Porthos

We needed to be in Orange County yesterday morning, so we went to the Costco Business Center in Westminster. There are things that we can only get there. My DW picked up a case of Top--Ramen-type ramen for my daughter and her family. She came by today to pick up some other food and was thrilled to get the ramen. It's been very, VERY hard to come by here in Southern California.

@weinoo It's just the DW and me. I cooked about a 3 1/2 lb corned beef with potatoes, carrots and onions for St Patrick's Day. I vacuum sealed about half and put it into the freezer. Last night I put about 8 oz of Guinness and 8 oz of water with a teaspoon of bouillon simmering in a pan with onions and carrots, added potatoes a bit later, then added the warmed CB. It was very tasty for the second go-round. Still had about half of that left so it will be a CB hash breakfast Tuesday morning. My DW, thanks to COVID 19, was laid off this past Monday. This makes thinking about meals quite different now. Our general agreement is we'll each have breakfast and lunch as the mood strikes us, just having dinner together as usual. We're prepared for her having been laid off. I've been out doing some form of grocery shopping every day this past week. My WinCo has a seniors/compromised individuals only time slot of 6:00 to 7:00 so I go then. It feels strange to not go out more often but rather shelter in place more, starting today, and be going out less.Except for fresh fruit and veggies, we're well set to have to reallyhhnker down.

Have you ever made German potato pancakes cooked in bacon fat?

I don't strain. I let the particulates settle in the pan, then (sort of carefully) pour it into the jar we keep in the fridge. I let the jar come up to more or less room temperature before pouring. There was enough bits to be seen that recently, with a pretty full jar, I warmed it in the microwave to get it to be a liquid, poured it off into another vessel. I cleaned the jar and then carefully poured to bacon grease back into the jar so that it would be pretty much free of bits. I used some this morning to fry up a couple of cubed potatoes to be part of breakfast. What a sublime pleasure to eat over-easy eggs and dip the potatoes into the yolk.

Not by all. I cut them up raw and use them like chips to eat salsa.

GBP'???

Since My Sweetie and I both have multiple increased risks, I set up a disinfecting station outside of our front door. Things get wiped down with 80% isopropyl alcohol, then brought in. The "inks" they use on things liked bagged salad are soluble by the alcohol. It smears very well. Shopping: I wear gloves and disinfect the handle and top surfaces of the grocery cart before bringing it into the store. After shopping I unload the cart and return it, then use hand sanitizer. When I arrive home I wash my hands and forearms, then don gloves again and begin the disinfect/bring in cycle. I try to wear a long-sleeved top (I don't own very many) while shopping, then take it off as soon as I return home.

@teonzo I appreciate the suggestion. When I've done the lamination system for similar things in the past for whatever reason it didn't work well for me.

In another thread there was some discussion about maintaining an inventory list of the stuff in your freezer. This is my new solution: I adjust quantities as I pull things out, then update and reprint after shopping.

On my plate they'e called "left on the plate." While on a business trip to Venezuela in the early nighties I think there were fried plantains on every plate of lunch or dinner I was served. Having never encountered them before I tried one. That was more than enough. Blech.

I my Northern ren faire kitchen we called it parm dust.

I'm going with Sideoats Grama, which is a native grass in Arizona. Some Info Here

Staple in our home also. In fact I forgot that I bought more peanut butter a week ago (I buy a jar for the pantry when I open the jat that was in the pantry) and bought another jar 3 days ago. 🙄

wow.

Life has just gotten much more interesting. Because of California's "non-essential people" stay home, my DW is at home rather than work. I'm retired and my income pays the mortgage and car insurance, my DW's covers groceries, utilities, and credit cards. Unless she goes back to work quickly, we'll have a major hole in our personal economy; next Friday will be her last paycheck. I went to my local supermarket (WinCo) this afternoon and bought some meat to add to what's in the freezer, and a few other things. I'd like to pick up some more pasta but the chances of that right now seem about as good as winning the lottery without buying a ticket. I was happy to note that seniors have exclusive access to the store from 6:00-7:00 a.m. For other reasons I have to go there tomorrow morning. It will be interesting to see what's been put on the shelves overnight. I'm going to need to inventory what all is in the freezers. Today's meat: 2 1 lb packages of 85/15 ground beef. 3 1 lb chicken breasts 1 package of Johnsonville Original Brats re-packaged into 2 meals. I had stocked up on corned beef (15 packages - total weight 55+ lbs) to cook and send to my guild at the Southern California Renaissance Pleasure Faire. That faire has been cancelled. Some may go to my daughter and her family. I have exactly one recipe that I use to cook the corned beef. It is my recipe. Corned beef slow-cooked in Guinness for 8 hours. Using some of them will force me to find other recipes. Social distancing in the supermarket is a true crap shoot. Some people are taking it seriously, others don't seem to care about or believe in the risks. ETA: It's just gotten even more interesting. My DW's been laid off effective COB Monday.

This made me smile. Since I've had to cut back on the amount of alcohol I consume, and all of the "spoils of war" from helping cleaning out my FIL's house, I'm good also, except beer.

I will go to my local supermarket this morning for Nature' Bakery Fig Bars (a staple in this house) and fresh fruit and veggies. I should be okay. I have 3 identified risk factors but I'm trying to be smart about how I shop. The store is limiting how my people they let in to keep it relatively "empty" to aid in social distancing. Doesn't work for the queue, though. That queue comes and goes so I'll wait in my truck until there is no queue. I sanitize a cart at my truck before ever directly touching it using 80% isopropyl alcohol. We're supposed to go to a destination wedding in Vale in late June. Flights booked and paid for a couple of months ago. it will be interesting to see how that plays out against the pandemic.

We didn't have a milk box or milk man. We had a local drive-through dairy and a wire "basket" carrier for the glass bottles. You drive up, give the attendant your empty bottles and get filled bottles in return.

I rejected brown rice until I tried Alton Brown's Baked Rice on the Food Network website.

It appears to be a Griswold #* or #9. mfg between 1939 and1957. If the top of the pan measures just under 10 1/2 inches it's a #8. If larger, it's a #9.

I tried to do a little regular grocery shopping this morning at my local Costco. Parking should have been my clue. I needed to get to the grocery section which is on the far side of the building. I saw a line of shoppers headed to the registers going up the main aisle and so I kept walking to the back of the store trying to get around "the end of the line." The queue continued across the back of the store and half way up the outside wall. After I got to the other side of the queue for checking out of the store I realized that I didn't really need the four items I was after: I had just come to shop as a normal part of my Friday. Eventually I abandoned my cart and left the store - not easily done. I went on to my usual grocery store, figuring if I saw too many cars in the parking lot I'd just head home. There were more cars than usual, but nothing insane. I went in and did do my shopping, taking note of things that were way different from a couple of days ago. Rice and beans had been decimated. the was maybe 5% of the pasta left. Flour was gone. at least 80% of the canned beans were gone. None of this was on my list except the beans, and they still had what I wanted. Cup'o'noodles were being snapped up. The best thing the store did to keep some level of control (they were getting busier by the minute) was to have a grouper a la Disneyland near the registers directing the flow of shoppers heading to check out. I had a pleasant conversation with the shoppers behind me. He started it by asking me if I remembered the gasoline shortage from decades ago. I smiled and replied, "red flags - green flags" and it went on from there. If we were quarantined for 2 weeks, we'd have no problem feeding ourselves from our pantry and freezer. ETA we wouldn't even have to use any of our disaster survival food.

I did not read the entire article but I have a question for you regarding overhead. I worked in the electronics engineering and manufacturing arena. Everything it took to keep the business running, it's overhead, was "funded" by the "overehead burden," simply a percentage of the cost to produce the items sold, typically 35%. In food terms if I could make a gourmet donut for the cost of a dollar, $0.35 would be added into the selling price to cover the overhead. In the restaurant business, is there a similar money management model to keep the business open?

MY bad. It was 1.99.

Offered right now is Fix-It and Forget-It Cooking for Two: 150 Small-Batch Slow Cooker Recipes for $1.99 US on Amazon. I've just bought it. Now the question is if I'll actually cook from it.