Ohhhh! One of the basic three food groups! I'm having iced coffee (another of the basic food groups).

Today's grocery run began roughly three-hours later than usual, following a 0915 eye-exam / glasses-fitting. That out of the way, I first stopped at Kroger, it being along my path home from the EyeCare Center. It is good that I did. Wowbutter is in stock again!!!!! I bought a jar, no questions asked. I debated holding off to see if Walmart has some, it being noticeably cheap there. Nope. I also bought Kroger's next-to-last jar of Sugar-Free Red Raspberry Preserves, assuming Wally World to be out. It is. Lastly at Kroger, Pink Lady apples were reasonably priced. I bought them.

The only thing Walmart was out of this run (besides two Kroger purchases) was Sugar-Free Apricot Preserves. Oops, and Distilled Water. I have enough of both to see me through the week. I bought Walmart's very last lettuce head.

Two checkout lanes were open. I picked the wrong lane. The customer immediately in front of me couldn't get her card to function properly. After much fiddling about, it was found that the swiping machine was at fault, not the card. Someone was brought in to "fix" the swiper. After more fiddling, the register was shut down. Another checkout lane was opened to take its place There I was, groceries set out on the conveyor belt ready to be scanned, fresh produce warming by the minute. As I get ready to refill my car, the fellow behind me starts putting his stuff in it. That situation was quickly corrected.

There was no consideration for me having been first in line, ready to check out. The folk behind me moved to the new register and the original second register while I was busy refilling my cart. Both those registers now had super long lines. In the end, I used self-checkout.

On a more positive note, the Service Engine Soon light came on during the drive home.

Another positive note, groceries were significantly over-budget today. I expect it. I needed Stivia sugar-substitute packets. That stuff ain't cheap! Still, by general consensus it's about the closest thing we have to a non-unhealthy sugar-free sweetener. Buying a 250-packet box, it'll last me a LONG time.

Pancakes and fruit punch a hardy meal.

Adventures in grocery shopping:

This week's run was largely successful. I again bought apples and distilled water at Kroger. I also bought SF Strawberry Pres there, though as it turned out Walmart had plenty in stock, cheaper. No Garlic Basil dressing, sad to say. Thankfully, I've enough in my current bottle to see me through the week. No SF Apricot Preserves either. I might have enough to last the week. Bought the very last large tub of Walmart house-brand Old Fashion Oats. I suspect it hadn't sold because the tub was badly dented. I goofed and forgot to add eggs to the list, so will run out Friday. Every small tub of Cherub tomatoes contained tomatoes obviously unfit to eat. Luckily, the large tubs looked much refresher. That's what I bought. With luck it might last me two weeks.

No fancy meals to report. I abandoned those at the start of the pandemic. I might or might not eat at least one restaurant holiday meal with my brother.

Munching on some brända mandlar I bought at a Christmas fair

Fruit Punch and a bowl a BBQ flavored chips, a hardy meal.

It's T-day in the U.S.A.

This marks the first time I have eaten in a restaurant since the start of the pandemic. Can't say that I miss the experience, but figured I'd give it a go to celebrate the holiday with my brother.

Not being overly picky as to where we ate, I left the choice of eateries to bro. He settled on an all-you-can-eat US-style buffet, located in a building that for decades housed a now-out-of-business steakhouse restaurant I occasionally lunched at back in my restaurant days. (I was never overly fond of it, but other members of my clan were, back when there were other members of my clan.) That's what he wanted. That's what we did.

It must be said that this is our first miserable day here in ages, weather wise. Cold and rainy. I dressed suitable for the occasion; jeans, sweatshirt, thick socks, medium toboggan, light jacket, umbrella. Bro wanted to be there at 1000, assuming a 1030 opening, in case a long line began to develop. He was sort of right. Arriving at roughly 1000, a long line had already developed. Much longer and sooner than in years past, according to bro. There was nothing for it but to immediately leave the car and get in line (rather than sit in the car awhile, as we had hoped to do).

Problem one: it got colder by the minute, colder than my clothes could protect me from. Problem two: bro erred on the buffet's opening time, which in reality was 1100. Standing an hour outside in cold and rain is not a pleasant experience, especially as prone to becoming ill as I tend to be these days.

As to the meal itself, I pigged out, as I tend to do on these occasions. Turkey, bashed potatoes, dressing, cranberry sauce, green beans, biscuit. The usual suspects. What's more, I went up for seconds, the one difference being getting baked beans rather than green beans. There were no standouts, but everything was good.

An aside. Both of us got our turkey from the carver first time round. Second time, I again got mine from the carver. He got his second helping from one of the buffet's regular meat bins, as he made a point of telling me. Why? He doesn't like "greasy" meat. This tickled me, reminding me that he gets a number of his eating preferences from our mom. She would not tolerate the least amount of moisture/juice in her meat. To her, it was all "grease" and must be avoided. Dry and well done, bordering on charred, was her thing. It's how I was raised. However, I'd barely left the nest before developing a taste for juicy, less well done meats.

Nice to see you back on the restaurant circuit again, Decrepit - even if rare. Glad you had a pretty good TG feed.

Mrs Acadian has escaped the US winter to spend some weeks with the grandkids in Perth, Australia where it is a delightful 100 degrees F. For my TG, I got a turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce & mayo sub and baked a pumpkin pie the day before. Then enjoyed some of both on TG with a couple days of leftovers to enjoy.

I raise my cup to Acadian as I sit down to the best breakfast of the year so far, pumpkin pie and coffee!

The sort of place D describes sounds like Golden Corral, except maybe a little classier. Used to love that all-you-can-eat style buffet when I was pregnant years ago, especially.

I haven't been to a restaurant until this past summer. Place was packed, and not one mask in sight. But yeah, those past two years it was weird not going out at least once a month to eat. Once in a while we gotta treat ourselves.

You beat me to it, my friend! I'm just now sitting down with the same and tipping my cup to you as well.

You mean - treat to not having to do the dishes afterwards?
We finally got a dishwasher!! Now there's a treat.

Coffee and tomato soup for breakfast.

Biting into last night's hardboiled egg, I noticed something odd. Odd to me at least. I've certainly not noticed it before. The egg contained two distinct yellow balls. Those balls abutted at one small point, as if they had not yet quite attained full individuality Chicken twins in the making, I assume, were that possible in these circumstances.

On a less wholesome food-related note, I sabotaged myself. Last Monday, noticing that free strawberry pricing has become painfully high, I elected to buy a much more reasonably priced 4lb bag of frozen strawberries. My plan was to use up my then-current tub of fresh strawberries, then fill that tub (kept in the refrigerator) with frozen berries from the freezer bag. They'd have an entire day to defrost on their own before use in the following day's oatmeal/fruit breakfast. This indeed came to pass.

Next morning, open the reefer door. I was greeted with a large puddle of red liquid, escaped from breathing holes in the strawberry tub. A mess! Not wanting to delay breakfast, I ignored the puddle and continued on as normal.

Next discovery: Those defrosted strawberries were mushy and tasted lousy. They went into the trash. I grabbed three strawberries from the freezer bag and defrosted them via micro. Mushy and didn't taste very good, but better than the overnight reefer defrost. I used them. Breakfast wasn't as tasty as normal, but the bowl's other ingredients made it edible.

Later that day, I tackled the refrigerator puddle. This ended up being a rather drawn-out affair, far more so than anticipated. In the process, the reefer compartment became room temperature. It also shut itself off. When at last able to shut the door, it did not turn itself back on. Quite some time past ere a periodic reefer check at last heard the welcome sound of cooling.

Fast forward to next morning's breakfast. My fresh blackberries, the tastiest tub of blackberries I've gotten my hands on in quite a while, were mushy and tasteless. Those frozen strawberries had not improved. Thankfully. frozen peach slices from the freezer, and my bananas, were little if any compromised. Still, the combo of yucky strawberries and blackberries made breakfast a chore rather than a pleasure.

Today was the last time I had to endure those ruined fruits, fasting tomorrow (Monday) morning in preparation for bloodwork in conjunction with a medical appointment. Monday being errand day, I'll replenish groceries on the way home from my appointment. You can bet I'll stick with fresh strawberries from now on, high cost or no high cost.

I had a sandwich and some water.

A big salad and some iced coffee.

Pizza and breadsticks

Soon as I finished putting away today's groceries, I test-tasted another of those blueberries from the tub that had endured excess warm temps for an extended period. It was so obnoxious I couldn't chew it. The remaining contents of the tub were scattered across the front lawn. That craptastic large bag of frozen strawberries was scattered beneath the backyard weed tree. I made periodic checks to see if any birds or other critters were taking advantage of my rancid benevolence. Nope. Cold as it is, all birds have likely already migrated. If they hadn't before today, one taste of those berries would probably convince them to head south posthaste.

Xmas day lunch with bro is up in the air. At the moment, it's predicted to be super cold all day. Temps never rise above the 20s. I don't know that I dare expose myself to that, especially considering there will likely be a long outside line. I'll keep abreast of developments and not make a final decision until I must.

Coffee and birthday cake, leftover lasagna to follow. The Grits family has been eating like Nords for over a week. There will soon be a reckoning, but not today!

Breakfast sandwich, sausage and coffee.

Had a bit of a scare at Walmart this Monday. At casual glance, there looked to not a single gallon of milk in the store. I finally spotted three gallon-containers of house-brand skim at the very back of the lowest rack in one compartment. So far back that I almost gave up getting one on my own. But I daren't leave to search for assistance in case some longer-armed individual grabbed those gallons during my hopefully-brief absence. I at last managed to grab hold of one container, and greedily placed it in my cart. Had the expiration date been further out I might have grabbed a second gallon. I hope I don't come to regret leaving it behind.

Another scare; the price of eggs. Yikes!

To the plus, I don't believe any item on my list was out of stock, Wowbutter excepted. But I get that at Kroger anyway. It's priced way higher there, but at least it's available. I also got Sugar-Free Blackberry Preserves at Kroger, another item Walmart hasn't stocked in ages.


As to food in general, if the holiday meal I was unexpectedly treated to this past Xmas day is any indication, it looks as if my days of rare overindulgence are behind me. I wasn't able to take a dump for over a week afterward! That despite taking Miralax daily as recommended by my Primary Care Physician office. Even now I am not quite back to normal.

Wow, your body must have REALLY liked your Christmas meal since it didn't want to let it go.

Decrepit's head sure isn't decrepit; his stories are always so colorful!


And yeah, I can agree on the price of eggs!

I know it isn't funny; but I couldn't help laughing at your "after Christmas meal indulgence" dilemma, lol. Poor thing! My dad used to eat some mixture of cereals that included some kind of bran that always helped him; and if it didn't he would drink a small glass of prune juice.

Hope you get feeling back to yourself soon!

The Swiss are noted for their variety of fruit liqueurs, and Pflumli, the plum one, is what I always think of as “prune juice”. I’m certain it’s good for you.

There is a variety of plum preserve -Aachener Pflumli - which is not exactly the same thing. Be careful when ordering.

Adventures in Grocery Shopping:

With road icing (yum!) forecast for yesterday late morning/early yesterday afternoon, and this being a Kroger/Walmart run, my first two-store grocery run in three weeks, I decided to leave home earlier than usual. Which meant braving sub-freezing temps. (To be fair, it never rose above freezing here, but it did climb out of the twenties for a while during the afternoon.) I dressed ultra warm, so didn't suffer in that regard. Front and rear windshields were caked (yum!) in ice (meh), a potential setback. Luckily, it proved quick & easy to scrape off. I encountered nothing hazardous on the road.

The one item on my Kroger list was Wowbutter, Walmart no longer stocking it. While there, I decided to play it safe and get a gallon of Distilled Water for my CPAP machine, it being only negligibly cheaper at WallyWorld. I also spotted 2lb bags of Fuji apples for $5.99, a deal too good to resist.

To the best of my recollection, the rest of my list was available at WM. I sort of wish I'd bought an extra tub of "fresh" blueberries. The small tub I bought likely won't last the week. I have a day or two of b-berries left in the large tub bought last week, but those are barely fit to eat (and were when I bought them). Their milk supply was low, but not dangerously so.

Lo and behold, my January food expenditure came in slightly under budget!!!!!!! Admittedly, I used of a portion of 2023's SS and Military Retiree pay COLAs to bump it up from $200 to $220. (If memory serves, I spent roughly $214.)

Brrrr! We enjoy blueberries also and find the fresh ones a bit pricey most of the time and with a short lifespan. Therefore we normally get a 3 pound bag of frozen and keep a small container of thawed ones in the fridge. Prices vary here from $8 - $12 with Walmart generally boasting the best price for them.

I'm chewing on some Juicy Fruit gum at the moment, deducing its flavor to a mix of artificial banana and coconut.

I need to give frozen b-berries another chance. I suspect I don't know the proper way to thaw them out. Pointers are appreciated.

(I actually have a bag of them in the freezer now. My worry is that these were bought before my refrigerator SNAFU. Some frozen foods didn't survive it well. Others, like frozen peach sliders, weren't phased. Nothing seems to bother those.)

I just shake some out of the bag into a 1 or 2 cup plastic container with a lid. They thaw on the counter in an hour or two but normally I'm ahead of things enough that I can just stick in the fridge to thaw overnight. They seem to keep okay in the fridge for days with no problem. They'll never be mistaken for fresh but I find them great for yogurt, cereal, oatmeal.

Pizza!

Mmmm! Blueberry and anchovie….

Anchovie??


Nonononno - more like fillet of beef and béarnaise

Just finished eating some garlic parmesan nuggets and now snacking on some sunflower seeds.

Dark Reaper that sounds good.

Tonight I had what I like to call "middle age" food for dinner. Soybeans and veggies immersed in Bragg's Amino Acids. Town House crackers on the side. Healthiest food I've eaten all week.

Had steak and green beans tonight!

Just had a fake meat burger, topped with cheddar, red onion and tomato, alongside some oven-roasted potatoes, seasoned with salt, lots of freshly ground black pepper, thyme and rosemary. For a quick and "cheap" (these days I use the term "cheap" in the relative sense) meal it was surprisingly tasty, if not exactly the healthiest. Maybe tomorrow I'll try to muster up the energy to cook something with a heavy vegetable component, though!

Speaking of a "heavy vegetable component", I've added several beans to my salad-suppers, both of which are noted as containing high nutritive value; Chickpeas and Lentils. Thankfully, both are available super cheap at Wally World. I also auditioned Black Beans, also noted for its nutritive qualities. I decided not to add them to my suppers, but now eat them as a standalone for some lunches, mixed with a small amount of Spicy Red Wickles. A smallish serving is quite filling.

I can't say that adding beans has improved the flavor of my salad-suppers but, so long as I can tolerate what I eat, flavor takes a backseat to potential health benefits. (My ideal is a meal both flavorful and wholly nutritious. Alas, budgeting limitations dictate that compromises must be made.)

Another food experiment. Salmon in my salad-suppers rather than tuna. I don't know that I'll stick it out, what with the cost difference and my preferring the taste of well-drained light-chunk tuna. But tuna's mercury content has worried me for some time. To remove it from, or at least reduce its presence in, my diet would be a good thing.

However much I succeed in converting to a wholly nutritious diet, I am not giving up milk. It's one guilty pleasure I will not do without.

Speaking of salad-suppers, today's was yummy. Part of that is due to a freshly chopped head of lettuce. Also, I lucked out and mixed the perfect proportions of EEVO, Red Wickles, and Yellow mustard into a dressing that was flavorful but complemented the salad rather than overpower it. I didn't even miss Cherub Tomatoes, which I forgot to buy during this week's grocery run.

Canned salmon instead of tuna - I'll have to try that.

Pizza rolls and a glass of water for dinner.

An interesting development.

In my seldom-implemented, never-ending quest to remove junk foods from my diet, I decided to dispense with the Sugar-Free preserves I've blended into my daily Old Fashion Oatmeal with fresh/frozen fruit breakfasts from the getgo, substituting a thin pat of butter (from grass-fed cows) in its sted. Though I acclimated myself to the change to an extent, it must be admitted that the meal was now less enjoyable. Day before yesterday, I restored the SF preserves. To my surprise, the meal then tasted artificial and no better than it did without those preservers. Yesterday I did without preserves again. It tasted neither better nor worse than without them. Today, sans preserves, breakfast was surprisingly tasty. About as good as it used to taste with SF preserves. The lesson, I think, is that I need to allow sufficient time for the taste of added junk food to dissipate before reevaluating a meal's tastiness. In any case, I now suspect my experiment will end in success.

Lest ye think I'm becoming too Holier-than-thou in regard to my diet, I have not stopped adding SF preserves to my Wowbutter sammich lunches, which I eat three or four times a week. Wowbutter itself is not a "health food" though it's not ultra unhealthy (so far as I know). I sometimes ponder jettisoning it, but truth to tell can't think of anything I'd enjoy half so much that is as tasty, non-migraine triggering, economical, and simple/quick to prepare.

I found the secret to the Freddy's and Brum's fry dipping sauce!

It was my youngest sibling's 25th birthday on Friday. They wanted to go out to the local Italian restaurant and I was asked to make a cross between a cake and a cannoli. So I found this recipe for a cannoli cake. Omg it was amazing. If you like tres leches and cannolis, I say go for it!

The popped corn returns!

Just finished some fruit punch and chicken wings.

A pina colada and some dark chocolate kisses.

Since jettisoning Sweet-and-Low for an Erythritol/Stevia artificial sweetener, cutting out skim milk in favor of whole milk, removing sugar-free preserves from my morning oatmeal-and-fruit breakfast boil and using a pat of real butter (from grass-fed cows) instead, I've lost over five pounds, putting my weight at 135, exactly where I like to be nowadays. My 33-inch waist pants, which used to fit a bit too snuggly, are now comfortably loose. I don't think the change from tuna to salmon has anything to do with it. If anything, tuna is the more nutritious of the two. Except for its mercury content, which is why I ditched it.

I'm also back to taking somewhat-daily exercise walks, which might also come into play. But that alone, in years past, seldom dropped me below 140.

Do I feel better at the (slightly) lower weight? During those infrequent periods when I'm at my meager best, yes, I think so. It's not a great improvement by any means. But every little bit helps.

In an ideal world, I'd like to be circa 128lb with a 27/28-inch waist again. But in reality, I only ever achieved that by doing a good bit of strenuous exercise, much of which is now beyond my capacity. Such is life.

Speaking of salmon, those spine-column bones still creep me out. Very off-putting. And the black skin. I've done the research and know they are perfectly safe to eat. At first I attempted to remove the spine-bones. Now I just squash 'em up while preparing the salmon for use in my salads.

Had meatloaf and some Jack Danels beverages for dinner.

Urgh; I hope you don't eat these two together!!!!! *mALX waits for answer while poised over toilet bowl ... *





Mmmmm!!!




Ooh, I LOVE Lentils!

Have you ever tried "Shelled Edamame?" It is like baby soy beans; meaning it is extremely high in protein and very low in carbs = and utterly delish. You can add them to any meat you are cooking; and casseroles; etc. to add an amazing flavor and very healthy boost to whatever you are cooking.








MMMMMMMM!!!!!








Not fond of dark chocolate; but LOVE Pina Coladas!








Okay, I am now officially grossed out, urgh; lol.









MMMMMMMMM!!! I LOVE meatloaf! Reading this thread makes me hungry, lol.