The Start of Thanksgiving Cooking 2022

 I'll admit that I use broth in a box throughout the year. It's not that I can't make my own stock. I absolutely can. It's just that usually I have no room in my fridge or freezer to horde chicken or turkey carcasses.
That changed. Our old little chest freezer gave up the ghost on us. We didn't realize it, and we lost a full freezer full of food. We bought a new chest freezer, however. I stocked up on several turkeys and turkey breasts. We don't eat turkey nearly enough throughout the year. I made us a turkey dinner, using one of the frozen turkey breasts that I had squirreled away, just because, not long after we moved up here to Kelpie Kapers Farm. I found whole turkeys for 98 cents per pound at Walmart. I bought 3 of them. Likewise, I found turkey breasts at Safeway for $12 or less. I bought 2. I purposefully kept room in that chest freezer to store my bones so that I can start making my own stock. My goal is to become less dependent on the supermarket supply chain and slowly work over to using my own home produced items. I will start with growing amaranth and quinoa next year.
I'm getting ahead of myself. I tend to get a bit excited when I talk about my self-sufficiency goals.

Back to making stock. The key component to any successful and delicious Thanksgiving feast is a good homemade turkey stock. Safeway had turkey necks for sale. I bought a pack of 3 of them. They were a bit on the spendy side, at over $3, for a piece of turkey that nobody really ever thinks of...but I sure do! Not only do turkey necks make a delicious stock to use for dressing and/or gravy, the meat off of the necks is some of the most delectable meat on the whole bird! It's just a major pain in the keister to pick it off the bones. That's why I only do it when I want to make a dinner that I want to impress Bob with.

I decided a few weeks ago to start collecting vegetable scraps to make my turkey stock with. They hung out in the freezer for a bit.

I bought my vegetables for Thanksgiving with the idea of most of them being multipurpose. I'm adding chopped fennel to my dressing this year. I bought a fennel bulb with a lot of fronds and stalks on it so that I could use it in my stock. Not only that, but I saved my asparagus ends for the stock. A word to the wise and because my sister, Ginger, gave me a heads-up about putting asparagus ends into stock. Too many of them will cause your stock to have a bitter taste to it. Use them sparingly. I'll still save them because I like to use them to make cream of asparagus soup. That's a different blog post for another time, though. 

I added in a shallot that I simply cut in half. I didn't bother peeling it. There's no need. The solids are all strained out and discarded (except for the turkey necks). I added in 3 or 4 bay leaves, celery, carrots, a whole head of garlic that I cut in half. I left the skin on the head of garlic. It's like the shallot. There's no need to peel it. I also added in a couple of parsnips that had seen better days that I had in the crisper drawer.  I also added in some Penzey's Bavarian Herb blend. It has all the good stuff in it. Some kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper finished it all off.

I love that we have well water up here and we don't have to use city water. I added in 2 quarts of cold water and a good glug of a nice oaky chardonnay.
I put this over high heat just until it came to a boil and then I turned the heat down to low and let it simmer. It reduced by over a third. I added another half quart of water to it and let it condense down again.
When all was said and done, it took around 2-1/2 hours to get a quart of some rich looking turkey stock to use in my stuffing and gravy recipes on Thursday.

Cheers!

Sneaky Supermarket Tactics To Get You To Spend More Money

 Yesterday, Safeway's new sales ad came out. They advertised 5 pounds of russet potatoes for 47 cents as a digital deal with their Just For U program. I knew I wanted to partake of that deal and I wanted to get some other things that would finish up my holiday shopping for Thanksgiving. I can just sit back now and start cooking ahead of next Thursday. No stress. I like that.

I noticed a few things that gave me pause yesterday. The first thing is that Safeway no longer sells their onions by the pound. They sell them by the unit. I used to pay 69 cents per pound for their medium yellow onions. It's now 69 cents each. I haven't bought onions for a while, as I grew a lot of them in my garden and was simply using those. But, I ran out. I knew I would. I know I want to plant a lot more next year, but that's a different blog post.

The tags in the store still look as though onions are 69 cents per pound, if you don't read the fine print. I think it's sort of sneaky on the part of Safeway, too. They could have just been on the up and up and put a sign on their website that they were no longer selling by the pound. They didn't do that. So much for transparency.

So, for a week's worth of onions, it cost me $5.52. I used to pay around $3 for that amount. The cashier said that they implemented this just a few short weeks ago.

Next, I noticed the eggs. I haven't bought eggs for several months because we have awesome friends who gift them to us. Bob does handyman type stuff for 3 or so people who love to send eggs home with him. I'm completely grateful for them, as well. But, with all good things, that has come to an end for this year as chickens do take a break from laying. We are on our last dozen and decided to buy some more to stock up a bit.
Yikes.
That's all I can say about that.
Yikes.

Normally, if I purchase eggs from the supermarket, I buy them by the 18-pack. At Safeway, large eggs are $3.69 per 18-pack. I buy eggs 3 dozen at a time. I don't like to run out of them. Three dozen eggs, if I purchased them by the 18-pack, would have cost me $7.38!
Holy Expensive, Batman!!
I glanced over at the large 12-packs. They were $1.89 each.
Hold up!
If I buy 3 of those vs. buying 2 18-packs, it would be cheaper. It's like almost $2 cheaper. To be exact, it's $1.71 cheaper.

Here is the link to view yellow onions being 69 cents each on Safeway's website.
Here is the link to view the cost of buying an 18-pack of Lucerne eggs.

The moral of this blog post is to make sure you're doing the math. Use a calculator, if you must. There's no shame in it.If you have a smartphone, you have a calculator.  Read the fine print on the tags to make sure that they are selling by the pound or if it is the price each. Supermarkets are going to try to squeeze every cent from you that they can. If we remain vigilant, we can keep those extra bucks in our pockets and not into the coffers of non-transparent supermarkets, especially going into the holidays.
I hope this post helps you out and makes you aware. These supermarkets are, quite literally, banking on the fact that most people are rushed and not going to look that closely at what they are doing. Well, that rat race is going to have to make do with one less rat. I always take my time to get the best prices that I possibly can and, when I find something shady, I'll let you guys all know about it.
Take care!

Isolation or Solitude? Our First Year

It was this time, exactly one year ago, that we made the choice to move out of the (literal) rat race from the outskirts (suburbs) of town and go fully rural on property that would allow us to do what we want, how we want and when we want.

We moved in January just as we experienced a flood that totaled my husband's car. It started snowing on Christmas, we got quite a bit, and it was white out for a week and, then it warmed up quickly and started raining. With all that melting, the runoff, coming off the Cascades, came right down the rivers, and where did we live? Yep. Right on the banks of the Cowlitz River.

We had just hauled our first load of stuff up here that morning and that night, we went through this.

This view is one that I will never tire of seeing each morning.

 
In April, we got a good 6-8 inches of snow in a late freak snowstorm. I've never seen it snow in April before. Not here anyway.

After the snow melted, spring hit. It was a glorious sight to behold.

With the coming of spring, this herd of elk migrated up through our front yard.

Summer. Beautiful summer!

Now, we full-swing into fall and the leaves are changing colors, and it looks like a painting. Of course, the camera cannot adequately show what I'm looking at, and I don't know how to edit photos.

So, the question is this: Is this called isolation or is it called solitude?

I don't mind not seeing people every single day. I don't mind not seeing an approaching car every day. I don't miss hearing other people on a daily basis.


I'll go with solitude, and it's sheer and utter bliss.