Ten Things I Like to Eat Right Now - October 30, 2013

1. Pomegranates. Cut one in half and smack the shit out of it with a wooden spoon and voila, arils.
2. Real whipped cream. Yesterday was a weird day, but it was also grocery day. We're doing very well staying on grocery budget - GO US! - and shopping mostly at YDFM has worked out beautifully for a full month. My special treats have changed from a box of packaged something or other to some sort of fancy fruit or bread. This time my splurge was a one-cup container of heavy whipping cream, which I whipped by hand because I didn't think to see if the Vitamix could do it (it can, and it also can make butter by the way...) and ouch my arm. But cream plus a bit of sugar plus vanilla...and then I put dollops on parchment paper and flash froze that so that now I can have whipped cream in my coffee every morning. I am happy. (I also bought mustard seeds because I think I may try refrigerator pickles.)
3. Single-serve vegan chocolate chip cookie cake from this recipe. Note that her calorie count/nutritional information is absolutely ridiculously wrong - the cake is at least twice that and around 9 WW points, but it also makes a GIANT cake that is easily two servings. And it is delicious. I plan to halve the recipe the next time I make it but I will be making it again. Maybe with maple syrup or brown sugar or...
4. An apple in the microwave with a dash of allspice and a smidge of cinnamon. I put it in for a minute at a time and by the end I had something delicious. Also vegan apple cider donuts over and over and over.
5. Roasted cauliflower with Frank's hot sauce. Sometimes batter coated, more often not. See also: roasted zucchini chips with a sprinkling of parmesan.
6. A mini whole wheat pita from YDFM (nothing artificial, real real bread baked that day) with pears and gorgonzola (hot gorgonzola = amazing, I had no idea) and maybe some basil and spinach and onion.
7. Coffee with peppermint extract. Ideally chocolate coffee (like the iced mocha flavor I got on super clearance from Tarzhay). I am over pumpkin pie spice already and am ready for the peppermint/chocolate explosion that comes next.
8. Frozen banana ice cream. Recent realization: I always make recipes in the Vitamix by starting at 1 and cranking up quickly to high speed. But the banana ice cream comes out richer and creamier if I do that briefly and then run it on 2-3 for a short while. Ingredients? Frozen bananas and a splash of almond milk. And chocolate syrup after.
9. Brownie Brittle. It's a good thing this stuff is hard to find because it is amazing. I actually DID get sent a free sample of it from one of the various sampling programs I am hooked into, but this is the first time in a while that I have legitimately falling in absolutely love with the freebie to the point of having a friend with a Costco membership buy me a monster-sized bag that I ate rather quickly over the course of a week 5 days 4 days.
10. Steel cut oatmeal with maple syrup and almond milk. I make a cup of dry oats at a time, put the whole thing in a container in the fridge, and eat 1/4 of it as a serving - heated up in the microwave for a minute, then stuff stirred in, then another 30 seconds, it's perfection, really. And the kid likes it too.

Other things I bought on a whim at YDFM that I plan to eat over the next week: delicata squash, acorn squash, beets, radishes. My child keeps asking for strawberries, cherries, and watermelon, but I am trying to get her to understand seasonal food. It's bad enough that we buy sub-par tomatoes...

Am I weird? How many places do YOU visit for groceries? - July 15, 2013

Yesterday as we were pulling away from the small local health food co-op, after shopping at one of the many outdoor farmers' markets in the area, it occurred to me that I shop at a LOT of different places for my groceries. And then I thought how lucky I am to have all these options...and I wondered if I was weird or if this was something everyone does. (I'm not a very good grownup. I have no idea what's right or wrong when it comes to everything from "Do these shoes go with these pants?" to "Is this how everyone else eats dinner?")

Partly this scatteredness does come from my wanting to find the best sales, get the best deals, and so on. That is absolutely true. But part of this is that I'm curious. What ingredients does that little shop over there carry? Does that giant chain have a better selection of flavors of something than that other chain? Is that place's bulk section any better than that other place's? And...of course...who has the best prices? (I do this when we're on vacation too - I went from a kid who would be dragged whining and screaming to a grocery store to an adult who wants to make the local grocery store a stop during any trip. "Ooh, they have this? And they triple coupons? And they charge $X for that?!"

To give you a lay of the land, we are a family of three, we keep a 99% vegetarian household (my husband buys tuna on occasion), and we try to eat as much organic/minimally processed food as possible, but we still occasionally buy things that are not organic, that are processed, and that might even contain questionable ingredients. We do our best. Also, I really should lay down an exact grocery budget and operate within it but...I don't. I do know that the more we buy at the grocery store - and the more appealing it is, even if it's something a bit pricey - the less we go out to eat (we are surrounded by incredible restaurants and constant temptation) and the more money we save in that way. Again, we do our best. My husband is the one who cooks dinner - he's better at throwing things together, I prefer to work from a recipe - so happily he's on board with the way I like to shop, more or less. The kid eats better than I would've expected and is willing to try new things sometimes - and she likes the grocery store too (though she freaks out when we get in line at the checkout about 75% of the time).

So here's my list of where I shop:

• Kroger. There's a small-ish store I can walk to for last-minute needs, a big-ish store I have personally driven* to but don't love, a very big store that we go to as a family (I probably could drive to it myself - I've driven past it before), and a two-level store that sometimes seems to carry more unusual things (for example, that specific branch of Kroger is the only place I've found Polar Seltzer - cans, basic flavors, but still! Polar!). In general I find the prices at Kroger to be OK. I hear people insisting Kroger is has the lowest prices, but only for some things I buy regularly - my favorite almond milk is cheapest here, for example. HOWEVER, lately I've found Kroger to have the best regular-grocery-store selection of organic items, and their in-house natural/organic brand (Simple Truth) is priced well and tastes good in everything I've tried. Slowly Kroger has been taking away coupon doubling in other regions, though, and I think mine is next. The e-coupons sometimes offer decent deals and are easy enough to use, but I will miss doubled coupons terribly if that goes away, and I may have to rethink my shopping if/when.
• Publix. There's a medium-sized store that I can easily get to and a bigger store that is a bit further (we literally drive past the medium-sized store to get to it) that is way better. Publix is the other big-name store I frequent, and I prefer it over Kroger. The BOGO deals are often great (I know the cycles of some of my favorites and wait to stock up on certain products a few times a year) - but they also seem to have better everyday prices on the things I buy often. The people who work at my favorite store are always fantastic - friendly, helpful, nice to my kid. But the organic selection just isn't as good, particularly when it comes to produce, and what they do have isn't always the best price. On the other hand, they don't make me carry a store card for the deals and there have been - thus far - no murmurs of discontinuing doubling coupons. Plus the stores near me take Kroger and Whole Foods coupons (wish they'd also take Target!). That's handy because Kroger often mails me high-value coupons (gleaned from my store card use, I know) and I can use them at either store.
• Your Dekalb Farmers Market (YDFM) - I wish I could just shop here and only here, to be honest. I have gone on and on before about my love of YDFM - the produce! the dry goods! the bulk spices, flours, sugars, grains, dried fruit.... (except you have to buy the bulk things pre-packaged rather than buying exactly what you need - a very minor quibble). The cheese! The....everything! No coupons accepted, cash/debit only, easy easy. I just buy what I want and I know I'm getting a great deal on it all. Bonus: The more I shop at YDFM, the less I buy processed anything. (YDFM certainly sells processed food, and one time I bought in-house-made bread and was disappointed to find it had partially hydrogenated oil as an ingredient, but when I go, I spend the bulk of my grocery money on fresh things. Tangent: I used to buy these lovely little fancy ice cream sandwiches there until I read up about titanium dioxide, decided to try to eliminate it from my diet, and then found it on the ingredient list. Sad trombone.)
• Whole Foods - Usually we go when we need something very specific (vitamins, mostly) but then we wind up spending $50+. I don't even know on what - some produce, some bulk items (I do love their bulk section), some...impulse buys. Also: Cheese samples.
• Trader Joe's - I regularly pay the Trader Joe's tax of $50 per walkin (as in, I can't get out of there without spending at least $50). I absolutely love and adore TJs and we used to go about twice a month but lately we've cut back. The prices on some things are excellent, but I always buy things I don't actually need while I'm there. Those things are, again, well priced but not essential. But I like to go at least once a month or two now for some items I can't get elsewhere.
• Super H-Mart - I get here once every two months or so. Great deals on noodles and rice and certain spices and sauces. The branch that's a bit farther away has house-made tofu that is to die for. An amazing selection of produce - not all of it is organic, but it's always fresh and sometimes I find certain fruits/veggies I don't see elsewhere. I used to buy a lot of cookies and candy until I got more sensitive about ingredients (boo). I have a store card and I get their coupon books in the mail.

Those are the stores I go to more than, say, twice a year. But then there are the other stores I go to here and there. Return 2 Eden is a local health food store that is the only place in the Southeast that stocks May Wah fake meat (the best stuff ever - I actually need to get over there for a bag of the fake chicken legs...). Sevananda is a local co-op that has an incredible bulk section. My city has a twice-a-week outdoor farmers' market that we go to sometimes, and then we go a bit out of our way for a really great one on Sundays (and I keep meaning to check out some others in the greater Atlanta area too). We just went into the Fresh Market for the first time and I could see us going back to it once in a great while. There's a tiny market here in my little city that carries gourmet food items that we sometimes poke into. I wish I could get to the Buford Highway Farmers Market more often (I've been once or maybe twice) because I've never seen such a grand selection of international foods in one place before (it's overwhelming!). Oh and then there's Target - the one closest to us just expanded its grocery section and while it's not usually convenient to get much there for various reasons, it has the best price for the bread my family prefers and sometimes, of course, since I'm there I'll get something specific I'm out of. I have been in Aldi approximately three times ever and wasn't impressed with it enough to go out of my way (which I'd need to) but if I was somewhere next to one I'd probably run in for a few things. Please notice that I do not and will never shop at a certain very large very upsetting store with a W. Prices be damned, I just can't do it.

And I am sure I'm forgetting something too.

Again, I'm really lucky to have this sort of variety and choice - but I also take full advantage of it, and I can't imagine paring it all down to a single store.

What about you? Do you shop at more than one place? If you don't because you don't have the variety near you, would you if that were to change?

*I've got a wicked huge driving phobia going on. That's why I mention driving so often. It's essentially me saying how close or far something is from my house though.

How I Fall Down the Rabbit Hole - August 14, 2011

It has been a difficult weekend. The kid isn't behaving, much arguing is happening, and I slipped on a wet patch at the public pool while I was carrying the kid (because she can't walk, so I have to carry her, but I can't see my feet or concentrate when I'm doing that...) and hurt both of us. Great.

So I give you a recycled post, originally published in my super-secret-and-private blog. No, I won't tell you where that is, but perhaps some of you have read it already....

Image from Squawkfox.com by way of Pinterest

On Pinterest, I found a recipe for a homemade frappuccino that noted that when you make an ice, milk, and coffee drink in a blender, it separates. Hm, why, yes, that's actually true, I've found. I usually wind up with liquidy cold-and-sweet coffee at the bottom and a pile of ice on top. The recipe writer then goes on to say she asked at Starbucks and the secret ingredient is a tiny smidge of xanthan gum to make everything thick and not separated.

So I go on a quest for it. Publix has it, but it's expensive for the amount will actually use (though XG, serving for serving, is cheap as cheap can be). So we go back out to an indie natural food store (stopping for bubble tea on the way - and having a giant argument with my husband in the process, which is always lovely, sigh).

At the indie market, I find the XG for about $2 more than I found it online (even with shipping) but I decide to support the local indie biz and have it in my hands right away.

And since I'm there, I look through the aisles. And I discover VEGAN MARSHMALLOWS - they're called Dandies and they're by Chicago SoyDairy.

I did not know they existed. I knew that there was one brand, actually (long ago I learned about them while learning about the Emes not-actually-vegan gelatin scandal - google it, it's fascinating) but not shelf stable ones. Um, yes, I'm buying them. Um, yes, I'll be making rice krispie treats and smores immediately.

And then I Google to learn more about the Dandies, and along the way I discover that there's a vegan store in Marietta. Which is far from me, but you know, still not California - not impossible to get to. But it's probably a pain to go all the way there for frozen stuff - which is the appeal, as they carry my beloved May Wah products, including citrus spare ribs (nomtastic, I swear). Shipping is...well, there's a free shipping threshold that maybe if I'm patient I can try for when the weather is a bit cooler (even with 1-day shipping and a cooler, I don't trust frozen stuff in this weather).

So then I check the much-closer used-to-carry-May-Wah indie health food store (not the same one that carries the marshmallows) and YES, a reviewer in June of this year says they do though they run out and don't always reorder very quickly. I actually can almost definitely drive to this one - a new destination, but not an impossible one. And we draw up plans to go.

And then I think...this is all Pinterest's fault. And I still can't entirely figure out how I got from yummy coffee to here.

And now the update: I wrote all of this yesterday. Today I discovered that:

• Yes, Dandies vegan marshmallows are AMAZING and quite possibly better than traditional marshmallows - I've had them in hot chocolate and melted on top of a single-serving low-fat brownie and have plans for other things soon.
• Xanthan gum DOES help create a fantastic faux-frappuccino and I only used about 1/16 of a teaspoon - mere grains of it - and wound up with a thick, delicious, non-separating coffee drink (I used cold brewed coffee, caramel Torani syrup and almond milk, if you're wondering).
• Yes, the indie health food store does indeed carry May Wah - I bought my beloved citrus spare ribs (two packages), plus salted chicken, tuna, and beef chunks (this is all mock meat/vegan) and then tossed in another brand's fake shrimp and a package of Gardein's chipotle-lime crispy fingers (which I haven't found at any other store that carries Gardein - my favorite mainstream fake-meat product) (I had those for dinner tonight - YUM).
• Yes, I can probably drive myself to that store (what, I haven't blogged about my driving issues?) and so can go once a month or so to stock up.

I have more serious posts to be posting soon about the chaos that is going on in my head, but this frivolity seemed like a good way to end the weekend.