Grocery Shopping

The main thing you need to cook, is ingredients. Being that I don't have a garden, I get all of my stuff from the store. Hartland to be specific. It makes me feel good to buy what I can locally because it is much better for the local economy. Plus I'm kind of morally opposed to Wal-Mart. Also since I work there I get a 10% discount on everything that isn't on sale.

So the first step is to make a list. Not only do you need to look what you are out of and need to replace, but you should try to plan which meals you are going to have for that week. I like to have something that I can whip up anytime too. Eggs are good and cheap. Plus you can fix them multiple ways. Peanut butter and Jelly are also nice. I like to replace jelly with honey sometimes. Also this is a good time to review what you are buying and make changes. Maybe you could go without the 3 boxes of fudge rounds each week.

Okay so I hear this alot, "Oh, I got way too much. I should never come to the store hungry." So don't. Whip up an egg or 2 before you go or maybe eat a PB&J on the way. Another place where people spend too much is on instant foods or prepared meals. It is almost always cheaper, and often tastes better, to fix meals yourself rather than warming something up in the microwave. So maybe skip the prepackaged, nuke it yourself meatloaf and learn how to turn those little knobs on the oven. Once you have reviewed your list, planned your meals, and had the before going to the grocery store snack your ready to go!

Another thing I hear is, "I spend so much more when I bring my (kids, wife, spouse, uncle who mooches off us) with me to the store." I think it is great to bring people with you to the store, especially your kids. But I think bringing them to the store should be like taking them to work. You don't let your kids tell you what are going to do at work, don't let them tell you what you are going to buy at the store. At the same time though when you show your kids how you work you don't handcuff them to a railling and tell them to shut up and observe. You should take what they say into consideration. And make deals with them! I used to enjoy going shopping with my mom when I was a young child. "I'll buy you the candy bar if you when we get home." This way they are doing something to earn whatever it is they want. I also see people who let there kids run wild all over the store and then search for them when they are done. If you bring your kids with you, you should spend time with them. If you are going to leave them unattended do it at home. Don't let your kids walk all over you btw. Children often use screaming, crying, whining, and threats (because they are good at all these) to attempt to control the situation. If you show them that you are in charge and those tactics won't work they will soon find that they can get much more flys with sugar rather than vinegar.

I don't know if I've said it but you need to stick to the list. If you did poorly at planning the list it is almost not worth making. Your list should be well planned and complete. That way when you walk past the cinnamon rolls and try to pick them up you can say no, we are having biscuits and gravy for breakfast.

Also remember that the people who work at the grocery store are there to help. If you can't find x just ask someone who works there. If you accidentally break a large jar of pickles we would appreciate it much more if you told us than if you didn't. Also if there is something that we don't carry then if you asked we might be able to get it in for you. OH NO They are out of x! Just ask someone and they should be able to tell you when it will be back or we may even have some in the back.

Keep your receipt. Not only is a receipt handy in seeing how much you spend but if you get home and realize that something is spoiled/damaged or even missing! you can take it back and get some more. Occasionally we also may accidentally charge you twice for something. Be sure to get your money back.

Now that you have checked out and went out to the car to load up your grocercies be sure to bring the cart back in! Now you are ready to go home, unpack and start cooking!!!

Cheap Eats

Cheap Eats is what I had been looking around for on the Internet. Meals under a buck, for when I'm down on my luck. But I want something good not something that is yuck. If you want meals as cheap as possible boil some white rice and then ball it up. Garnish with steamed grass clippings. There's your cheapest meal for those of you who don't have taste buds or who are unfortunate enough to live in rural China. But I want something with flavor. Say it with me, fla vor. Now shout it, FLAVOR! I wanted something that would not only be cheap but also not break the bank. So I stumbled upon a recipe for Kotonk Chow Fan. It's a Hawaiian dish. Doesn't it just sound flavorful? It wasn't =[ It's english name is spam fried rice. Stop whining, I hear you, "but Ben you said you wanted flavor!" I'm getting there!

Kotonk Chow Fan/Spam Fried Rice

 3 cups of cooked, refrigerated Japanese (white) rice;

 1/4 of a full container of Spam ham / other savory meat-like thing;

 4 green onions, sliced moderately thin;

 2 eggs, beaten like they owe you money;

 salt and pepper – be generous!

Sounds like it could be okay. But look closer. It calls for a quater of a container of spam. Well I'm not going to leave 3/4s of a can of spam in my/Seth's fridge. Logical answer? Quadruple it! 1 gallon = 128 oz. There are 4 quarts in a gallon, 2 pints in a quart, and 2 cups in each pint. That means there is 16oz per cup. So I needed 12 cups/192oz of rice. So I go out and buy 12 cups of rice. Now rice is one of the things that I can cook. It's very simple and strait-forward.

Easy (yet plain) White Rice

1 cup rice

2 cups water

pinch of salt

dab of butter

Put those together in a pot that can have a lid, but leave the lid off.

Stir it ever now and again.

Place on the stove medium high heat until it reaches a rolling boil. That is a boil that does not stop or slow when stirred.

Now when you have reached your rolling boil reduce heat to simmer and cover it.

Wait about 10 mins and then take it off the heat and onto a cooling rack.

Wait 5 more minutes and then take off the lid. It is very important that you do not remove the lid from the time you first put it on until now. Not even just to peak in.

The last step is to fluff it with a fork. Simple, yet plain.

So now that I have cooked my 12 cups of rice I have 36 cups of cooked rice =[ Very not cool. What am I to do with 24 cups of drab white rice? That is for another post; what I did with the 12 cups I intended to make is for this one!

So now with my refridgerated rice in hand It was time I attempted the spam fried rice. I had already diced up the green onions and had them stored in the fridge. Rinse them with cold water after you store them btw. So now I opened up my spam cans. I cut them up into little pieces and then we fry them in the skillet. For this I used butter and a large cast iron skillet. (Nicole is helping at this point so if I take credit for something she does I really am sorry) After frying the spam you should put the rice in the skillet too. The recipe I have says Ideally you should cook the scrambled eggs seperately and then mix them in at the end but you could do what we did and put them in with the rice. Once the rice is hot and the eggs are scrambled you add in the green onions. Since our batch was so big we made two batches and the mixed them together. Use your spatula to make sure nothing sticks to the bottom. Keep it moving. All throughout the frying process be liberal with your salt and pepper

So now that it is all done Nicole and I eat have a plate of it. It was rather bland. It tasted very much like beige to much and it had a mushy texture. We ran out to Hartland and picked up some Teriyaki sauce but when we got home it said teriyaki marinade on the bottle. Either way it only kind of helped.

There are some key things I learned in this adventure:

1. Never, EVER, quadruple a recipe the first time you make it

2. 1 cup of uncooked rice = 3 cups of cooked rice

3. Check the stuff you buy to make sure it is what you want to buy

Ben's Ratings (Scale 1-nearly inedible to 100-Iron chef flavor!)

Taste: 54 The taste wasn't bad, but only because it hardly was there.

Aesthetics: 70 It did look kind of appetizing, but nothing special. Like a ramen cup

Cost: About 50 cents a serving. CHEAP CHEAP

The First Post

Okay guys here's the skinny, it's 1:48 AM I'm tired and I am having trouble sleeping. Not an atypical occurance, but tonight is different. Tonight instead of blindly hobbiling around the web or meandering uselessly on facebook I'm going to do something at least mildy productive. I'm going to, for the third, forth, or fifth time, going to start a blog. So what am I to blog about? Well I've tried blogging about myself.*fail* I tried making a story.*fail* So I looked into why I failed. I don't like talking about myself alot. Modesty, privacy, Anarcissism, whatever it is maybe I think I'm a bit drab. Either way I don't like writing about myself. So what about my epic story Roadtrip with an Alien? While I do believe myself to be a creative person, I'm not te best at making stories that take more than 3 mins to cover.

So what am I going to blog about? I'm going to blog about something that like, something that I am interested in, and something I think people can releate to. I would like to have alot to learn about my particular subject. Room to grow I suppose you'd could call it. I'm going to blog about cooking.