Produce Prices Are High

 It's January, so of course. But I was just at To The World Farm and the guy kept telling the woman the price of things. which is his job, but it was like "this is super expensive right now" and "are you sure you want escarole and didn't mean to grab leaf lettuce by mistake? this costs so much."

Good thing I'm getting into dried chili peppers. They are good even in January.

I went grocery shopping for the first time in over 2 weeks

Key Food still publishes a circular, but they don't abide by it in-store. So of all the things I was looking forward to, only mushrooms were a good price. I left without buying anything because the lines were also long.

Since I had empty bags, I went to Ozzie's Fresh Market. I got popcorn, milk, and white bread. The shelves were stocked a little better and there were no lines at all.

Then I went to Jesus and got celery ($2) and a bag of 3 romaine hearts ($1). The romaine was the only good deal all day.

Cherries

There are cherries for $0.99/lb at To the World Farm, so my last post about $1.49 being the cheapest is already out of date.

Associated charged me too much for my mozzarella ($3.99). And I am sick of their announcements, which go on about "fresh and juicy" too much. Don't describe 2 foods in a row as "fresh and juicy." They should be banned from adjectives. They should be like this blog and just say items and prices.

More grocery notes

I went shopping! Boy do I love a party because I get to buy so many groceries.

I don't even know how much the daikon was, but they had them at Jesus. They're huge.

Braunschweiger is $2.49 for half a pound. In Pittsburgh, it's that much for a pound. I need it for my banh mi dogs.

Western Beef was the best! Limes are 10/$1, which is the best price! Tomatoes, miraculously, were $0.49/lb! They looked good too. Everything I'm making is tomato based, so I feel blessed. Loaves of Italian bread are 3/$2 as always, so I got some now so they'll be stale by Thursday for my panzanella. Ketchup was $2 for 38 oz, which seemed pretty good.

I bought a lot of beans at Associated. I got lost in Associated because of their expansion, so I might avoid there for the rest of the week while they figure things out.

I'm making Dylan come over to learn me how to pickle carrots and daikon for the banh mi dogs. Later today or this week, I'm making Agnes come over to bake 6 or 8 or 12 dozen cookies for ice cream sandwiches.

Dandelions and Fruits

Fruits are in season, so that means they taste as good as they're gonna taste all year and it means they're on sale. Last week I got blueberries and strawberries for $1.50/container each. I think they were 8 oz and 1 lb respectively.

I also learned about the technology of the food processor, so now I can make beet salad in 4 minutes instead of a half hour. It does my grating. Beets are $0.99/lb loose. Sometimes they have their leaves attached. The price is the same, so sometimes if I want leaves I get the leaf ones. Then I can make beet salad with grated beets and carrots, lemon juice and oil (canola or olive, depending on what I want it to taste like) and parsley. When I visit my parents, I add goat cheese and toasted nuts. But recently here I have been adding blue berries. What a lot of colors that has. Probably pretty healthy too. Raw colorful vegetables are healthy.

My usual side salad is chicory or escarole with a dressing made with olive oil and either lemon juice or red wine vinegar. Lately I've taken to adding slivered fennel and quartered strawberries to that. It's pretty good. Agnes likes strawberry salad.

The other day she was coming over, so I was going to make strawberry salad for her. Jesus didn't have the chicory or escarole out yet, so I bought dandelions for $1.49 for a bunch. I never had them before, but they looked interesting. I got home and tried and leaf and it was SO bitter. Too bitter for a strawberry salad, especially one for Agnes. So I went back later and got escarole.

I decided I could use dandelions in a pasta. I used whole wheat pasta, sausage, a shallot, and some fennel. Top it with lots and lots of grated cheese. The dandelions get less bitter if you cook them down and if you salt them and if the sausage is fatty. I tried making it again with chicken sausage a week later and it was too bitter.

Most stores sell whole wheat pasta in boxes that are only 13.25 oz instead of 16 oz and they still cost more than regular pasta. I found a bag of whole wheat pasta that was 16 oz and only $1.33 at Trader Joe's, so that's where I'll shop next time I made dandelion pasta. I don't know what else I can use dandelions for yet, but I like them.

Tomatillos!

I just learned about tomatillos. By that, I mean I finally bought some and used them. I made salsa verde. It was the best salsa verde I ever had. Then I made more salsa verde by adding new things to the old, but it wasn't as good.

I got tomatillos at Associated for $1.69/lb. At Jesus they are $1.99. At Western Beef they are $1.99. At Key Food they are $2.99. At Giant Eagle in Pittsburgh, they are $3.99. I lucked out by buying them at Associated without comparison shopping. But you make your own luck--they seemed like they'd be cheapest there based on how their other prices go.

I didn't really look up a recipe for salsa verde other than to check wikipedia to see if I had to cook the tomatillos. (You don't, but you can.) I ended up using this many tomatillos, a jalapeño pepper, some shallot, some cilantro, and some lime juice.

 They come in papery wraps. Tear it off.

 Inside it is not like a tomato. It is more like an eggplant. They are all members of the nightshade family.

Then I put it all in my quart container for Chinese soup take-out (I don't usually go to restaurants, but sometimes I want a quart container and soup is a good way to get one) and used my immersion blender. And it was done.

Cinco de Pie-O Shopping

Tomorrow I am hosting Cinco de Pie-O. It's exactly what it sounds like. I am going to make pizzas, a lentil-based shepherd's pie, a quiche, a kool-aid pie, and a shoofly pie. Other people are bringing other pies. I might make guacamole too.

I lost my to-do list on the way to the store, so I don't know if I bought everything or bought it right. On the way home from the second grocery store, I lost my money. Someone ran a couple blocks down the street to catch up with me and give me my $4 back. No one runs down the street for your to-do list. Someone is probably out there achieving all my goals and throwing the party I want to throw.

That's a lot of stuff I don't usually buy, so I don't know if I got good prices.

Key Food's having its 75th birthday this week, so I got a dozen large eggs for $0.75. I don't know how much I paid for frozen pie crusts. I paid $2.49 for a graham cracker crust. (I'm making too many things, including a crust for shoofly pie and all the pizza doughs to make all my own crusts). Crushed tomatoes were $5/3 as usual.

At Jesus, I got 12 limes for $2. That's about as good as you'll ever see. Avocados were $1.99. I guess if I want to make guacamole, I need to go buy avocados now so they ripen some. I don't think I will. I got a big bottle of sriracha for $4.99. A container of tomatoes was $1. I think I'm going to cook them on the pizza so they don't have to taste great. I couldn't find basil, so I have to go back. I got cilantro for $1.

At C-Town I bought a 101oz can of extra virgin olive oil for $14.99. I never had a can before. Mozzarella was $3.99/lb.  I wanted to get the $2.99 kind they had in their ad but I didn't see it.

Now I still have to get avocados, lime juice, and booze. Or maybe just booze.

Rabbit Stock

I made rabbit stock with the rest of my rabbit pieces and bones and some vegetables I bought at Jesus. It's pretty good, but it doesn't taste very rabbity. I bought Andrew a stock pot for Christmas and this was the first time anyone used it. (What a self-serving gift, eh?) It tastes like good vegetable stock though. I used all the celery you see, the whole bag of carrots, the onion, another red onion, the shallot, the fresh thyme, and the cremini mushrooms. And salt and pepper. The vegetables/thyme cost me $6. That seemed pretty good.

Now I have to figure out what to do with all this stock.

Citrus

I'm going to develop a signature non-alcoholic drink for a dinner party I'm hosting next week. And I think I need citrus.

I got a grapefruit, a pink grapefruit, a lemon, a lime, a juice orange, a tangerine, and 2 clementines. That cost me $2.60. I'd hate to see what Giant Eagle would want for that. I got every citrus they had except the navel orange.

Key Food has some good sales right now. So does Jesus.

I haven't been that interested in eating or cooking lately, but that might be because there weren't any good deals. I had a good time at Key Food today though, and later I'm going to figure out how to cook things.

Key Food had mozzarella for $1.99/lb. I got that. Earlier I got 2 lbs of ricotta for $2.99, which is the best price I've seen in months. So I have cheeses again. I bought Hunt's barbecue sauce for $1.29, which I think is a good price. I don't buy it very often. Fresh mushrooms were $0.99 for an 8 oz package. I got some iodized salt for $0.69. It's usually $0.79, so don't make a special trip. I got iodized because I don't want a goiter.

I went to Jesus on the way home. They have avocados for $1, but I didn't get any. I bought fennel for the first time. I don't think I've ever even tasted it, but from what I learned in my studies, it looks like dill and tastes like absinthe.