Putting this on hold for a while.

Like it hasn’t been on hold anyway. The point is I need to figure out just what I’m going to do with this blog. SO…until I do. it’s going on hiatus.

IT’S BACON!

Ok..I admit, I love those Beggin’ Strips commercials. They’re so cute and funny. But that’s not the point of this blog. This is about bacon in it’s many wonderful (and not so wonderful) forms.

I love bacon. I always have. Almost as much as I love sausage (and sausage gravy on biscuits).

You don’t need to go back to my “About Me” page, I know good and well that I stated that I don’t eat pork. But not all bacon is pork you know. In fact there are several varieties of non-pork bacon.

“Well DUH!” you say, “There’s turkey bacon too!” Feh, I say. And, feh again. Turkey bacon is a culinary abomination. But I’ll get to that in a bit.

Back in 2002, I gave up pork. Initially it was just for Lent. But the thing with giving up something like pork is that, after a while, your stomach can’t tolerate it. So after Lent I’d eat a sausage or hotdog and feel sick afterwards.  By the end of the year I wasn’t eating pork at all. Now, the very scent of cooking pork makes me want to vomit. *shrugs* Go figure.

Giving up pork sent me on a wild hunt to replace my favorite foods like ribs, sausage, bacon, and hotdogs.

Ribs and hotdogs were easy. Ribs just got switched to the beef versions. Hebrew National and Koegle have beef and chicken hotdogs (respectively). Sausage took some looking. Gordon Food Services sells kosher beef sausages, but not the breakfast sort, and unless you’re lucky enough to have a store near by (I am) the only way to get food from them is to be in the food service industry. I was able to find some heat-n-eat turkey sausages in the frozen food section of Meijer. One dollar for ten finger long sausages…not bad. While in Delaware visiting family I got a couple pounds of fresh, home made turkey sausage from Amish vendors at a place called Spencers Bazaar (absolutely delicious). But bacon continued to stump me.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve hated turkey bacon. It reminds me of those fore-mentioned Beggin’ Strips. Plus you can’t do the most important thing when it comes to bacon: you can’t cook in the grease. This is mostly because there is none.

Growing up my mom’s breakfasts featured eggs scrambled in the grease left over from bacon (stored in a mug on the stove). There is nothing like eggs cooked in bacon grease. But turkey bacon puts off no grease. It just dries up and withers on the skillet. It is a sad sight to behold. A friend told us about a middle eastern butcher that sells non-pork bacon so we took a trip to the far end of Ann Arbor and returned home with a pound and a half of veal bacon.

Now, I was a bit iffy on the idea of veal bacon. I had never heard of it, for one, and for two I knew what veal was. Not that I had some sort of moral objection to eating baby cows. By this time I had eaten enough lamb to be beyond the point of no return when it comes to eating the smaller, cuter varieties of meat.

The next day I throw a few slices into a well heated skillet and was certain that I had died and gone to heaven. The scent was delicious. The bacon was sliced just right. Not too thick, not too thin. Because I was impatient I didn’t cook them totally crispy like I normally would (I looove crispy bacon), but they were good either way. The meat was deliciously tender and just chewy enough. And it put out more than enough tasty fat to scramble an egg in. Indeed, that day, the bacon angels smiled upon my house.

Then, some months later, for whatever reason, my butcher’s supplier stopped making the bacon. I was devestated. What was I to do without my veal bacon?

The answer came in the form of John Morrell beef bacon at Meijer’s. I found it tucked away amongst the turkey and pork bacons. It cost a bit more than my veal bacon, but was well worth it. Cut thicker than the veal bacon was, it was wonderful. Then, without warning, Meijer’s stopped carrying it.

I had to go to Kroger to find it. The price was insane. $5.99 for a package of bacon.

It was like being punched in the gut.

See all of this was long before the world food crisis. Long before gas reached $4/gallon anywhere outside of southern California. When people were predicting that $3 gas would stop people from driving (HA!). Before the sub-prime lending scandal.

I was living in a world of good food at cheap prices. Where I could take $30 buy (healthy) food to feed us for a week (breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks) and have a little extra left over.

But those days are long gone. So my bacon habit has been scaled back to when I absolutely need it. Like when I’m dying of a BLT craving (mmmmm…BLTs) since $6 bacon is something of an extravagance in my book.

Feeding a family of three for ten days for about $15

Did I mention that this is just one meal? Yeah it is. And no, I’m not exaggerating, my claim has been tested and proven (much to my family’s dismay). One meal, that costs about $15 to buy all the ingredients, can feed a family of three for ten days, with them eating it for lunch AND dinner.

Full servings too. No skimping.

This recipe originally came from my mom who called it goulash. Except its a sort of bastardised American version of it, as opposed to the original Hungarian goulash. Don’t be put off by the name, it’s not like borscht where you’d have to convince your kids (if not yourself) that it’s good and good for you. It’s also an amazingly fast meal and very flexible. You can add whatever vegetables you want to it, even some left over rice (if you really want to carbo-load). My mom used to put it in a casserole dish, cover it with cheese and bake it for a while until the cheese was deliciously melted.

Three Ten Fifteen Goulash

Ingredients

• 2 lbs ground turkey (or whatever ground meat is your preference; we use turkey)
• 1/2 a medium onion, diced
• 2 lbs elbow macaroni
• 2-14.5 oz jars of your preferred spaghetti sauce

Method

1. Cook your elbow macaroni according to package directions
2. While macaroni is cooking, brown your ground meat; once it is about 60-70% cooked, add onions and finish cooking then drain and set aside
3. Add spaghetti sauce to macaroni (once it is finished cooking and has been drained), then add meat; stir to mix and then serve.

Crazy easy right? Now, during all this if you want to add corn, peas, carrots, peppers, zucchini…pretty much whatever vegetables you want, feel free! Frozen ones usually get cooked with the macaroni just to save time and reduce how many pots I have to wash. Toss in some feta cheese if you like. I tend to add fennel seed, basil, oregano and garlic powder to my beef as it’s cooking just for extra taste, since ground turkey can be rather bland at times.

This recipe is as flexible and adaptable as you are. Want it spicy, make it spicy!

Naturally if you don’t want to make so much you can just halve everything and you’ll be alright. This is also great for those pesky potlucks.

I haven’t tried it with any meat substitutes, but I can’t see this being too bad. If anyone gives it a shot, let me know!

Food Pr0n

Ok, I don’t own a digital camera…what I do have is the crap cam on my cell. YAY! So I decided to forgo the usual food blog shots of every flippin meal and just do the ones I’m most proud of (so long as I can remember to take the damn shots before everything is done (much harder than it sounds).

So, for your enjoyment: Last week’s “I’m too effing lazy to make a real meal” dinner

H had bought some beef dogs (remember we don’t eat pork) and The Kid said she wanted those for dinner. And since I was feeling particularly lazy that day, I went along with it. I yanked the dogs out of the fridge and just as I was starting to reach for the freezer door to grab the frozen french fries…inspiration struck.

Inspiration in the form of Green Giant Red Skin Golden potatoes to be exact.

I grabbed a few (I can’t remember how many), rinsed them off and proceeded to slice them into little medallions, skin on. I was making chips!

Yummeh

I pulled out my wok (which really isn’t good for usual wok foods but I keep it around anyway…like a dog that’s too deaf and toothless to be any use as a guard but you love too much to send to the pound) and heated up some oil then plopped my soon-to-be chips in the hot oil a few at a time

With a large slotted spoon (it looks like a small spider skimmer, except it has holes instead of an open weave basket) I carefully turned these as they cooked until they were the just right color of brown. When they were done I drained them on a roasting pan insert that has holes in it (I can’t remember the technical term for it, sue me) since I couldn’t see the sense in letting them sit in their own oil on a piece of paper towel. The insert had just enough height to put some space between it and the paper that was on a 1/4 sheet sized cookie sheet.

Because they varied in width, some of the chips had a nice crunchy outside and a softer inside. And, oddly enough, a few of them even puffed up a bit which made for fun eating.

See, puffy potato…and my skimmer thingy
I’ve done this one other time, perfecting my technique, not that these are all that hard to do as it is. But they are a great way to use up extra potatoes before they start to sprout and go soft.

HA!

So yesterday I was supposed to drop off some papers at the Department of Human Services (the nice name for the welfare office), but I got derailed by a 9am phone call from my MIL telling me that she had a half day (she’s a teacher) and she wanted to pick up The Kid for the weekend. Oh that’s fine, I said. That meant I had to be up and moving to feed The Kid, get her dressed and a bag packed for the three days she was going to be gone.

H text messaged me saying that we’d make the quick run to the bank to get the last of the paperwork filled out. Then MIL called me again, “We’re on our way.” Ok, great. “By the way, is there a Home Depot near you?” Yeah there’s a Lowes and a Home Depot right down the street. “Great. Do you think you can take us?” (she’s not familiar with our area at all) Sure. No problem. This meant that now I had to get dressed. Great.

We’re all dressed and packed and whatnot and MIL and her…erm…well I guess boyfriend is the only real way to describe him, but considering the fact that he’s well over 50, “boy” just doesn’t seem appropriate, showed up. The Kid entertained them while H and I discussed a few things and I downed a gulp of my now far-too-cold coffee. Then off we headed to Lowe’s (which is closer) and we wandered their garden section while MIL’s BF picked up some garden stones and The Kid was allowed to grab one flower of her own (a red gardenia) to plant in their garden. About an hour and a half later, we zipped back to my place, The Kid took a quick trip to the potty and I grabbed a shirt that I didn’t mind getting caked in dirt, then off they went.

I flopped onto the couch, happy for a moment’s peace for the first time in…months? I turned on the TV to catch the afternoon news only to find stories about not eating potato salad that’s been left out too long. Disgusted (not just because I hate potato salad) I turned off the TV and grabbed my book. About a page and a half later it struck me that it was well after 4pm. I had missed the deadline to drop off my papers and that was the last possible day to do it. As always I got angry with myself over it and apologised to H in advance if I snapped at him. He hugged me and told me to quit being so hard on myself. I’m human and had something completely unexpected come up so it’s understandable that I forgot. He said we’d just go back through the process again and get The Kid insurance through Medicaid and not worry about getting food stamps anymore since it was a crutch he was looking to cast off anyway.

So, comforted, I decided I’d call my case worker after the holiday and let her know that I was sorry for forgetting and asking what we needed to do to get my daughter back on Medicaid.

This morning I checked the mail only to find a thick envelope from DHS. My case worker, bless her heart, had put through my paperwork anyway without the papers I needed to give her. At the top of the first page they announced that our new food stamp stipend was $27. I laughed. $27. That would buy enough to get us through, maybe, three days. H just shrugged. “I’m not really worried about that anyway. It’s probably best that we got off of those now as it is.” I was happy to find that The Kid still has medical coverage.

Here’s to self flagellation and case workers who really bend over backwards for you.

Grocery shopping and making my own food

Feh.

Sunday is the day the local Meijer’s starts it’s new sales (tomorrow will be Krogers, I have to remember to stop there and pick up some coffee while it’s still 2/$5). This means that the store was PACKED. Not just with shoppers but with employees stocking shelves and blocking aisles with their wagons of food. I had to restock on staples and get some food to last us for the week.

Hubby got paid last week, but bills ate up most of that pretty quickly. Gas sucked up another huge lump. So we decided to so something I’d advise noone to do: we decided to bounce our rent check so we could eat. Like I said, I advise no one to do that. But this is sort of an emergency situation, our bridge card is down to a grand total of 17¢ and it doesn’t re-up until the 4th. So, like many Americans these days, we had to choose between food or something else. We could have let the cable lapse further, but we need that for business reasons. If our cell phones cut off, we’re basically ass out because we opted not to get a land line, instead choosing to get cellphones for me and Hubby.

The fact that they’ve had the rent check since the 8th and haven’t cashed it is amazing. Why in the hell do they get so up in arms about us paying at the beginning of the month if they don’t cash the damn check until the end of the month? Therefore I have decided it’s their own damn fault if the check bounces. Hubby gets paid again on the 26th, so maybe we’ll be nice and give the check that doesn’t go “boing”.

My grocery trip ate up a total of $108.70. Some of that was due to non-grocery items (lotion, conditioner, toilet paper, razors…btw, when the hell did razors get so expensive? $9 for a pack of four cartridge refills).

Some items I pick up make me wonder if I should just start making my own. Bread, pasta, and pasta sauces…I know how to make these, even if I don’t have the proper equipment to make perfect spaghetti. Hell, I could grind my own beef and turkey, instead of dropping almost $5 for Jennie-O (for whatever reason Meijer’s has stopped stocking Just Perfect Turkey which was $2 cheaper and better quality IMO). I have a kitchen aid mixer, all I need are the attachments and I’m good to go.

We Westerners have been spoiled by the convience of grocery stores stuffed with every item we could possibly need from nearly every corner of the world. Going down one aisle of Mejier you can find the makings of a lovely mild green curry, enchiladas, stir fry, sushi, matzo, some polish foods that I won’t even begin to try to spell, a can of spotted dick (*stifles a giggle*…see I’m mature enough to say that without falling over laughing), toppings for bruschetta, and virtually all things Italian. Another aisle you find canned “soul food” items and boxes of ready-to-make dirty rice and jambalaya right along side 5-minute couscous, saffron flavored “spanish” yellow rice, and numerous bags of beans and rice (if your pinto beans take less than a day to prepare, you’re missing out on something good).

Oh I’m guilty of it myself. Make no mistake about that. I love that I can make something just short of a Thanksgiving dinner in about 3 hours. I’ve only recently mastered the art of the giblet gravy, and have been making corn bread from scratch for a few months because Jiffy contains lard.

With the environment and world food crisis being what it is, maybe it’s time we started growing and making some of our own food again. With all the DIY information floating around the internet these days, it can’t that hard to do.