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Post by philagardener on Sept 28, 2017 18:14:13 GMT -5
I swear sometimes I wonder if I am from another planet or something. I am by nature an opportunist and a cheap skate. I will take any opportunity to acquire legitimately free stuff of any kind, food or otherwise, as long as it is practical and mostly legal to do so, and is useful and of decent quality and even if I do not necessarily need it. Funny, that's exactly how I feel! |
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Post by steev on Sept 28, 2017 18:59:03 GMT -5
Once, after supper, my land-lady and I went to a meeting re construction on our local medical facility; there was a nice spread of snacks and munchies; when she saw me loading up a plate, she asked "How can you be hungry?" My reply: "It's not about hunger; it's about free food; the ability to eat when there is food is a survival characteristic."
Although I am notoriously humble, I must modestly admit to being an Olympic Class scrounge and pack-rat. Freeconomics Rule!
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Post by steev on Sept 29, 2017 0:11:23 GMT -5
Damn right! Input without output equals net gain; we didn't survive all these millennia by thinking we had to pay tit-for-tat for everything. Life is tough enough without worrying about running a tab.
It's difficult to work it out, when you don't live in a stable/limited community, where you can take what you need and give what you can, in mutual respect with the other members of your community (rather like being in a family).
I'll go out on a limb here, and say I think modern life/economics suck, so far as they impact human life.
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Post by jocelyn on Sept 29, 2017 11:19:13 GMT -5
Yah, I like free food too, grin. I have a mental map of all the nut bearing trees and fruit bushes on public land around here......... Hash, Walt, yup, comfort food, grin. Kids are here today, till Sunday, took our daughter out to eat at our raspberry patch, pregnant ladies need their vitamins, after all  free for the picking, self sustaining patch, had it for 30 years, perhaps. Had walnut butter on toast this morning, these ones from the store, ours not for a month yet. We'll eat a lot of walnut butter all winter, Kid can't eat peanuts, and I'm going to start them a few walnut trees for their house. Walnuts, not quite free, have to start the seednut, and mow around it, but awfull close to free, grin |
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Post by steev on Sept 29, 2017 20:47:38 GMT -5
You know how grandmothers are great cooks? Well, my Granny proved the rule, being the exception; indifferent to culinary arts, she'd make chuck-roast and veggies in her electric fry-pan, letting things get "over-caramelized"; it was bleak. However, next day she'd grind the remains of the roast for hash, her sole masterpiece! Did I learn the secret? No more than how Grandad made biscuits or dumplings. Sigh.
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Post by prairiegardens on Oct 1, 2017 10:31:56 GMT -5
It's a bit odd thinking of the propaganda of dads never being in the kitchen years ago, in our family rumour had it that dad taught mother how to cook, although by the time I came along all he ever made was jams and jellies. To give a nod to a comment in another thread though, I have to wonder if the legends of people being great cooks didn't at least partly rest on the ingredients, fresh home raised veggies and fruit and in our case, most of the meat and all of the milk and cream and butter also.
It's ironic looking back that we bought bread (although I never did find a recipe for Hovis bread, looked for years and nothing matched what we had bought regularly, small golden -based on wheat germ probably - dense fine grained oval loaves, very thinly sliced based and scrumptious toasted with homemade butter and jam) And of all things, canned spaghetti! lol. It was astonishing to me to learn later how easy it was to make the real thing and to this day don't understand why they bought it from time to time. Possibly because it was so totally alien to the real thing and handy on days the farm was particularly demanding of time and energy. I only remember one cookbook though and perhaps it had nothing to say about pasta, I think pasta came later into cookbooks and perhaps the dried pasta wasn't readily available, who knows. I was certainly nearly 20 the first time I saw a green pepper in a grocery store, or yoghurt. What the cookbook did have was Christmas cake recipes though, she made both light and dark every year. One of my earliest memories is standing on a chair and mixing the dried fruit with flour so it wouldn't all sink to the bottom when baked.
It makes it that more ironic that people don't cook when there is such an abundance of choices as to what TO cook, or perhaps that's at least part of the problem? Too many choices leads to paralysis and a quick trip to the local diner, fast food place or a frozen pizza it seems.
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Post by mskrieger on Oct 2, 2017 10:56:48 GMT -5
Just read an article in the paper about a local food pantry stocking unfamiliar veggies--they took a clue from farmers markets and started printing out recipe cards to go with each vegetable. Simple recipes because folks might not have ingredients other than what they're picking up at the pantry. Once people learned how to roast rutabagas, those things flew off the shelves. Apparently all it took was a little respectful education.
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Post by oldmobie on Oct 29, 2017 21:11:18 GMT -5
Lactofermentation... Have you ever tried it? If so, what did you think? I've tried it now. I chopped up my swiss chard and put it in a big ol' kosher dill jar. Since answering before, I found cheap airlocks and matching grommets online, and ordered two of each. I drilled a hole in the lid and installed it just like someone else posted here. (I think it was toomanyirons .) I let it ferment eight days, then put on an undrilled lid and put it in the fridge. Kinda salty. Not quite sauerkraut, in pretty much the same way swiss chard isn't quite cabbage. But edible. Made sort of a salad with some of it and some baked chicken.  Worked so well, I'm trying it now with my peppers.  |
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Post by steev on Oct 30, 2017 1:13:39 GMT -5
Excellent; going where one hasn't gone before; can't say I'm much interested in chard stems, though; even fresh, I think they're kind of meh. Beet stems I like, though. No accounting for taste, I suppose.
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Post by oldmobie on Oct 30, 2017 3:21:34 GMT -5
Excellent; going where one hasn't gone before; can't say I'm much interested in chard stems, though; even fresh, I think they're kind of meh. Beet stems I like, though. No accounting for taste, I suppose. True, the stems are nothing to get excited about, beyond the fact that I ate one and didn't get sick or die. It would seem that in my inexperience, I still encouraged the bacteria that benefit me by discouraging the ones that would harm me. It works as a proof of concept, but I hope to learn to make tastier foods with it in the future. |
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Post by philagardener on Oct 30, 2017 17:45:11 GMT -5
Good experimentation! I'd be a little cautious with the metal lid, especially if you drilled a hole in it, if you don't leave much head space. It is better if the brine doesn't come into contact with metal. (You seem to have packed a peck of pickled peppers in there, oldmobie !) |
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Post by paquebot on Oct 30, 2017 22:16:26 GMT -5
Good experimentation! I'd be a little cautious with the metal lid, especially if you drilled a hole in it, if you don't leave much head space. It is better if the brine doesn't come into contact with metal. That looks like a food-grade cap on the jar. If so, it would be lined, not bare metal. Martin |
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Post by oldmobie on Oct 31, 2017 4:39:23 GMT -5
Good experimentation! I'd be a little cautious with the metal lid, especially if you drilled a hole in it, if you don't leave much head space. It is better if the brine doesn't come into contact with metal. That looks like a food-grade cap on the jar. If so, it would be lined, not bare metal. Martin It's the lid that came with one of the kosher dill jars. The finished surface should tolerate acidity and salt. I'm watching for rust / degradation. Also watching for a plastic lid that fits. I guess more head space would be a good idea. |
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Post by philagardener on Oct 31, 2017 5:18:55 GMT -5
Many mayonnaise jars have plastic lids that match the threads on preserving jars. Drilling a hole in that for your airlock would not expose bare metal.
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Post by paquebot on Oct 31, 2017 18:04:01 GMT -5
Many mayonnaise jars have plastic lids that match the threads on preserving jars. Drilling a hole in that for your airlock would not expose bare metal. No mayo lid would have fit the jar that those kosher dills came in. In fact, I've never seen a plastic lid that was not CT. Only metal ones are lug thread. Martin |
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free for the picking, self sustaining patch, had it for 30 years, perhaps. Had walnut butter on toast this morning, these ones from the store, ours not for a month yet. We'll eat a lot of walnut butter all winter, Kid can't eat peanuts, and I'm going to start them a few walnut trees for their house. Walnuts, not quite free, have to start the seednut, and mow around it, but awfull close to free, grin
