I'm feeling deeply grateful today, and not just because it looks like mom will be around for awhile longer. This whole episode definitely took a toll on her, and it will take her some time to get her strength back, and the tourniquet seems to have done some injury (nerve damage, maybe?), but she's still with us, and she sounds pretty good.
The other reason I'm feeling grateful, though, is that (a) I was able to go grocery shopping yesterday, (b) I had a vehicle to transport me and the groceries afterwards (I traded breakfast for a ride from K), and, most tellingly, (c) I didn't have to keep a running tally in my head of what I was spending. Given that there are millions of my fellow citizens who aren't sure exactly how they're going to be feeding themselves or their families this week, that felt like a huge luxury to me. It shouldn't--that is, everyone should be able to feed their families--but the economy being what it is, I know that it's not an experience everyone shares. At different times in my life, I've had to keep an estimate in my head as I wandered the aisles--sometimes more exact an estimate than others--so it does, indeed, feel luxurious to throw things into the cart without considering what's already there or what it will do to my budget for the week or month.
I was able to rein myself on some things, but in general I didn't. For example, I have cans of beans (pinto, black, great northern) and tomatos in the cupboard, and I knew that, but they were on sale; so, channeling my mother, I bought more. Same with pasta and a few other things. I'm determined to make some stews and freeze things in lunch-size batches. Which, really, I'm going to have to do, because there's no room in the damn cupboard for everything, and the stand-alone freezer is jam-packed. (The freezer over the fridge is empty, but it's frost-free, so it tends to suck the life out of everything so I try not to use it.) Several loaves of bread, cut into chunks and wrapped tightly; 10 pounds of blueberries divided into small bags; some cooked black beans; some chicken breasts from who-knows-when; a whole shelf of newly purchased frozen vegetables (spinach and broccoli); almond and hazelnut flours, in case I decide to get ambitious and do some baking; slow-roasted tomatos from last year; pesto; and some chicken broth in little one-cup containers.
I bought a delicata squash, even though I have three butternuts sitting on the floor, because I've never had a delicata and I've been wanting to try one. A bag of onions. Two bunches of beets (which are roasting at the moment, and the greens are cut up and frozen). Toothpaste. Shampoo, even though I have several unopened bottles, because one that I like was on sale, and, hey, shampoo doesn't go bad. Crackers (two kinds, two boxes of each). Three kinds of cheese, even though I have three or four kinds in the fridge, for those nights when cheese and bread or crackers sounds like a fine meal. Cookies (Ginger Newman-Os!). Some chocolate. Wine. Buttermilk, butter, and eggs, for baking. Sugar. I already had barley and farro in the cupboard, because I was going to bring it to my parents' but ended up not doing so, and I have quinoa and rice as well.
So, yes, I could eat for several months without buying more than the occasional onion, and, if I motivate properly, I'll use this stuff to make some of the stews I haven't made in a zillion years. Almost nothing that I bought will go bad any time soon, which is part of how I justify stocking up like that. It'll be something of a pain to move--yes, Larry, despite the fibrillation, I am nearly sure that I'm going to do that--which is even more motivation to make a dent in it. The one thing I should not have bought was almond flour, because it's expensive and I already had some (and it wasn't on sale, I just forgot I had some); guess I'll have to start doing some baking. My mom said they sent back my box of stuff--recipes, silpats, more recipes, a scale--so I'll have what I need by the end of the week; I should have asked her to send some motivation in the box while she's at it.
3 comments:
Glad your mom has made it to the other side of that traumatic experience. She must be incredibly hardy.
One question:
1. What size silpat should I get for the bottom of my oven before I make pie again?
Two comments:
1. Shampoo can lose some of its water content, actually. I have a giant bottle of tea tree oil shampoo I don't use too often, and it's grown much thicker. Maybe more chemical-laden shampoos don't do that.
2. Speaking of my pie trouble, I looked at the empty pie pan after finishing a pie. It was perforated! Deliberately perforated! I really wasn't expecting that. No wonder pie filling oozed out the bottom.
Do NOT put the silpat on the bottom of the oven! That will not work out for you (and might even start a fire or something, though the silpats are not themselves flammable). And, really, Silpats are too expensive for that kind of enterprise. Instead, put a baking pan with a rim--like a jelly roll pan--under the pie, or on the rack under the rack the pie is on. That'll catch any pie spooge. You could even get something beat up and cheap at the Salvation Army or someplace, rather than something new.
The pie pan was perforated to improve baking and air flow and such. Did it come out well, overflow notwithstanding?
Can't use my jelly roll pan under the pie--they warp and tip the pie. Could do it on the rack below. Should've done that!
The top edge of the crust was good, but the bottom of the pan that didn't cause the oven catastrophe was all sticky and slimy--that first 45 minutes in the oven didn't keep pie filling from oozing through the crust and onto the underside of the pan. The bottom of the crust was gooey and gross.
The catastrophe pie's crust was fine, but the so much of the pie goop leaked out through the bottom of the pan, there were air spaces between the pecans. And no, I didn't stab holes in the pie crust before pouring in the filling. Seems like a crust/pan FAIL.
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