Foodie Work Part of Today

When you are financially-challenged, you learn about local food pantries and store bargains. I stick to those that are either age-restricted or zip-code-restricted. Less paperwork. Easy to qualify. The two I do visit each month manage to supply me with lots of food for my needs.

Health-wise, some of what I bring in is not healthy but I am a foodie and I love my snacks and treats. Because I still have a functioning (for now, at least) upright freezer, I tend to take that “bad” stuff and break it down into small-to-moderate snack-size portions.

This morning, I took 2 boxes of macaroni and cheese I inherited from Smith’s deals and freebies, and cooked them and added a can of cut string beans and a can of diced tomatoes. I divided that into 6 cookie-go-cups I recycle and froze those.

I had about 8 white potatoes in the fridge bin (left from a friend's blessing of lots of potatoes and lots of apples last month), so I boiled those and put them back in the fridge as the bottom layer (sliced thinly) for my daily veggie omelets.

Much of what I get also requires me to prepare it in various ways. This means that even though my legs and feet take the biggest hit on these efforts from all the prepping and all the clean up.

Take juice - one pantry, every month, supplies 2 1/2-gallon bottles of juice. Most times, they are the “juice cocktail” types which I give to friends because they are largely corn syrup. THIS month, I was delighted to find orange juice (from concentrate) and cran-apple juice (from concentrate). Knowing I would never drink those all in a short time, I opened them and poured them into smaller containers and froze all but one smaller bottle. I can work on those for quite a while.

Produce - one pantry always blesses us with fresh produce. I cannot use it all up before it spoils. So, Irinse it all off and do “things” with it. I just took all the onions from this week and put them into the fridge drawer. I peeled one and cut it into quarters and I’ll use a quarter at a time in my daily veggie omelets. I rinsed the 2 oranges and will peel and cut those in a few minutes, then into a small bowl, and mix them with other fruits for a few days as little fresh fruit cocktails.

In there, as well, was close to 6 lbs of apples. I will rinse and dice those tomorrow and put them in the slow cooker with cinnamon and brown sugar, for about 4 hours. Then I’ll put that into peanut butter jars and freeze them to take out to add to my hot oatmeal or my cold oat-based cereals. There was a small seedless watermelon, which I cut into inch-size pieces yesterday, and ended up with 3 two-pound deli containers and those will go into fresh fruit cups (but lots will just get grabbed whenever I open the fridge door).

Baked goods - here’s where I have issues but delightful ones. One pantry always offers lots of day-old baked goods. This time, I ended up with a dozen donuts, a half-pound raisin-pound cake, 6 big almond poppy muffins, a bag of mini powdered sugar donuts, and a few more things. Again, I divided them into containers and I will be having little delicious snacks for a while from the freezer.

As you can see, many, many of my hours are spent making sure food (which I’ve been blessed with or bought at a bargain) does not spoil.

Rather than drag this on, I’ll do another post about my wildly frantic fun with eggs and bread...stay tuned...it’s like a Keystone Cops comedy...it’s coming...