Tuesday, June 2, 2020

Checking the Stores in The Kitchen

No, I have not catalogued all the food. All I need to do is check what I have that is on sale each week. I know I should write it all down, but until there is light in there, I am not much inspired.

Piggly Wiggly had StarKist Chunk Light Tuna for $0.77 +10%. So, it is about $0.85.  That is not the lowest I have ever seen it, but who knows what it will be going forward. I bought 4 cans last week and had another six cans with 2023 from shopping other times.

Five cans on my shelf had 2023 as the use by date. These I found today at the store had 2024. Since I came into a bit of cash I was not expecting, I bought 20 cans. Tommy helped, too, of course. Before January 2024, I will have finished these if I buy no others. January 2024 is 42 months from now. So, if I find tuna  cheaper, I still will not have too much. StarKist Light Chunk is the only tuna I will eat.

When I find a better price for SK, if I do, I will buy those, too. I feel safe from mercury when I eat Chunk Light as it has the lowest level of mercury. Plus, since Fukashima, I worry about radiation. I can eat tuna twice a week, but I won't.

Shopping is much more than putting food into the cart and paying for it! While getting 20 cans of tuna, I had to check each one for dents. Last week, I bought a dented can. I did eat that one first! Then, once I bring it home, I want to label each can. So, I get out a magic marker and write "24" on the top and on the very front, very deliberately writing very neatly, using numbers as taught to children, nothing swirly or cutesy. This is a lot of handling of cans that are not too heavy. Over time, my hands and wrists hurt!

After checking for dents in the cans as I got them off the shelves, I let three slip through. The dents I rejected were on the sides of the cans. The dents that slipped through were dents on the bottom edge of the can! So, I wrote "dent" on those.  Dented cans will be eaten first.

I bought:
3 12-packs of Caffeine-Free Coke on sale.
20 6-oz cans Starkist Chunk Light Tuna--$0.85
12 oz can Hormel Roast Beef and Gravy $3.44
12 oz. can  Armour Roast Beef and Gravy $4.31
24 0z. jar Ragu Spaghetti $1.71
log of Kaukauna Port Wine Cheese $3.73
8 oz. Kraft Medium cheddar $3.30
I Can't Believe It's Not Butter $3.10
cookies $.24
Wheat Thins--Hint of Salt
Special K Red Berries bogo $4.62 for 2
Olivio Spread
Celery Seed
1 Beefsteak Tomato $2.09

Since this was a little extra money, I bought things I normally would not--like celery seeds. Special K Red Berries is too expensive unless it is on sale, bogo today. I will eat this too fast. It will be a snack at night, not breakfast.

I have plenty of Cokes, so should not have bought these right now at this price. Oh well. I bought two brands of roast beef and gravy to see which was best. I always buy Hormel, so I thought I would try the Armour and see if it was worth the extra cost. Probably not!

We certainly do not need any more vegetables or fruit, but the tomato was different.

One night, we are going to have a snack-y dinner, and the Port Wine cheese and Wheat Thins are part of that. Vegetables and fruit will round that out with a bit of chicken salad. The thought makes me happy. White/green grapes are going to be $.99 starting tomorrow, Wednesday.

I need to quit eating real butter according to the doctor, so I Can't Believe It's Not Butter was the best I can find. Oh, bought Olivio, too.

Dinner tonight: Romaine and tomato salad with squash, carrots, zucchini, Grated cheese for me, chicken on top for both, corn on the cob.

Questions: What is the best Heart Healthy "butter" have you found? I forgot the other questions.



18 comments:

  1. You have me craving Kakauna Cheese now, I mean right now. Well, on that I am SOL ("sadly" out of luck). It's been a long time since I had any good old Kakauna. Two more days until shopping. It will be on the list. And some plain Trisquits (sp?) crackers. A snacky dinner sounds nice and cool for one night. Maybe some thin sliced cold roast beef would be good to have too. I may see if they have any kind of honey dew melons in yet that aren't too expensive. I am getting tired of most of the hot dinners I cook, and I am not comfortable yet getting carry out food. My husband's and my resistance is wearing down about the no carry out--we are both craving a certain brand of St Louis Pizza that we haven't had in so long.

    Grapes always look so good to me in the store. I have bought them several times, different types, and even though they taste good they make my lips feel tingly and itchy and my throat feels funny when I eat them. I wonder what they put on them now days that I am allergic to.

    When I was a kid my friends and I would sit in the shade in my Mom and Dad's back yard and gather bunches of grapes right off the vine and sit around and eat them, spitting out the seeds and being careful of what we called sweat bees that fought us for the grapes and would sting. Our two dogs ate grapes with us, like they were the best thing they ever had. According to what I hear now, I am surprised that any of us survived, kids or the two dogs, as they now say grapes are poison for dogs, and anything that was on those grapes from the vine was still on there as we ate them faster than a flock of jaybirds.

    We just eat regular butter here. I really don't care for the taste of margarine, and my husband nor I like the flavor of olive oil. My husband's cholesterol is real good, mine is slightly elevated, but not bad.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Maybe you could give the grapes a good dousing in vinegar to see if whatever is making your lips tingle will wash away and make them easier to eat. I would not like that.

      We don't get much carryout except for one Domino's pizza and one KFC.

      The scuppernong in my yard made for good eating while in the yard, but the wasps fought me for them.

      I did eat regular butter; now I cannot.

      I can stay here for a year and not suffer!

      Delete
  2. I admire your careful consideration when shopping. I admit I am a bad shopper. I envy your skills.
    My favorite butter is some Ireland Kerry Gold It is probably $$ but dammit it tastes so much better than other butters.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Urspo,
      I saw a chance and needed to make sure of everything, hence my consideration.

      It is good, but I am trying to lower cholesterol. So--no butter.

      Delete
    2. Ur-spo... MMMmmm .Kerry Gold butter! Yum.

      Practical Parsimony - one portion of cholesterol is dangerous and that's triglycerides. Total cholesterol is really not telling of good or bad health.

      Check out the book "Fat and Cholesterol Don’t Cause Heart Attacks and Statins Are Not The Solution." Or "Cholesterol Clarity: What the HDL is Wrong With My Numbers?"

      Delete
    3. Alice,
      I am going to buy that from Amazon. Thanks.

      Delete
    4. Great! You'll be back to real butter in no time! I promise it's better for your heart than the processed stuff you're buying.

      Delete
    5. Alice,
      I was upset at the palm oil and canola oil in some of the stuff I was finding. Thanks.

      Delete
  3. That is a good tip to use up the dented canned food first, we would do the same thing here to avoid it going bad or something similar.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Belinda,
      I always try to do that to avoid a problem. Thanks.

      Delete
  4. Daughter 4 uses Earth Balance Avocado spread
    Son 2 uses I Can't believe it's not butter
    I used Smart Balance but it didn't help, eating oatmeal once a day did that trick.

    I do the same with my canned goods, dates, first in first out and dented gets ate first.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Chef,
      I did not find anything but I cant believe its not butter and the Olivio with olive oil. At one time, I ate oatmeal every day. I eat it some days, but should eat it every day with cinnamon. Thanks.

      Delete
  5. That's a good idea to put the expiration date on each can where it is big enough to see. I will definitely suggest that to hubby!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. COL,
      It is so easy to use a Sharpie when things are put on the shelf. I only had 20 cans to label instead of moving things many more times over time.

      Delete
  6. I scored big time when visiting my cousin two nights ago. Brought home three shopping bags full of beef liver. They kill a beef once or twice a year. They won't eat it and neither will their adult children and their families. I love it and we've been trying to have it once a week lately.

    I do not believe highly processed things are healthy, so I use only real butter. I trust cows more than chemists. When cooking, I mostly use bacon grease.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Alice,
      I love calf liver! My ex would not eat it. I told the children it was steak. They loved it. I would take it to my mother when we went to Memphis. She was prepared and had the onions and gravy ready. My children went crazy over it. My mother was overworked anyway and was worried about what to cook for him. I told her he could eat peanut butter and jelly sandwich. She was a little shocked. I said he won't eat what is for dinner, so we are not cooking more for him. He ate it gladly so I would not press him to eat liver. All the people in the church gave us frozen liver.

      Well, I would rather have butter, but do not want to have a heart attack, so I cut out real butter. Yes, I will cook in bacon grease...not going to kill me.

      Delete

Halloween Decorations

 Saturday night, we started decorating for Halloween. I found the ghosts to hang from the dogwood tree. They were wadded and wrinkled, so th...