We made it through Easter & Mother’s Day and are heading toward Memorial Day.
After much thought and consideration, Patty has decided to post one recipe per week. Patty reviews or looks at several recipes every morning when she opens her email.
What we have concluded is that many folks are just changing a few words or tweaking the ingredient a bit & calling the recipe their own. In my day they called that “plagiarism.”
When Patty looks at a recipe, she thinks we, or you, may like she also consults no less than 3 of her 200+ cookbooks. She compares the recipe from the internet to her books and may or may not introduce her own recommendations. She has and will continue to reveal her sources (Taste of Home, Betty Crocker, All Recipes, etc.). Sometimes I think she consults 3 cookbooks to boil water BUT I am not complaining, she feeds us well.
It has been suggested that we create videos of some of our cooking and reviews, but we are not quite there yet. So, for now we’ll just stay the course. It has also been suggested that our posts are too long, and some say too short. To get good Google coverage and placement of our social media posts and blogs, they should be 600 – 800 words and we have fallen short in that category.
This is a work in progress, and we would greatly appreciate any comments or recommendations you may want to interject. We are doing this for several reasons. One to bring Patty’s many years of experience to you. Secondly to give you an example of how to shop and store products and groceries when you shop less often. And of course, to maybe make a buck.
This idea of shopping in bulk, vacuum sealing, canning or freezing came to the forefront because of Covid. In the beginning we were scared to be around people. All the news seemed to portray was how many people were hospitalized and how many died that day. Masks on/masks off changed almost daily. Restaurants were open one day and closed the next. Some say this is all a plan for the government to take over the medical sector of our economy. Those same folks say that is one step closer to Socialism, but we are not going to go there!
We made our monthly shopping extravaganza last week and made some super deals. Albertsons had a special deal on T-bone steaks in a value pack. The ones in the counter were somewhat thin for our liking, so I asked the butcher if the sale
covered all T-bones and he said “yes.” So we asked him to cut & package 4 T-bones at an inch thick and he gladly did it. Now the price started @ $10.97 per pound. If you bought the value pack they became $7.97 per pound. Then Patty had a digital coupon for $2.00 off per pound that made the final price a whopping $5.97 per pound. That’s a savings of $5.00 per pound! At Sam’s Club, Patty found a large package of pork chunks which had had been sale priced. She bought it, brought it home and divided it into 4 packages of just over a pound apiece. The next night she used 1 package to make fantastic Chile Verde and vacuum sealed the other 3.
One more bit of info, I don’t have any idea why ham hocks are often “out of stock” but we have discovered that ham shanks are just a bit higher priced but usually have more meat and a better, smokier flavor. Last week we put a ham shank into a crock pot of beans. We cooked them until the meat fell off the bone, pulled the bone and had the pest ham & beans. I’m not sure we will go back to ham hocks but look for shanks from now on.
We bought 2 bags of “Simply Potatoes” and got a dozen eggs free. We found “Egg-land’s Best” eggs on sale @$1.97 a dozen without any limitation and bought another 5 dozen eggs. Eggs are nearing $5.00 a dozen in some places.
These deals and sales just don’t happen. Patty starts her shopping list on the way home from the markets by thinking about what we may have forgotten or might have been out of stock. Patty keeps her next months shopping list on the refrigerator door until she takes it to her computer a couple of days before we are planning on going. In the couple days prior to our shopping day she scans the markets we go to as well as Sam’s Club and determines what to buy at which store. And she scans or clips the digital coupons into her phone. Takes a little prep but saves dollars.
Once we hit the first store she is organized and zips through the store filling her basket. She tries to keep the frozen foods together, refrigerated foods together, and produce too. I on the other hand look for instore specials.
Remember, we only go shopping once every 4-6 weeks. It takes some preparation, teamwork, and money to just drop a couple hundred bucks on groceries and the ability to handle them when we get home. If asked I would have to say that our vacuum sealer is the most valuable and most used small appliance in our kitchen.
Patty & Doug
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