all of the evaporated milk cans together, both of the soy sauce bottles together (somewhere around 3 years worth or more of same I estimate), etc. Having had ants and mice over the 31 years we have been in the house I do not have food items which are not in sealed cans, jars or bottles out on their own. Normally I will put unopened packaged items in two large boxes under the kitchen table. But this is now too much for that. Small packages such as individual packages of instant cereal, packages with 4 servings of instant mashed potatoes, and the like have been put into plastic boxes the size of a gallon of ice cream would come in. These boxes are also on the dining room table. The two boxes under the kitchen table are fuller than they have ever been. We also have larger plastic tubs in the house which we use for purposes unrelated to food. I gave up one of the tubs I used to store my bear village pieces in and husband gave up one of the tubs he uses to store finished items he has woven and they are filled with food items – such as bags of dry cereal (threw out the boxes), boxes of assorted dry pastas, cake mix boxes, mac and cheese mix boxes, and the like. They are also in our dining room – on the floor.
When one has this much food one has to deal with managing the food and keeping perishable food from going bad. Anything which could be frozen to keep it longer was frozen. I am keeping an eye on the end dates of other items. One problem is eggs. Husband was buying 3 dozen eggs from BJs on our first try at ordering food delivered. That is a lot of eggs for us – we don't eat breakfast so they are eaten for dinner some nights and used in things such as the cake mixes. To make it even worse, BJs did not have the packages of 3 boxes of a dozen eggs each – so he ordered 5 dozen eggs and these eggs came in restaurant style packaging – 2 open sided trays of 30 eggs each stacked on each other – and the expiration date was June 15. While I know that eggs do last longer than they are dated for (if unsure if an egg is still good – put it in a pot of cold water – if it floats it is not good), how long could they last. Then I remembered – eggs can be frozen if they are opened and the white and yellow mixed together and will keep much longer that way. So earlier this week we started freezing eggs. I put a small plastic sandwich bag in each of several (4-5) pudding sized plastic storage cups that can be frozen. I then break an egg or two into a one cup measuring cup (husband's idea to use the measuring cup) and mix it together with a fork. I then pour the egg(s) into a storage cup and repeat. I put the lids on the cups and put them in the freezer. By the next day the eggs are frozen. I take out each eggs – or pair of eggs and knot the bag closed (single egg) or put a bag tie around the bag to close it (two eggs). I then put them into half gallon zip bags – the single eggs in one and the double eggs in a different one - and label which is in the bag – and put them back in the freezer. I am down to 14 more eggs to freeze. Why two and singles? If we have eggs for dinner we have 2 each – so 2 in each bag is good for that. But in cooking sometimes I need one egg and cake mixes need 3 eggs, so freezing some eggs as singles allows for odd number of eggs to be used easily while taking up less little plastic bags by having two in a good number of them. And of course if all the 2 egg bags are used up – 2 singles makes a double. :-)
THOUGHT(S) OF THE WEEK -
Make sure that you keep track of expiration or other end dates on the food in your house – normally also but especially now. Freeze items that can be frozen before they go bad or use them if their life cannot be extended.
Also – just because areas are being reopened from stay at home orders – does not mean to run out and about willy nilly. The corona virus is still here and still dangerous. How terrible to get so ill and risk one's life to get a hair cut, go to the gym, shop for items which are not crucial or eat out in or outside a restaurant. The number of cases is rising rapidly in some states which either have reopened too much, too seen or its residents are going out before they should. Health and life – yours and others – are too important to rush the return to normalcy. Stay well! (I have too few followers now – I don't want to lose any.)
Okay – we are all getting tired of the pandemic. I hope that you and yours have either been lucky enough not to be affected or have survived any illness and are well again. I thought I would mention some things we have been doing to deal with a variety of things that arise. This week, one of my favorite subjects – Food!
I recently wrote about finally ordering food and going out to buy food - http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2020/05/covid-19-11-food-delivery-and-shopping.html
But what the heck does one do with all the extra food! We have a rather small house, with our kitchen and dining room also being rather small so of course our refrigerator and freezer are small – 18 sq ft fridge with top freezer – which we bought last summer - see -
http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2019/06/replace-refrigerator.html
http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-refrigerator-saga-contines.html
http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2019/07/refrigerator-at-last-and-on-to-next.html
We also have a dorm fridge sized freezer in our basement. Both are full to the point I could not keep track of what is in them. I cut scrap sheets of paper (all those papers that get printed out of the computer by mistake or run 4 pages when you thought they were one page or only need one page – I use the backs for scrap paper – good for the environment and cheap scrap paper as it would just be thrown out. into quarters across the width so I got 4 from a sheet of a paper and made lists. I have a list of the meats and entrees which are in the basement freezer and how many I have of each. I also have a list of same for the kitchen freezer. I have a list of the frozen vegetables, breads and such in the basement freezer. ( I pack things very well.) I don't have a matching list for upstairs – but I rebag frozen vegetables into quart zipbags – label each bag with which vegetable is in it and mark the end date (not that vegetables sit that long) and I stand them in alphabetical order in the door shelf of my freezer – empty bags (we have run out of some vegetables) are at the front of the bags. It is easy to see how much is in each, generally a new bag of vegetables fits into the quart zip bag – if not I am generally using some when I start a new bag from the store anyway – they are in an order so I can find them, hey are at my eye level to make it easier to figure out and since the bags zip closed, they stay fresher than open bags with bag ties on them. I know that we have a started bag of biscuits, and I know most of the other items in the freezer. I also have a plastic box that fits on about half of the top shelf in the freezer to hold odd shaped items – like freezer paper wrapped meats, open bags of things like fries and pancakes, meal sized amounts of stew meat in small zip bags, etc. the other half of the shelf is boxed and bagged items and the stack of ice cube trays with a bin for ice over them on a wire rack. We did not want to wast the limited space we have in the freezer with an ice maker as we tend to use ice only for cooking related chores – such as cooling down food quickly to put in the fridge.
We have a small closet in our kitchen which holds a variety of items including 3 shelves being used for can, bottle, jar and other storage. What husband bought would overwhelm the entire closet.
I have left most of the items which were in the closet in it. I covered my dining room table with thick towels and stood the cans, bottles and jars in rows sorted by what they are – all of the lentil soup cans together, all of the evaporated milk cans together, both of the soy sauce bottles together (somewhere around 3 years worth or more of same I estimate), etc. Having had ants and mice over the 31 years we have been in the house I do not have food items which are not in sealed cans, jars or bottles out on their own. Normally I will put unopened packaged items in two large boxes under the kitchen table. But this is now too much for that. Small packages such as individual packages of instant cereal, packages with 4 servings of instant mashed potatoes, and the like have been put into plastic boxes the size of a gallon of ice cream would come in. These boxes are also on the dining room table. The two boxes under the kitchen table are fuller than they have ever been. We also have larger plastic tubs in the house which we use for purposes unrelated to food. I gave up one of the tubs I used to store my bear village pieces in and husband gave up one of the tubs he uses to store finished items he has woven and they are filled with food items – such as bags of dry cereal (threw out the boxes), boxes of assorted dry pastas, cake mix boxes, mac and cheese mix boxes, and the like. They are also in our dining room – on the floor.
When one has this much food one has to deal with managing the food and keeping perishable food from going bad. Anything which could be frozen to keep it longer was frozen. I am keeping an eye on the end dates of other items. One problem is eggs. Husband was buying 3 dozen eggs from BJs on our first try at ordering food delivered. That is a lot of eggs for us – we don't eat breakfast so they are eaten for dinner some nights and used in things such as the cake mixes. To make it even worse, BJs did not have the packages of 3 boxes of a dozen eggs each – so he ordered 5 dozen eggs and these eggs came in restaurant style packaging – 2 open sided trays of 30 eggs each stacked on each other – and the expiration date was June 15. While I know that eggs do last longer than they are dated for (if unsure if an egg is still good – put it in a pot of cold water – if it floats it is not good), how long could they last. Then I remembered – eggs can be frozen if they are opened and the white and yellow mixed together and will keep much longer that way. So earlier this week we started freezing eggs. I put a small plastic sandwich bag in each of several (4-5) pudding sized plastic storage cups that can be frozen. I then break an egg or two into a one cup measuring cup (husband's idea to use the measuring cup) and mix it together with a fork. I then pour the egg(s) into a storage cup and repeat. I put the lids on the cups and put them in the freezer. By the next day the eggs are frozen. I take out each eggs – or pair of eggs and knot the bag closed (single egg) or put a bag tie around the bag to close it (two eggs). I then put them into half gallon zip bags – the single eggs in one and the double eggs in a different one - and label which is in the bag – and put them back in the freezer. I am down to 14 more eggs to freeze. Why two and singles? If we have eggs for dinner we have 2 each – so 2 in each bag is good for that. But in cooking sometimes I need one egg and cake mixes need 3 eggs, so freezing some eggs as singles allows for odd number of eggs to be used easily while taking up less little plastic bags by having two in a good number of them. And of course if all the 2 egg bags are used up – 2 singles makes a double. :-)
THOUGHT(S) OF THE WEEK -
Make sure that you keep track of expiration or other end dates on the food in your house – normally also but especially now. Freeze items that can be frozen before they go bad or use them if their life cannot be extended.
Also – just because areas are being reopened from stay at home orders – does not mean to run out and about willy nilly. The corona virus is still here and still dangerous. How terrible to get so ill and risk one's life to get a hair cut, go to the gym, shop for items which are not crucial or eat out in or outside a restaurant. The number of cases is rising rapidly in some states which either have reopened too much, too seen or its residents are going out before they should. Health and life – yours and others – are too important to rush the return to normalcy. Stay well! (I have too few followers now – I don't want to lose any.)
Thursday, March 7, 2019
ALMOST A FIRE
I was taught to be very careful when cooking, My mom’s stove (an electric one) had 1 2 3 heat settings on the dial. I was taught never to walk out of the room if a burner was set at 2 or 3 and never to walk out of house when the stove was on (unless in either case someone else was in the room to watch the stove). After we married, in our apartment we had a (natural) gas stove/oven combination which scared the heck out of me as I was always afraid that it would blow up. I had to light the oven with a match to use it and was always sure that would be the last thing I did. (I actually once smelled gas outside the apartment as we were going out, called the gas company and when we got home later we had no stove. I telephoned to have it turned back on per the note left. When I asked, I was told that this all stemmed from a woman who had smelled the gas leak in the street and called them - hey, that was me.)
When we bought this house there was a gas stove/range combination also. I was not happy about that. I was even more upset when I was sure I smelled gas when we were in the house for later visits before we bought it. I was again right. Rather than get the unit repaired, we bought an electric stove/oven unit and had the kitchen wired for it.
Last night I made for dinner a pot pie we had bought on sale (we bought a few of them on sale - these are small production ones, not the major brands ones). I, of course, had forgotten to go down and put it in the oven to bake and therefore did so an hour late. Husband really likes these pies so he did not complain. I bake it in an oven which sits on the counter (uses 1/3 of the counter space we have). I carefully pulled the oven away from the wall and the stove and removed some plastic storage items sitting next to the oven to the other side of the kitchen. I lined the pan with foil to keep it clean.
In the interim while it was cooking I set the table, laid out our pills for dinner, etc. I would have thought nothing of walking out of the kitchen while the baking was going on, but in this case I stayed in the kitchen.
I made a can of soup for us to share as a first course. I split the can of soup before cooking it and use two small pots to cook it. It is worth cleaning the extra pot as it is much easier to split the soup as it comes out of the can and husband likes more water added to his soup than I do. As the pie went into its last ½ hour of cooking, we sat down and had the soup. After I poured the soup into our bowls, I put the pots on the stove. The burners for the soup had been shut off and I also made sure not to put the pots on the burners they had been on as the burners were still hot (electric burners take a short while to cool down after they shut off). As I said, I am very careful.
When the pie was done cooking, the countertop oven beeped and I took it out and put the pan on the stove - on the larger burner in the front on one side which was cold. We had the very nice pot pie for dinner.
After dinner I normally have a cup of tea for dinner. I normally cook it on the rear smaller burner, but I had moved the pots onto the baking pan and had put it on that rear burner, so I put the pot of water on the front, larger, burner to boil it and turned on the burner. I went back to the kitchen table - 5-6 feet away - and started reading the newspaper (TV was on for husband) while I waited to hear the water boiling.
It dawned on me that it was a bit long for the water to take to boil and something smelled wrong and notices small bits of black floating around the room. I had turned on the wrong burner!! I had turned on the burner with the pots and baking pan! I shut it off and using pot holders moved the burner with the pots still on it to another burner that was cold.
Luckily I caught it before we had an actual fire. The stove was covered in soot and the pots looked burned. The foil I had put in the baking pan was what seemed to be the black wisps flying around the room and the pan had a mark that went through it. I never did have tea. Husband suggested checking inside the oven to make sure all was okay there - I carefully put my hand on the front of it first to check that it was not hot before I opened it.
When they cooled a tiny bit, I put the pots and the pan into a dish pan of cold water to finish cooling them off. I was surprise that the pots and the pan (even the foil stuck to the pan) cleaned so easily. The pan though rocked when I put it on a flat surface, distorted by the heat. After I was done with pots and the pan, I started on the stove. It cleaned up much quicker and easier than I thought it would. I took apart the burner that all this happened on to clean it and found when I took out the drip pan that the foil liner in the drip pan had mostly melted. This had been the source of the black wisps floating about. I immediately pulled the liners in the other 3 pans - too dangerous (despite this not happening in the past 30 years) - and threw them out also.
Today husband was able to mostly get the baking pan to stop rocking by leaning on it. The kitchen no longer has a burning smell. Unrelated to all of this, we took in Chinese food for dinner tonight (easy way to deal with Ash Wednesday for husband).
Something we realized later in the evening when I boiled water - with the same pot I started to do so to make tea - later in the evening for some hot cereal before bed. The smoke detector had not gone off. (For a reminder of a past cooking incident that did set off the smoke detector see - http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2018/07/not-in-pennsylvania.html )
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
Well two of them actually. Be careful when cooking - even if you think that you are being careful - be more careful.
If you have foil drip pans in your stove - TAKE THEM OUT.
When we bought this house there was a gas stove/range combination also. I was not happy about that. I was even more upset when I was sure I smelled gas when we were in the house for later visits before we bought it. I was again right. Rather than get the unit repaired, we bought an electric stove/oven unit and had the kitchen wired for it.
Last night I made for dinner a pot pie we had bought on sale (we bought a few of them on sale - these are small production ones, not the major brands ones). I, of course, had forgotten to go down and put it in the oven to bake and therefore did so an hour late. Husband really likes these pies so he did not complain. I bake it in an oven which sits on the counter (uses 1/3 of the counter space we have). I carefully pulled the oven away from the wall and the stove and removed some plastic storage items sitting next to the oven to the other side of the kitchen. I lined the pan with foil to keep it clean.
In the interim while it was cooking I set the table, laid out our pills for dinner, etc. I would have thought nothing of walking out of the kitchen while the baking was going on, but in this case I stayed in the kitchen.
I made a can of soup for us to share as a first course. I split the can of soup before cooking it and use two small pots to cook it. It is worth cleaning the extra pot as it is much easier to split the soup as it comes out of the can and husband likes more water added to his soup than I do. As the pie went into its last ½ hour of cooking, we sat down and had the soup. After I poured the soup into our bowls, I put the pots on the stove. The burners for the soup had been shut off and I also made sure not to put the pots on the burners they had been on as the burners were still hot (electric burners take a short while to cool down after they shut off). As I said, I am very careful.
When the pie was done cooking, the countertop oven beeped and I took it out and put the pan on the stove - on the larger burner in the front on one side which was cold. We had the very nice pot pie for dinner.
After dinner I normally have a cup of tea for dinner. I normally cook it on the rear smaller burner, but I had moved the pots onto the baking pan and had put it on that rear burner, so I put the pot of water on the front, larger, burner to boil it and turned on the burner. I went back to the kitchen table - 5-6 feet away - and started reading the newspaper (TV was on for husband) while I waited to hear the water boiling.
It dawned on me that it was a bit long for the water to take to boil and something smelled wrong and notices small bits of black floating around the room. I had turned on the wrong burner!! I had turned on the burner with the pots and baking pan! I shut it off and using pot holders moved the burner with the pots still on it to another burner that was cold.
Luckily I caught it before we had an actual fire. The stove was covered in soot and the pots looked burned. The foil I had put in the baking pan was what seemed to be the black wisps flying around the room and the pan had a mark that went through it. I never did have tea. Husband suggested checking inside the oven to make sure all was okay there - I carefully put my hand on the front of it first to check that it was not hot before I opened it.
When they cooled a tiny bit, I put the pots and the pan into a dish pan of cold water to finish cooling them off. I was surprise that the pots and the pan (even the foil stuck to the pan) cleaned so easily. The pan though rocked when I put it on a flat surface, distorted by the heat. After I was done with pots and the pan, I started on the stove. It cleaned up much quicker and easier than I thought it would. I took apart the burner that all this happened on to clean it and found when I took out the drip pan that the foil liner in the drip pan had mostly melted. This had been the source of the black wisps floating about. I immediately pulled the liners in the other 3 pans - too dangerous (despite this not happening in the past 30 years) - and threw them out also.
Today husband was able to mostly get the baking pan to stop rocking by leaning on it. The kitchen no longer has a burning smell. Unrelated to all of this, we took in Chinese food for dinner tonight (easy way to deal with Ash Wednesday for husband).
Something we realized later in the evening when I boiled water - with the same pot I started to do so to make tea - later in the evening for some hot cereal before bed. The smoke detector had not gone off. (For a reminder of a past cooking incident that did set off the smoke detector see - http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2018/07/not-in-pennsylvania.html )
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
Well two of them actually. Be careful when cooking - even if you think that you are being careful - be more careful.
If you have foil drip pans in your stove - TAKE THEM OUT.
Friday, September 21, 2018
WHAT SHOULD YOU GET RID OF AND WHAT SHOULD YOU KEEP?
Pardon me - I didn’t post yesterday. As I think I mentioned the most important annual Jewish holiday was yesterday and when it was over last night it slipped my memory what day of the week it was. So here I am, a day late and a post short.
As I was talking about last week, much of what one needs to know about organizing we know. It is finding the time and pushing ourselves to do it that is the problem - at least for me. Basically one has to sort through what one has and get rid of what is not being used and will not be used and then set up what is left in an organized manner so that one can find what one is looking for quickly.
What to get rid of? A good question. Some of it is rather obvious - empty boxes of cereal for example. They are garbage. Almost empty box? Depends on how much is left - if you can eat it all while continuing to work - eat it and toss the box; if it is enough for a meal or two - use it up at meals and toss the empty box. In this case I mean for the cereal box to stand for anything which gets used up, but the empty container is still around. This week and last week I made a chicken stew that my husband loves for dinner. Problem is that the garbage pickup is on Monday and Thursday and I was making the stew on Monday last week and Tuesday this week and both times had to hold it all both times until Wednesday night when I put it out for Thursday pick up. The bones, skin and such have to be thrown out, but if I toss them in the kitchen garbage and they don’t go out right away, it will smell terrible. I can take the kitchen bag out to the can outside, but it really upsets me to put the bag(s) out only about 1/3 full. So, I put the chicken garbage into one of those plastic shopping bags that one gets at groceries stores, put same in the bowl I had used to hold the cooked chicken overnight (cooked the chicken one day, made the stew the next) before taking it off the bones and left it in the fridge. When it was time for the garbage to go out I added the shopping bag of chicken icky stuff to it and out it went. I then washed the bowl the bag had been in. I actually have left over stew from both nights. It can’t be frozen as it has potatoes in it and they never freeze well. I have the stews in two canning jars in the fridge (one from last week and one from this). I will hold them until the end of the next week - if husband has not eaten it by then (he really LOVES this stew) then it will go out that Sunday night in the garbage - it will not be allowed to sit beyond when it will be safe to eat.
Staying with the kitchen, some items are harder to get rid of. Husband will decide that he likes something - say a particular canned soup - and buy a lot of it. Then something will happen and it will not be eaten. Say, he decides it raises his blood sugar too much and he should only have it once in a while. The items sit........and sit.........and sit..........and sit.......and sit. Suddenly they are past their date and one cannot even donate them. It really kills me to throw out 6 full cans of something because it passed its date a year or two before - but out they must go. They are taking up needed room and if they are eaten by accident they may make someone ill. I have to check on some eggs we have in the fridge - wait, I will check right now - an entire dozen dated for June 16, 2018. Now what do I do? Normally I would toss the eggs. But here is a bit of info - when eggs pass their date and are sent back to the producer by the stores they are allowed to be repackaged and sent back out a certain number of times - gross right, but it is true. Eggs can be tested to see if they are still good and I will have to find the instructions on how to check them. Okay, per “The Joy of Cooking” if the eggs float in cold water they are no good. I will test them tomorrow and then throw them out if they float. We go through periods where we eat eggs or use them in cooking and will buy them - and then the period of eating them ends - see husband deciding he likes something and then deciding not to have it any more, above - I think he was making quiches with them and then stopped doing so - and they sit. Usually it only part of a dozen, which is left. In case you are thinking - what about breakfast? We wake up so late that we have lunch for breakfast, dinner for lunch and then a late night snack for supper, so eggs tend to be more of a dinner food here. I am going to test them..... Well, they will going out Sunday night with the garbage for Monday, the 3 I picked at random all floated - but, on the other hand, I was wrong - there are only 10, not a full dozen. We have a quart of milk in the fridge also. I know that is fresh, we bought it for a meeting of our reenactment unit last Monday - husband had volunteered to bring snack - oh that reminds me of something else, we are going to return an unopened package of cookies - we bought 2 different kinds for the meeting and apparently it was a chocolate mint cookie crowd, not a chocolate chip crowd. But no one opened the milk to use in their coffee. So I have to figure out how to use up a the quart - I guess we will be having diet pudding for snack a few times. We were lucky to find the quart - mostly it comes in half gallons and more around here, and the quart cost almost as much as the half gallon.
So - when one sorts through stuff one will find stuff to toss, stuff to check and decide if it should be tossed - now or soon after, stuff to return, and stuff to use up. If only I had some chocolate syrup for the milk, but if I buy same, then I will have a started bottle of chocolate syrup and someday in the future will be deciding if it should be thrown out or not. (Plus we just plain should not have the extra carbohydrates.)
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
You know that you know what to do. Go through and toss the floating eggs and the long past date things (whether they are actually dated or not) - and the chicken stuff which has been stored until you can toss it. Get rid of the empty boxes or finish up what it is in them and get rid of them. Return items which are in good condition which can be returned. Use up the items that can still be used - before they have to be tossed because they are floating eggs. This applies in the rest of the house as well as in the kitchen - paints and makeup can go past their use time also, for example. The dress you bought for Sally’s wedding a month ago and then bought a different one, that you wore instead - return it if you can or donate it - unless you know that you can wear it for Harry’s wedding next month. And so on.
As I was talking about last week, much of what one needs to know about organizing we know. It is finding the time and pushing ourselves to do it that is the problem - at least for me. Basically one has to sort through what one has and get rid of what is not being used and will not be used and then set up what is left in an organized manner so that one can find what one is looking for quickly.
What to get rid of? A good question. Some of it is rather obvious - empty boxes of cereal for example. They are garbage. Almost empty box? Depends on how much is left - if you can eat it all while continuing to work - eat it and toss the box; if it is enough for a meal or two - use it up at meals and toss the empty box. In this case I mean for the cereal box to stand for anything which gets used up, but the empty container is still around. This week and last week I made a chicken stew that my husband loves for dinner. Problem is that the garbage pickup is on Monday and Thursday and I was making the stew on Monday last week and Tuesday this week and both times had to hold it all both times until Wednesday night when I put it out for Thursday pick up. The bones, skin and such have to be thrown out, but if I toss them in the kitchen garbage and they don’t go out right away, it will smell terrible. I can take the kitchen bag out to the can outside, but it really upsets me to put the bag(s) out only about 1/3 full. So, I put the chicken garbage into one of those plastic shopping bags that one gets at groceries stores, put same in the bowl I had used to hold the cooked chicken overnight (cooked the chicken one day, made the stew the next) before taking it off the bones and left it in the fridge. When it was time for the garbage to go out I added the shopping bag of chicken icky stuff to it and out it went. I then washed the bowl the bag had been in. I actually have left over stew from both nights. It can’t be frozen as it has potatoes in it and they never freeze well. I have the stews in two canning jars in the fridge (one from last week and one from this). I will hold them until the end of the next week - if husband has not eaten it by then (he really LOVES this stew) then it will go out that Sunday night in the garbage - it will not be allowed to sit beyond when it will be safe to eat.
Staying with the kitchen, some items are harder to get rid of. Husband will decide that he likes something - say a particular canned soup - and buy a lot of it. Then something will happen and it will not be eaten. Say, he decides it raises his blood sugar too much and he should only have it once in a while. The items sit........and sit.........and sit..........and sit.......and sit. Suddenly they are past their date and one cannot even donate them. It really kills me to throw out 6 full cans of something because it passed its date a year or two before - but out they must go. They are taking up needed room and if they are eaten by accident they may make someone ill. I have to check on some eggs we have in the fridge - wait, I will check right now - an entire dozen dated for June 16, 2018. Now what do I do? Normally I would toss the eggs. But here is a bit of info - when eggs pass their date and are sent back to the producer by the stores they are allowed to be repackaged and sent back out a certain number of times - gross right, but it is true. Eggs can be tested to see if they are still good and I will have to find the instructions on how to check them. Okay, per “The Joy of Cooking” if the eggs float in cold water they are no good. I will test them tomorrow and then throw them out if they float. We go through periods where we eat eggs or use them in cooking and will buy them - and then the period of eating them ends - see husband deciding he likes something and then deciding not to have it any more, above - I think he was making quiches with them and then stopped doing so - and they sit. Usually it only part of a dozen, which is left. In case you are thinking - what about breakfast? We wake up so late that we have lunch for breakfast, dinner for lunch and then a late night snack for supper, so eggs tend to be more of a dinner food here. I am going to test them..... Well, they will going out Sunday night with the garbage for Monday, the 3 I picked at random all floated - but, on the other hand, I was wrong - there are only 10, not a full dozen. We have a quart of milk in the fridge also. I know that is fresh, we bought it for a meeting of our reenactment unit last Monday - husband had volunteered to bring snack - oh that reminds me of something else, we are going to return an unopened package of cookies - we bought 2 different kinds for the meeting and apparently it was a chocolate mint cookie crowd, not a chocolate chip crowd. But no one opened the milk to use in their coffee. So I have to figure out how to use up a the quart - I guess we will be having diet pudding for snack a few times. We were lucky to find the quart - mostly it comes in half gallons and more around here, and the quart cost almost as much as the half gallon.
So - when one sorts through stuff one will find stuff to toss, stuff to check and decide if it should be tossed - now or soon after, stuff to return, and stuff to use up. If only I had some chocolate syrup for the milk, but if I buy same, then I will have a started bottle of chocolate syrup and someday in the future will be deciding if it should be thrown out or not. (Plus we just plain should not have the extra carbohydrates.)
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
You know that you know what to do. Go through and toss the floating eggs and the long past date things (whether they are actually dated or not) - and the chicken stuff which has been stored until you can toss it. Get rid of the empty boxes or finish up what it is in them and get rid of them. Return items which are in good condition which can be returned. Use up the items that can still be used - before they have to be tossed because they are floating eggs. This applies in the rest of the house as well as in the kitchen - paints and makeup can go past their use time also, for example. The dress you bought for Sally’s wedding a month ago and then bought a different one, that you wore instead - return it if you can or donate it - unless you know that you can wear it for Harry’s wedding next month. And so on.
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