chromedome

I leaned on my freezer for that, when I was newly widowed myself (10 years this spring, around the same time I came back to eG after a few years' hiatus). I never really adapted to "cooking small," so instead I would cook a normal batch size (2-4 portions for some things, bigger for others). I'd eat one meal that day, keep one in the fridge for a day or two later, and then freeze the remainder in single-size portions. After a few weeks of doing this I had a nice variety in the freezer, and could pick and choose if I didn't feel like cooking that day or was busy with other things. "Cooking days" eventually gravitated toward the day or two after I hit the farmer's market and/or went shopping, so I could use up perishables quickly.

There's a big carrot recall going on Stateside, for those of you who haven't seen it yet. Dunno if it'll impact us here in Canada, but I expect so. https://www.npr.org/2024/11/17/nx-s1-5194470/carrots-recall-e-coli-organic

That's a really great cookbook, and I'm going to gift myself a copy one of these days (though like you, I've been culling my shelves, this one's well worth owning).

I have to confess I "haven't been feelin' it" for a while, myself. Lots of factors at play, here. As many of you will recall my GF can't eat red meats anymore, hence raising our own rabbits. Then there are the things she doesn't care for, and the things the grandkids won't eat (stepdaughter works 3-5 days/week, and I do dinner those days), and the rapid shifts in that latter category. When my kids were little I could often pull together a big pot of soup and slices of homemade bread and call that dinner, but my grandkids prefer Campbell's (sigh) and my sweetie, God love her, doesn't think of soup as a meal. Another factor is that she's had to have her molars all pulled for complicated reasons, so most meats must be cooked to a pot-roast consistency. Even on nights when I'm only feeding the two of us it's complicated, because I'm ready for dinner by 5 or 6 and she's not usually ready to eat until 8, by which time I'm in wind-down mode and usually pretty tired mentally and not feeling at all creative. So last night, for example, dinner was two portions of salmon cooked from frozen, with store-bought Olivieri "skillet gnocchi," Costco pesto, and some garden vegetables from the freezer. It's fine, and low-effort, but not especially inspiring. We've just culled the surplus males from our little flock of quail so I have several of them in the freezer to work with. Maybe finding something to do with those will give me a bit of a spark.

No pics, but last night's roast duck was accompanied by (among other things) a casserole made with some of my last pattypan squash (harvested a few weeks ago, but still sound), and both kale and broccoli picked from the garden immediately before dinner. It's been an up-and-down year in the garden, but I'm happy to still have fresh things coming from a few beds at this time of year. Last year I managed to keep a few things going with just rudimentary covers over them, and picked my last few greens as part of Christmas dinner. Hopefully I can do the same this year as well.

Various major-brand breads and rolls, including Great Value, Wonder, No Name, President's Choice and Country Harvest, are being recalled for pieces of metal. Affects NL, ON and QC (so far). https://recalls-rappels.canada.ca/en/alert-recall/various-brands-bread-and-buns-recalled-due-pieces-metal

We had 100 or so chickens at one point when I was a kid, and I currently have a small flock. I can affirm that if it's slow enough to catch and small enough to swallow, they'll give it a try. As I write this, hens Flossie and Yolko Ono (I don't pick the names) are outside the window of my basement office, trying to decide how they might get at the spiders nesting in the windowframe. I uncovered an ant's nest under a piece of wood this summer, while they were hovering in the vicinity ("Whatcha doing? ...and why doesn't it involve feeding us?") and they were in there like a marauding army, inhaling eggs, larvae and worker ants like there was no tomorrow. So no, they're not bursting from ambush in pursuit of a snail or anything, but they certainly fit the definition of a predator.

My son is not yet a dad, but he seems to have inherited my proclivity for dad jokes. On FB a couple of days ago he posed the question: "If I have shawarma for lunch, does that make it Halal-oween?"

The waffle recall has been extended to include several new brands and varieties, and also several varieties of pancakes. https://recalls-rappels.canada.ca/en/alert-recall/various-brands-frozen-waffles-and-pancakes-recalled-due-listeria-monocytogenes

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/meet-italian-fruit-detective-who-investigates-centuries-old-paintings-clues-produce-180985227/

I'm with you on that one. I do use heavy cream fairly often (my GF considers it all but a food group in its own right), but don't care for cream in my coffee and especially not in my chowder. That last draws me a lot of flak, but I stand by it.

The waffle recall affects Canada as well; several varieties of Walmart's Great Value and Sobeys' Compliments brand waffles are being recalled nationally for listeria. https://recalls-rappels.canada.ca/en/alert-recall/various-brands-frozen-waffles-recalled-due-listeria-monocytogenes?utm_source=gc-notify&utm_medium=email&utm_content=en&utm_campaign=hc-sc-rsa-22-23 For those of you in Ontario, several small brands of ham in jelly, head cheese and suchlike are being recalled as well for listeria. It seems related to the early-October recall of jellied beef tongue, because I see the same packaging and logo on a couple of the products. https://recalls-rappels.canada.ca/en/alert-recall/various-brands-ham-jelly-jelly-pork-recalled-due-listeria-monocytogenes?utm_source=gc-notify&utm_medium=email&utm_content=en&utm_campaign=hc-sc-rsa-22-23

Did you use natural release, or quick release? Because I never blanch my chicken/turkey/rabbit beforehand, but the stock comes out nice and clear if I do the natural release. If I do a quick release, the sudden pressure change makes it boil furiously for the first couple of minutes and then you get a murky stock. I do that typically when I'll be using it immediately to make gravy, and speed is a consideration (or when I'll be doing a pureed soup, and clarity won't matter).

Yup. Brisket, too. When we still ate beef occasionally (before it became a medical issue for my GF), it was always the braising cuts I shopped for most aggressively. It was a constant frustration to me the so-called "cheap" cuts were so difficult to find at a good price. Grilling steaks went on sale regularly, but if I wanted flank steak or oxtail or shank or short ribs I had to hope for a near-its-date markdown. Perhaps that's why the sous vide selling point of "make a cheap cut just as tender as a premium steak" never really landed for me; why bother when I could usually buy a grilling steak on sale for the same or lower price? Also, to be blunt, I prefer braises to steaks anyway. Don't get me wrong, I don't dislike steak (we're not talking Liuzhou and corn here, or our dear departed Anna N and beans), I just don't find it compelling. I know I've cooked them occasionally for my current GF before her medical problems, so it's been sometime in the past decade, but otherwise couldn't tell you when I last cooked one. One of my cooking classes, maybe.

Superstore and Sobeys have them occasionally, though it's been a while since I've bought any because I'm a cheapskate. The meat-counter manager will usually be happy to bring some in for you, if you ask. That's what I did the last time I had an insuperable craving for oxtail soup. Like many others here I used to buy oxtail when it was inexpensive, but then at some point in the 80s it got "discovered" or something, I don't know. The price went from budget-friendly to stratospheric almost overnight, around the same time flank steak skyrocketed (another of my low-cost staples at the time).