Klatsch: Don't Shop Now!

[Mjx]

. . . .

Michaela - I think a good approach could be to try to start some sort of meal plans - if you both have a very busy week and you basically can only do any kind of larger preparations on weekends and you want to be able to just come home and quickly be able to cook something when you have a plan it is much easier and quicker to get everything ready and out. Buying a whole chicken on Friday for example can be a great way to prepare for the upcoming week. Take the chicken apart and use the bones and scraps for stock during the weekend. Over the week you can make a quick soup based on the stock (I usually make two soups - one clear chicken broth and one used as a liquid in a heavier soup), use the breats for salads or as steaks, bake the thighs or use them in stir-fries. Or if you don't wan't to eat chicken the whole week, put majority of the deconstructed chicken in the freezer and use just one or two items - there's where the planning comes into play - if you know what are you going to cook in the evening, you can just place the selected ingredient from the freezer into the fridge in the morning and by the time you get home it's all ready to be cooked. I found that when I stick to the meal plans I came up with I am always quicker and more efficient in the kitchen and grocery store and I also frequently loose a bit of weight as a bonus

. . . .

That's what I'm doing (i.e. planning more), although the way I'm planning is to prep./cook large batches of central component(s), then build around this, since (often unexpectedly) circumscribed kitchen access reduces flexibility at a day-to-day level. Having a central element in place gives me room to improvise, should I have the inclination/option, and to accommodate an often-unpredictable schedule.

Today I baked a raisin and rosemary bread, which used up the last of the sifted spelt flour (our default), but the loaf should last to the end of the week. Breakfast was coffee, and so was lunch, then I remembered the carrots in the refrigerator, and a had a couple of those. Almost had the edamame, but other things that needed to be taken care of kept popping up, so I didn't get arond to that. Dinner wil be more of the frikadeller (these came out remarkably tasty), rice, and baby carrots. I need to have a good stare at the cupboard, to see whether they hold the elements of complete, acceptable meals.

[BeeZee]

OK, today was spent defrosting and cooking some odds and ends. Cleared 2 containers out of the grain pantry.

Got rid of polenta (only had 1/4 c), cooked unflavored, just a little salt and lemon flavor olive oil. Formed into 2 pucks and will use for lunches. Had 3/4c of wild rice, cooking that for dinner.

Defrosted grilled chicken breasts leftover from summer, had 2 large and 1 small, so the small one was sliced up and added to the container with one of the polenta pucks for tomorrows lunch along with some sliced grape tomatoes, feta, and leftover grilled eggplant.

Defrosted about a cup of frozen mango cubes (kept intending to make smoothies...) and diced up along with remainder of grape tomatoes and 3 starting to head south scallions to make a salsa to have with chicken. Reheating breaded cardoons which were left in the freezer since Mother's Day (gifted by my sister's MIL).

Put small container of frozen unknown into fridge to defrost, it is either some kind of veg stew or chili, so either way good for lunch with that other polenta puck on Wed.

[Vlcatko]

Michaela - I see... So it would be better for you to (for example) the cook the whole theoretical chicken and work with the shredded meat rather than cooking it part by part, right? Oh my, it must be really tough not to have a possibility to cook whenever fancy hits you - I as so used to my own kitchen by now that I can really sympathize with your situation. I hope you can still manage to prepare many delicious treats and meals now that you have set your mind to it

BeeZee - looks like you are on a roll - great work using up all those things!

I have had two lazy days, not using much because of the Sunday program we had and due to me trying to work on my thesis and being depressed by it so I basically didn't eat a proper meal today Meh, I have to pull myself together and redouble the effort - mainly the thesis, I do not think cooking will be a problem when my hunger kicks in

Day 5

We skipped breakfast and snack time and left for an early lunch - even though St. Martin's Day was the next day many restaurants offered a special menu on Sunday and we had had one booked for a long time.

We had a very lovely goose pate as a starter, served with a baquette and some kind of cranberry sauce. As a wine pairing we were presented with an interesting fresh Riesling from Germany. Main course was roasted duck with two kinds of dumplings (potato and bread) and cabbages (white and purple) - a traditional St. Martin's Day fare. It was delicious, and I really liked the wine they offered with it - a heavy red, unfortunately I forgot to write down the name, I remember it was from Italy. As a dessert we had a very light cheesecake with honey-caramel sauce and roasted nuts. The accompanying sweet Palava wine (Czech) was a delight. We had a final shot of Fassbind pear brandy and wallowed home happily to crash on the sofa.

Dinner - I was so "devastated" by the huge meal I ate that I couldn't have a single bite for the rest of the day but DH managed to finish the very last piece of the slightly overaged Camembert like cheese as his dinner.

Day 6

I was still feeling pretty full today plus not very enthusiastic about food in general (which happens to me when I have to work on something I do not particulary enjoy) so I just nibbled on some random items.

Breakfast - cold Kartofelpuffer left over from Saturday

Snack - few potato crisps

Dinner - two pancakes with cinnamon sugar. I made a bunch of them for tomorrow so I ate some fresh to see if they were any good

[Beebs]

Great idea reviving this thread, didn't know it existed! I'm inspired to have a go at this - it'll be nice to clean out some freezer/pantry space before Christmas. I'll be buying fresh veg/fruit as needed (there are a couple green grocers within a 3 block radius here, so I never do weekly veg shopping anyway), and stuff like eggs, bread, milk. We did do a small shopping trip for staples on the weekend, though. I've got tons of pantry items, unfortunately - mostly grains, rice, pasta, noodles, legumes; also items for baking, like chocolate, nuts, dried fruit; and a ridiculous glut of condiments, both Asian & western. I think the biggest challenge is the condiments taking up half my fridge ....

Tonight's dinner was grilled pork chops (from the shopping trip); oven roasted broccoli with lemon & pecorino; stuffing made from old bread in the freezer, celery, and a sad apple. Ended up with some leftovers.

Tomorrow might be leftover chili (some of which was turned into nachos yesterday) or naan bread pizza to use up the basil getting sad in the fridge.

[Mjx]

YAY. I have food poisoning..? Something, anyway, which is making me less than wholeheartedly enthusiastic about food.

Yesterday involved a restocking of cold meat for sandwiches (something it never seems a good idea to keep around for long, so it's generally a weekly purchse). We had dinner with my boyfriend's brother's family, so I didn't cook, and didn't prep. anything, either (not pure sloth, this time, but more deadlines).

I also identified two ingredients that are sitting about unused, confounding my creativity: a bag of rice rava, and a bag of whole milk powder.

I got the former because it offered intriguing options, and to use in place of cornmeal, and the latter when I had to rig up a substitute for evaporated milk (which you cannot find here), which I needed for a test recipe for a Wellesley chocolate cake.

The kitchen situation makes me reluctant to have a crack at the really good ideas for the rava, but I've held on to it for the day that we have our own kitchen; using it as a cornmeal substitute hasn't happened because I never actually use cornmeal.

Still, If I pull myself together, I should be able to come up with some sort of attractive idea; I'm thinking gnocchi, along the lines of polenta gnocchi. Has anyone successfully pulled off sometthing of this sort?

The milk powder really confounds me.

I doubt I'll be making that chocolate cake again, since I was never that in love with it, owing to its tendency to induce a prolonged coma after consumption (it would be the perfect birthday cake at party that included many small chidren with violent tendencies; the most violent thing they'd be able to do after eating a slice of this cake would be to snore while napping). Besides, it didn't use much of the milk powder.

I'm not a huge fan of dairy, and have no use for it at all in savoury dishes, so I'm looking for sweet solutions.

Is there is some way of making dulce de leche, or something similar, starting from whole powdered milk? Some sort of candy, possibly caramels? A caramel sauce?

[Beebs]

Mjx, I could have really used your skim milk powder a couple weeks ago, when I made a gelatin zombie brain for Halloween! Wouldn't it be great if we could all just get together and have a miscellaneous ingredients and weird condiments swap?

Anyway, this morning, in an attempt to use up leftovers, I somehow ended up with more leftovers than I started with! I made a hack kedgeree with leftover basmati and short grain rice, leftover vindaloo sauce, some red lentils and a tin of salmon. Tasty, but now there's a pot of it taking up my fridge space....

Naan pizza for dinner tonight.

[Vlcatko]

Beebs - welcome on board! Your situation is similar to mine it seems - I am slooowly working my way through the pantry items but getting rid of all those condiments is indeed a challenge. Maybe I will have to try stop using conventional spices and somehow use the condiments instead of them? Regarding your leftovers from the morning - would it be possible to make croquettes or fritters from the mixture? They work great as a small snack or an accompaniment to salads...

Michaela - oh no! I am so sorry to hear that. Food poisoning can be really nasty - I hope you are better soon! The rava, it's like rice semolina, yes? Do you like regular semolina porridge? I do not know if it is a common food where you live but here it is one of the foods that you are served a lot when you are a kid and you either love it or hate it. I personally love it with a little granulated instant cocoa on top. Nothing fancy but very comforting, and it requires milk as the cooking liquid so you could use up a part of that too... The gnocchi are a good idea too, I think - I would be interested how it went if you decide to try it! When I was researching powdered milk before I bought it I definitely came across a recipe for dulce de leche so I think it is possible. Not being a big fan of caramel flavors I have never tried the real deal nor the one from the reconstituted milk so I can't do a comparison...

Day 7

Oh my, my 7th day without buying ANY food and I feel like I have barely scratched the surface of my pantry... I have very little fresh produce left (a knob of ginger, 1 red bell pepper, 2 apples, 6 small carrots, a cup of cherry tomatoes, 2 kohlrabi, one small net of mainly purple fingerling potatoes and around a dozen of shallots) and no fresh bread but other than that I am still very well stocked. I will try to use up all the fresh items before buying more but I will buy some good bread tomorrow to go with the duck rillettes that I had in the fridge for a while now and that I am planning on using for tomorrow's dinner.

Breakfast - another packet of instant oatmeal porridge (apple and cinnamon) - we still have quite a few of those as we bought several boxes to try new brands/flavors

Snack - nut bar (some pistachios in there, yum!)

Lunch - pancakes with cinnamon sugar

Dinner - leftover potted pork + leftover boiled potatoes (both from the hand pie filling preparation) + spicy salami = delicious hash browns (served with pickles and few cherry tomatoes)

[Mjx]

@ Vlcatko: Thanks, it could be a lot worse And yes, the rice rava is semolina, and I'm getting kind of fired up by the idea of making gnocchi from it. Although there will be an awful lot of them.

@ Beebs: If you're passsing through Denmark anytime soon (hey, people do..!), I would be overjoyed to make you a gift of the milk powder (N.B. it's whole, not skim, however).

Because my stockpiling chromosome is clearly a dud, I have nothing to draw on, apart from the rava and milk powder, so I've been shopping all along, but differently.

Yesterday, I found frozen duck legs and pork cutlets very impressively marked down, so I got both. The duck was braised and turned into a large batch of sauce, and the cutlets will also be braised; there's no fat on them, and my experience of these is they tend to be dry and flavourless when prepared most other ways. I figure we'll have two of the cutlets tonight, and the remaining half dozen will will be incorporated into various other things. Wish I could get some chestnuts, but haven't seen any, yet.

[Smithy]

I'm traveling now and disinclined to pass up the interesting local foods that pop up where we are, so I can't participate much in this topic at present...at least not until I start running low on staples and need to find substitutes from the traveling pantry. However, I'm cheering you all on! I'm very impressed with the creativity I'm seeing here. @Michaela, I've used whole milk powder in bread recipes, but I suppose that doesn't help you on several counts. Meanwhile, I laughed out loud at your description of the chocolate cake recipe and its potential uses. Coma, violent children, indeed. :-)

[Beebs]

Vlcatko, good idea on the fritters! I have panko crumbs, too.

Mjx, speaking of gifts - I've seen ideas using powdered milk to make homemade hot cocoa mix, packaged in a nice jar, and giving it away for Christmas presents.

For dinner tonight, we're doing what we like to call "foraging". Which consists of pulling all the leftovers out onto the counter and picking & choosing from the miscellany. No cooking except to reheat.

[judiu]

Mjx, seems like the rice porridge would come in handy to put in your poor insulted tummy! %) My bad, you said it's semolina, right? Still, mild and easy to digest, though?

[Mjx]

. . . .

Mjx, speaking of gifts - I've seen ideas using powdered milk to make homemade hot cocoa mix, packaged in a nice jar, and giving it away for Christmas presents.

. . . .

That is an excellent idea. Not sure how much of it it will use up, but it should make a decent dent. The rest I believe will become dulce de leche, or possibly caramels.

Mjx, seems like the rice porridge would come in handy to put in your poor insulted tummy! %) My bad, you said it's semolina, right? Still, mild and easy to digest, though?

I have no idea why, but this sort of stomach upset makes me feel combative, so I've been eating the exact opposite of 'mild': broth, heavily spiked with cayenne and vinegar, and coffee, heavily spiked with cayenne. Not enormously nourishing for the offending interlopers, and seems to make a difference.

I admit to not being much of a porrdge person; I don't dislike it, I just cannot seem to work up the level of enthusiasm required to actually make it! I have dug up a bunch of recipes fot rice polenta and polenta gnocchi (although no 'rice polenta gnocchi', as such), and am really gunning for those.

Yesterday involved no breakfast or lunch (although there were intermittent cups of coffee and broth, used as vehicles for cayenne pepper/vinegar). For dinner, braised 8 pork cutlets at 125C for three hours, and they were still dry, which didn't matter, once they were broken up and mixed with sauce, pretty good, in fact. And now, there is shredded braised duck and pork to see us through until Monday.

Today will involve vegetable shopping, and if I can occupy the kitchen for long enough, I'll have a go at rice polenta gnocchi. I also need to make bread, since we're clean out.

[Vlcatko]

Day 8

Breakfast - sesame Wasa crispbread with cottage cheese

Lunch - wholegrain couscous mixed with yesterday's leftovers from dinner (hash browns)

Dinner - homemade duck rillettes with fresh bread from the farmers' market (first food-related purchase since the start of the challange), blackberry jelly, pickles, bottle of "St. Martin's" (this year's young wine) Oporto

Day 9

Breakfast - bread, butter, Dijon mustard, crispy bacon

Snack - apple, mandarine (which I was given by a collegue)

Lunch - all my last cherry tomatoes, mozzarella, celery leaves (from a plant I have planted from a stub at work, the first green thing ever that didn't die on me after more than two weeks, if you can believe it)

Snack - hot dog (Mum wanted to go shopping after work and I foolishly agreed to go with her, starving after the first hour or so. Should have brought a snack bar from my backup drawer at work )

Dinner - I was planning on cooking some green split pea soup and having some for dinner tonight and some for lunch tomorrow but by the time I got home it was hardly time to eat anything... So I cooked a little bit less and I will take it as lunch tomorrow and I am skipping dinner tonight. I also got a pack of very nice applewood smoked Wiltshire ham as a thank you for going with Mum so I guess I have my next breakfast figured out as well

[judiu]

Mjx, 125 C seem like a lot of heat for a braise, maybe that's why your pork was dried out? When I braise pork, I just like the liquid to be 'nervous' looking, you know, a little shakey. HTH!

[Mjx]

Mjx, 125 C seem like a lot of heat for a braise, maybe that's why your pork was dried out? When I braise pork, I just like the liquid to be 'nervous' looking, you know, a little shakey. HTH!

Hm. A bit hard to tell how the liquid is behaving in this case, since the Dutch oven is covered most of the time, but when I do open it, there's no apparent movement of the liquid (that temperature works out to 257F, actually a bit below the temperature recommended by Cook's Illustrated for this particular recipe).

When I use meat that has at least some fat/collagenous connective tissue, the results are lovely and moist, but the big selling point for these particular cutlets is that they have next to no fat (the big selling point for me was that they were DKK40/kg, about USD3.25/lb ). That's about all that can be said for them (okay, the quality is fine), but broken up in a tasty sauce, they're excellent over rice.

And that was, in fact, yesterday's dinner: Braised pork over rice, with tiny bell peppers.

Not yet sure of my kitchen access today, but I'd love to have a crack at making gnocchi. Either the braised duck or braised pork would be really good over them.

[Beebs]

When life gives you too much celery....make (Bloody) Caesars. For those not familiar with this beloved & delicious Canadian beverage, it's a Bloody Mary made with Mott's Clamato (clam broth + tomato juice), garnished with a celery stick. I like mine made with tequila or gin, rather than vodka, with extra hot sauce, extra worcestershire (good way to use up these condiments!). The clamato was leftover from Halloween (unopened). This is one of my contributions to a potluck-type housewarming party tonight.

I'm also tasked with bringing a veg to the party, so my other contribution is a broccoli salad. Unfortunately, bit of a backward slide here - I don't have any fresh veg, so had to buy broccoli, tomato & an onion. But I did use up a last handful of pecans and a tub of goat feta.

I also bought beer. But I'm not including booze in my list of things not to buy.

[Vlcatko]

judiu, Michaela - I think Michaela is right - the main reason why the meat was so dry is the cut - I normally use very lean cuts for quick preparations only. But shredded with sauce - I bet it is delicious I wouldn't mind finding a similar deal on meat - I am all out of meat exept for one duck breast (will probably try some Asia-style flavoring next because the first one was just caraway and salt served over nutty risotto), two duck legs (I want to confit them but after St. Martin's day goose and next week's roast duck at my grandma's, I will have to wait a while before eating them so I don't feel "overducked" ) and 3 portions of salmon. We are going shopping today for a gift for our friends' birthdays so we will stop by a local warehouse club (Makro) to see if there are any good deals on ducks and geese (I think I have already mentioned my plan to give rillettes as Christmas gifts this year) and to buy some fresh produce (after today I would be left with just potatoes and shallots) so if I see a good deal on pork or beef I think I won't be able to resist - I am too much of a meat-eater to go too long without it

Beebs - yeah, I love parties and entertaining because I always manage to creatively use a lot of my resources. I think when something you buy helps you to use up your supplies in a more enjoyable way (sure you could eat JUST pasta, for example, but how long would you be willing to do that?) and doesn't create more leftovers/long term clutter it is perfectly justified purchase.

Day 10

Breakfast - bread, butter, Dijon mustard, ham (applewood smoked Wiltshire ham - I had to restrain myself from eating it just like that, I love this stuff)

Snack - last red bell pepper, yogurt and tahini dip

Lunch - split green pea soup (split green peas, ginger, nutmeg, cayenne pepper, half an avocado from the freezer, all blended together), diced smoked pork (pulled two lonely slices from the back of the freezer, there's enough for one more portion) and croutons from the pantry

Dinner - random grazing on salty treats as I was working through some thesis materials - peanuts, crumbled remnants of nachos and pretzel rod or two

[Mjx]

Yesterday, we neatly ducked the entire food preparation question by dining out, after gnawing (or not) on random odds and ends before leaving the house.

Today we are ducking the question in a different way, with an actual duck (one of several my boyfriend's father recently shot–while hunting, that is, not while casually strolling past a farm).

I have more or less disposed of the rava. I managed to make this as poorly-planned an exercise as possible, since my mental hardware seemed to not cope well with the whole polenta concept.

I began by making polenta a couple of days back. Recipes were easily found, but the stuff always strikes me as not only needlessly gritty, but aggressively bland, so I looked at spices. As usual when I'm lacking any inspiration, I grabbed numeg. Also turmeric, for no immediately apparent reason. After adding both, and mixing thoroughtly, I stopped and stared at the now-garish-yellow mass, and wondered what had possessed me to do this (the answer came unbidden: little as I care for polenta, polenta=yellow, and in my rather scattered state, I reflexively made it look 'right'). I fiddled with the lights so that the colour was less disturbing, spread the stuff on a baking sheet, let it cool, and cut it into diamond-shaped gnocchi. We had some for dinner with some of the braised duck, and they were okay. Not good, not bad, just ragingly mediocre.

I ate another round of them for lunch today, then snapped. I hauled the whole mess upstairs, tipped it into a bowl, recklessly cast in a lot of sugar, black pepper, cardamom, cloves, and yet more nutmeg, and squished it vigorously (=I preferred not to give myself too much room to consider what I was doing, so I dived in with both hands). There were yellow bits everywhere.

I patted the mass onto a baking sheet covered in parchment, scored it into small rectangles, baked it, sprinkled half with sugar, broiled three minutes, and looked at the results. I ran for chocolate, and went nuts with that.

They're... okay. They have chocolate on them, and smell spicy, so they will be eaten. The Splendid Table has at least one recipe for really pretty, almost-certainly-tasty cookies that I only remembered when I was sprinkling sugar over my less-than stellar efforts, so i tried to not think about that.

UGH. Polenta. Nyet.

Next: I assault powdered milk.

[Vlcatko]

Michaela - I am sorry your gnocchi didn't exactly work out but I have to applaud you for trying to make them better when you found them not so great. I would never have thought of making something sweet out of them!

Day 11

Breakfast - soft-boiled egg, bread, butter

Snack - kohlrabi

Lunch - split green pea soup, diced smoked pork (I have one last portion of the soup for next week but no more smoked meat, I will probably do a poached egg or fried bread croutons)

Dinner - two cheeses (Gruyere and a sheep one - no idea of English name), spicy salami, raspberry jam (finished the jar - yay!), crackers, a bottle of St. Martin's Pinot St. Laurent rose (very light and fruity, I am really liking this year's harvest so far)

We went to the warehouse club and I did buy three ducks - the last duck I bought there was (CZK) 150/kg, these were 69/kg. They are not as fine as the last one but they will do - I am not planning to serve the breast pink or something like that after all. I disassembled the birds, put all the meat and skin in my new (bought it at IKEA while there for my friend's gift) glass baking pan (it's hoge, biggest pan I've ever had - I mean, it fits 3 ducks!) and put it in the oven in the evening, in the morning I separated the meat, skin, bones, fat (about half a litre) and pan juices (about a litre). Not even turning the oven off, in went the skeletons and after roasting them I scraped every last bit of meat off of them as well and into the freezer with all the bones. Now I have a sizeble pile of meat for the rillettes which will be enhanced by crispy skin lardons I will make today.

We also got a hunk of beef (in English I think it is called short loin) to stock up on meat and vegetables. I could see my tactic is working - we left with significantly lower bill than usual

Day 12

Breakfast - rest of the bread from the farmers' market, butter, ham, apple

Snack - choice bits of ducky goodness as I was sorting through the roasted/confited duck parts, crackers

Lunch - garlic-coriander naan (the pre-made kind you have to finish in the oven or on the grill, it was hanging around the pantry for quite some time), grated carrots with yogurt and tahini dressing (thank you, Plantes Vertes, for the tip - we really liked it)

Snack - salted peanuts, pretzel rods

Dinner - 2 slices of pizza Margherita at my friend's place - we wanted to go to a restaurant as she recently had a baby and is kind of lonely but the babysitting didn't work out at the last minute so we stayed at her place and ordered over phone.

[Plantes Vertes]

Lunch - garlic-coriander naan (the pre-made kind you have to finish in the oven or on the grill, it was hanging around the pantry for quite some time), grated carrots with yogurt and tahini dressing (thank you, Plantes Vertes, for the tip - we really liked it)

Cool! Glad to be able to follow your progress and to have had a little input!

[Beebs]

Oh dear. Sliding off the wagon a bit more this week. It's been a crazy week and I haven't been clearing out my pantry/freezer/fridge as much as I've wanted. We've had a bunch of dinners out and also take-out. Unfortunately, take-out leftovers are now stacking up in the fridge. On the other hand, I haven't shopped either, if we're not counting take-out.

This week I've managed to use up a package of tortellini, box of mushrooms, the remains of a nearly-expired half-and-half, for mushroom pasta. Also some tomatoes, fresh mozz, and the rest of the wilty basil for caprese salad.

Tonight is chili dogs (DH wants his chili beside his hot dog. Claims chili makes it soggy. The messy sloppyness makes is part of the fun of chili dogs, but then again DH is an odd character.). I'll use up the bratwurst from the freezer (no proper ballpark dogs) and the chili. Need to buy hot dog buns though. A handful of grape tomatoes as salad.

Hopefully this week will use up a butternut squash and the rest of the sad apples for soup. And some of the celery. The Bloody Caesars didn't pan out (we got to the party so late, nobody wanted Caesars by then), so I'm back to square one with the celery. I don't think even I can consume half a head of celery's worth of Caesars!

Vlcatko, I envy your duck haul - especially the snacky bits of crispy duck skin!

[Mjx]

Past few days have been dedicated to using the two lurking lingerers in our stock (i.e. rice rava and powdered milk). The latter was reconstituted (it made 5.25L, way over a gallon), and cooked down to dulce de leche. I had a couple of bad moments, but all went well in the end, and I now have close to a litre of this lovely stuff.

In terms of shopping, I completely lost it yesterday, when things became so hectic that I (knowingly) went shopping at the most crowded and berserk time, for 'a break'. Of course, I went without doing any sort of planning or stock-taking, and since I always lose it in crowds, I just grabbed a bunch of stuff that would yield a dinner (chopped beef, tinned beans, three tins of chopped tomatoes, sugar peas, two bags of sweets [i know, I know]) and some sandwich meat, and bolted.

There is some left-over ragu in the refrigerator, and a whole lot of dulce de leche, and... that's pretty much it, in terms of food, but I think I can do something with that.

[Vlcatko]

Day 13

Breakfast - crepes with blackberry jelly

Snack - half a pack of potato snacks

Lunch - crackers, pork skin spread (I had a bag of pork skin in the freezer which I saved after making the last batch of pork rillettes - I baked the skin with the meat to get more of the porky flavour and gelatine. I kept the mushy skins to see if I could make something out of them. I could have ground them and used them for head cheese or other traditional Czech charcuterie products but I wanted to clear some more freezer space and didn't have the other ingredients needed so I just tried rendering the ground skins to see what would happen. I got a bit of lard out of it and the skin lardons were edible if not exactly super tasty. I ate some of it as lunch with crackers but the whole mass solidified as it got cold and I tossed the rest. If I had re-ground it, I imagine it might have worked in some kind of savory dough but older people might have seen that as an unnecessary risk to their teeth so I told myself I didn't want to risk it )

Snack - tomato

Dinner - cocktail sausages and pickles (once in a while I have this urge, this craving, for canned cocktail sausages - I suppose it's the same state of mind like people have when they suddenly realize they had eaten a whole chocolate in one sitting - I do not eat chocolate but sometimes I just have to have my Tulip "meat substitute" in the form of tiny wieners )

Day 14

Breakfast - mjukkaka (type of Swedish flatbread), last of the smoked ham, tomato

Snack - crackers and duck rillettes (I finally finished and potted the whole shebang! Man, that was a lot of duck... I thought I would just simply toss all the meat, crispy skin bits, fat and some of the pan juice in to the stand mixer and beat it into a beautiful and tasty whole but no. I had to work in batches because of how much I had! Now my almost empty freezer is bursting with jars of duck spread. But I am happy becase a lot of my Christmas presents are taken care of )

Lunch - wheat semolina porridge with granulated cocoa (used all the remaining milk from the fridge and the semolina that was sitting in the pantry still in the paper bag because it didn't fit into its designated container, now I have just the container to use up. I am thinking semolina dumplings for the future duck soup I will make from the bones in the freezer.)

Snack - kohlrabi

Dinner - after the very filling lunch I wasn't feeling like having anything for dinner but we ended up finishing the last of the B&J Chocolate fudge brownie ice cream.

Michaela - great job with the dulce de leche! What are your plans with it? I have no idea what it is used for aside from as a sauce.

Beebs - Aww, shame with the party - would have been a great and creative way to use up your ceelery. If I were you I would just munch on it as a snack - I got introduced to stalk celery in the form of obligatory crudites with chicken wings order and I have been in love ever since If it is too tired tho' maybe you can chop it up, freeze it and use it as emergency mirepoix? Yeah, the crispy skin is one of my favorite things - but I have to say I barely had any as I tried to save it all for the rillettes - I mainly munched on some very odd things that many consider odd or even inedible (at least according to what I have heard and read) - I hope I will not condemn myself to public loathing by admitting it here but I really really love the oil glands from the pope's nose and elsewhere under the skin...

[Mjx]

. . . .

Michaela - great job with the dulce de leche! What are your plans with it? I have no idea what it is used for aside from as a sauce.

. . . .

There is so much of it, I'm kind of overwhelmed. The average, store-bought pot of dulce de leche is no match for me and a spoon, but this is just so much. Some may end up in chocolates, and I have a friend who is a caramel fiend, so if I can get some to her, I will.

[Vlcatko]

Day 15

Breakfast - 4-grain porridge, honey (we have around 4 or 5 opened jars of different kinds of honey, which is quite strange because we don't use it that much... I hate the taste in tea but I love it with cheese, esp. goat cheese. I tried it with the porridge and it's not as bad as in tea, maybe I will try using it in cooked dishes... Or I will just serve it to DH more if he loves it as much as he claims - which is basically why we have so much of it )

Snack - second half of potato snacks

Lunch - carrots and yogurt dip

Snack - random fistful of candy from my DH's stash

Dinner - spicy couscous with corn kernels

Day 16

Breakfast - strawberry yogurt

Snack - potato scone (I had to open 4 small jars of baby potatoes which I bought just because of the jars so I could use the jars for the duck rillettes. I couldn't believe my eyes when I found out that a) it is almost impossible to find decent canning jars in my local, and very humongous, mall and b) some food is more than twice cheaper, jar included, than the jar alone... So I bought the jarred potatoes for a fraction of the cost of the jars they didn't even have in stock at that time. Alas, I had no idea how hideous the jarred lumps would be... I have to say I am pretty tempted to discard that nasty stuff but I keep telling myself it's food and that I shouldn't... I tried mashing the poor things up and using them with an egg and a little flour to make scones but I have to say it was still quite a chore to eat it. I had to use a lot of mayo-based dressing to enjoy it at least a little bit. And now I still have 3/4 of the potatoes to get rid of. Does anyone have any tips? I was thinking roasting them beyond recognition but I am not very optimistic )

Lunch - penne (finished a pack), ground beef, cheese sauce, young spinach

Snack - apple

Dinner - edamame with salt