BeeZee

Pasta fagiole, heavy on the lacinto kale. Cook’s test sample.

Chicken foot jerky?

So there was delicious gravy leftover from my husband’s short rib dinner...I sauteed a bunch of dinosaur kale in a bit of olive oil /garlic, added the leftover gravy (which was thick with the pureed mirepoix), heated until bubbling, tossed in cooked Barilla chickpea rotini pasta, dinner in 20 minutes. I don’t eat beef but the gravy was so good I made an exception.

Had one of the pumpkin spice muffins I found too sweet split in half and sandwiched some mild goat cheese in the middle. Perfect!

A labor of love, since I don’t eat beef...Whole Foods had a good sale on short ribs so I made a bunch for my husband (2.5 lbs), also mashed gold potatoes, and salad. I had tofu in coconut curry instead of the beef, which I enjoyed.

Leftover braised chickpeas from dinner last night. Definitely better after reheating.

Tangy braised chickpeas, recipe from Smitten Kitchen. The idea is to cook chickpeas in a savory broth that has the taste of traditional brisket flavors, but vegetarian. I really enjoyed it, even though I didn’t have time to let it cook as long as I should. The reheats should be great. We had potato pancakes with unsweetened applesauce along side.

Regarding tofu...to remove excess water I use a tofu press. Got tired of wasting so many paper towels. Yes it's a "unitasker" but works great and I use it often.

Definitely more starchy, not watery like the orange ones often are. These had purple skin, I left some of the peel on, we like it. I cooked them at 400 for 20 minutes, stirred/flipped pieces, then another 13 minutes. Sheet pan lined with non-stick aluminum foil.

Grilled tuna outdoors, roasted white-fleshed sweet potatoes after tossing with grainy mustard, oil, paprika, salt. Standard issue salad. Only have a photo of the potatoes, they were really good.

I baked the pumpkin bread mix as muffins, and used unsweetened applesauce instead of the specified veg oil. They were also very sweet, I am going to try with a bit of cream cheese next time I have one.

Gnocchi! You can make a bunch and freeze them.

I finally decided to make a list of my freezer contents. I have a bottom drawer type freezer, which I honestly hate. I thought I had more stuff in there, but it is just poor capacity (and I am a jenga master when it comes to packing things in small spaces).There was some chicken from May, so that will be defrosted to grill tomorrow, along with another package of a more recent vintage, so that I have my grilled chicken salad supply restocked. I had frozen some milk and lemon juice in small amounts for recipes, I defrosted a 1/2 cup container of milk in the micro to use in a muffin recipe...only needed half of it so I drank the rest for quality control (shaken up, it was fine). Tonight I am inclined to use one of my portions of pesto (from May) and maybe some grilled yellow squash (from July) in something...

As @JoNorvelleWalker notes, your experience at any given store may depend on whether they are company owned or “franchise” models. There are 5 different Shoprites I visit based on geography and they are all pretty different in areas such as produce or specialty/ethnic foods. Meat and fish is mediocre. The one thing I will give them is good pricing across the board. Wegmans is far from the ideal supermarket unless you are someone like my divorced Uncle who can’t cook and likes to buy their prepared foods. Produce, meat and fish are certainly better than average, but they don’t carry many brands in dry goods, it is primarily geared towards you buying their house brand. I find it too frustrating to use it as my regular market.

@blue_dolphin! Yes on those Almondinas, I grab them on my TJ’s run when I remember...

I keep coming back to Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies. There are now 18 flavors (some seasonal/limited). Currently eating double dark chocolate, which is simply the original flavor with double the filling. I think I like the original better, the extra chocolate seems to almost make the cookie feel "soggy". Have tried milk chocolate (too sweet), caramel macchiato (good), raspberry (tied with original for my favorite, I love anything raspberry), I think I tried salted caramel a long time ago. Some of the flavors are a hard pass for me (banana???). And they briefly had mini Milanos (original flavor) which were great for snacking.

How nice to have the ability to participate in her day!

The one time Shoprite had fresh corn, an employee was kind to let me know (when they observed my struggle with the plastic bag) if I rubbed my fingertips on the silk of the ear I was holding, it would give the needed traction. I have adopted a strategy of grabbing multiple plastic bags first, heading to the lettuce area where there are stray water droplets on the shelves, and wetting my fingers so I open all of the bags at once and have them ready to go in the cart.

My contribution for tomorrow’s dinner with parents, noodle kugel with dried apricots and ricotta.

Count me in that group...when I was a kid and ate hot dogs, always ketchup. Now I use cocktail sauce on fish sticks, so much classier. When I ate Yodel snack cakes, I had a very specific routine: eat the chocolate off the two ends. Then nibble the piece of chocolate on the bottom edge (thicker, where it settled from enrobing). Then unroll the cake, peel the remainder of the chocolate off, and finish by eating the chocolate cake/cream.

@robirdstx, when I went to a restaurant recently it was with the plan to get french fries, no way I'd get soggy take out fries, it was worth the 6 month wait!

@pastrygirl, I had no problem removing saran wrap from the bars. I kind of wrapped them burrito style and on the one end twisted the saran around the stick. This last batch of pudding pops I put in snack size zip top bags, to compare the two. The bags are better for throwing them loose in the freezer without an additional container.

No photo, because really they aren't visually exciting (dull brown), but I made "old school" chocolate Jello pudding pops. Not quite the same texture as I remember from the 1980's, but fun for the whimsy factor and my husband was happy.

In suburban NJ, in the 1960’s-70’s, my husband’s family had a butcher, Sid Miller. His parents were so friendly with Sid that he was invited to my husband’s Bar Mitzvah. Where apparently Sid and his wife put on a show on the dance floor.

Wegmans does not season their rice properly, it is pretty tasteless compared to what you get at a Japanese restaurant. But if your family is accustomed to that flavor, you should prepare to please them. Authentic or not, if they don’t enjoy it, why waste your time and money.