Dining Out

[TromboneAl]

How many are in your household? And, who does the deciding?

Just DW and me.   We're pretty good about deciding together.   "Let's have a chicken on Sunday..."

 

[Nords]

Nords.. are your teens THAT hungry?

All of them are that hungry all of the time (our familyroom is the neighborhood hangout) but some of them just aren't too situationally aware.

I've talked with the parents of one particularly relentless omnivore.  If he's willing to eat what I'm willing to compost, then I'm happy to sell it to them for one-tenth of what they must be spending on groceries.

I've kidded our daughter about her prediliction for turning $15 of fruit into a quart smoothies.  I suspect that I could run the fruit compost through the same blender and achieve much the same results...

 

[donheff]

Wow, Al has blown my mind. I just pull something out of the freezer (in a zip-lock bag) and toss it in water in the sink to thaw out in a couple of hours. Sometimes I will defrost in the microwave although that can be a little dangerous to quality.

Al - would sudden company throw your whole schedule to the dogs?

 

[TromboneAl]

Al - would sudden company throw your whole schedule to the dogs?

I don't know -- that's never happened.

Actually, it's pretty flexible.  Sometimes we forget to do the defrosting, or we have something else.  There's usually plenty of food available for a "scrounge" meal.

This is based on the belief that things taste better if defrosted slowly in fridge, but I don't know if that is true.

 

[Mary E.]

Al -- love your shopping list. I going to make a couple for my stores. Since I've retired, I've tried to keep a better stock of ingredients in the house. I sat down once and figured six weeks worth of meals (dinners only), listed the needed ingredients and created a shopping/inventory list. Just today I took inventory of all cupboards, freezers and refrigerator. I'll put the results into the inventory list and it will then tell me how much I need to buy to be at my predetermined inventory level. I then print a shopping list of what needs to be bought and head out to the store. I think I'll put an aisle number column in the list. Then I could sort by the the aisle number and it would all go faster!

One nice thing about this system is when the cornstarch box is empty, I have a new one on hand to open. That makes it worth the effort.

 

[scrinch]

Wow, all this organization and planning ahead blows my mind! I'd like to be that organized, but I also kind of enjoy walking down the aisles at the supermarket dreaming up what we'll have for dinner the coming week. Since I do most of the cooking when I'm home I pretty well know what's in the cupboard and what's not....at least for the common foods, so I can figure out what I need to buy on the spot. The closest I come to this level of organization is putting "installed on" dates on the compact fluorescent light bulbs. Not that I'm going to do anything with the results...I just want to see if they really last 7-10 years.

 

[Nords]

Wow, all this organization and planning ahead blows my mind!  I'd like to be that organized, but I also kind of enjoy walking down the aisles at the supermarket dreaming up what we'll have for dinner the coming week. 

If we did that with our teen then we'd need a second cart for all her impulse necessary purchases. We make her stick to the list instead of the latest marketing, which forces her to plan ahead and get ready for the trip before she makes it. And if she can't remember to put it on the list then it's not important to any of us.

I'm sure she'll thank us profusely someday after she moves out and has to make her own $#%^ing grocery lsits.

The closest I come to this level of organization is putting "installed on" dates on the compact fluorescent light bulbs. Not that I'm going to do anything with the results...I just want to see if they really last 7-10 years.

We have a drawer full of incandescent bulbs but we have yet to replace a CF.

It reminds me of the old commercial where two 10-year-olds are hanging out in the living room. One asks the other "Hey, how many kids does it take to change a light bulb?" and the other responds with a puzzled look on his face "I dunno, why would anyone want to change a light bulb?"

 

[ladelfina]

Hmm.. Cut-Throat.. ice to Alaska.. Now there's a proposition..! 

How about lotsa potatoes, onions, peppers, eggplant, zucchini, tomatoes, broccoli.. most kinds of veg should last a week at 60°. Maybe use those perforated bags to keep them "breathing". Cheeses tightly wrapped should do ok. Rice, canned beans, pasta.

You could even make up some chili or spaghetti sauce and freeze it in blocks before hand (in case your first day's catch isn't all you'd hoped  ) .. while it's defrosting it serves as "ice". Same with frozen vegetables or meats. Those should last on their own for the first coupla days if you have a good cooler and don't open it too much.

We had to leave our dog with a friend for a week and prepared a cooler with a frozen meat portion (2#) for each day. It wasn't 'til the last day or two that it all thawed out completely.

--
Just thought of a couple other things: small cans of condensed milk.. eggs will keep for a week at room temp if they haven't previously been refrigerated.. butter will be ok, too.

I also found this sailing site that talks about how to deal with little/no refrigeration:
http://www.sailingbreezes.com/sailing_breezes_current/articles/may03/refrigeration.htm

Have a great trip!

 

[saluki9]

ladelfina,


And then there is the lack of ice cubes for my Scotch Manhattans! :

And with that I would consider cancelling the trip. What's the point of fishing without Scotch?

 

[ladelfina]

Real men don't need ice cubes!

I see your dilemma; it's easier thinking about planning a trip from home. I guess you'll have to try and supplement with some of those freeze-dried backpacker's meals or Lipton Cup-A-Soup!

The silver lining is.. everything tastes way better when you're roughing it!

 

[justin]

Go over to costco and fill a big bag with ramen noodles.

 

[Sheryl]

Wow, Al has blown my mind. 

Yeah, me too. Al - If it works for you, more power to ya, but I hope I don't have that much free time in ER.

 

[audreyh1]

Once I discovered that I could defrost a steak in less than an hour if submerged underwater, my food wastage problems came to an end!!

Now any meat I buy goes directly into the freezer to I don't have to use it by a strict deadline.

[I don't believe the defrost slow in fridge tastes better idea - but you won't catch me using a microwave either - now that definitely ruins a nice piece of meat]

I love to grill outdoors - but that very much depends on the weather, plus my daily schedule which frankly isn't predictable enough to defrost the night before (and sometimes overnight in the fridge the meat is still half frozen).

I love the flexibility of being able to decide just a few hours ahead whether to do a cookout and what to cook out.

I still have to be careful about overbuying on vegetables.

Audrey

 

[ladelfina]

I have a combo stove with gas and electric burners. The electric ones aren't the open coil kind; they're sealed round slabs. I put some meat in a metal dish on top of one of these and the "heat" conducted from the whole metal chassis of the stove goes into defrosting it.

A similar "magic" device was the "Miracle Thaw!":
http://www.skepticfriends.org/forum/showquestion.asp?faq=2&fldAuto=24

Caveat: if you are concerned about even the tiniest risk of bacteria, this method is not for you. I've never had a problem. However, I don't use it with big blocky items like whole chickens or roasts; I defrost those in the fridge and do have to plan ahead with those.

 

[audreyh1]

I'm glad I was finally turned on to the defrost in water idea (my wise mother-in-law).  You see the specific heat of water (the amount of energy required to raise a 1 gram of water 1 degree C) is unusually high, much higher than anything else.  What this means is that water can absorb a great deal of heat (or cold) - certainly relative to air.  I knew about this amazing property of water, but it never occurred to me to use it for defrosting!

Audrey

 

[saluki9]

Well, the scotch is coming and we are hardy enough souls to drink it neat.

Not only that, but I've waded into enough rivers to know that most are cold enough to freeze your nuts off. Who's going to volunteer to put the flask in their waders?

 

[Nords]

Not only that, but I've waded into enough rivers to know that most are cold enough to freeze your nuts off.  Who's going to volunteer to put the flask in their waders?

Both problems might be solved simultaneously if you put the contents of the flask inside you (before you put yourself into the waders and the river) and throw the flask away.

No storage issues, no freezing sensations-- and best of all, you won't care!

If waders are so cold, how come fishing isn't done with drysuits or exposure suits? The diving & sailing industries don't let their customers freeze to death...