Ping Jere

On 2/17/08 9:48 PM, in article M9SdnfF32aBhbCXanZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@comcast.com, "Dr. Brat" wrote: SNIP

I like cooking - it is the clean up I don't like!

When restaurants figured out they could charge $8 for them.

Mmm, tiny new potatoes - washed, lightly boiled and served with butter. Delicious!

Only if deep fried! or in "home style mashed potatoes"

drool

Yeah, but when you're considering whether you can make those deviled eggs for cheaper than you can buy them, you need to take clean up into consideration - it's part of the cost to you of making them.

Elizabeth

I'll buy a roasted chicken in a heartbeat. But the store made devilled eggs are flavorless. Yep, I tried them twice.

I won't spend $5 a pound for limp over sized asparagus but I will for firm, thinner ones.

I found a brand of low sodium, fat free spaghetti sauce - tastes really good too. I'll pay twice the price of the Prego for it, but fortunately, it's not much more than the "name brands".

Some flavors of Krogers private selection brand ice cream are as good as if not better than Breyers or even Hagan Daz. Most of the beef at Krogers is tough unless stewed or simmered forever. Occassionally I'll treat myself to good beef from a small store that would bankrupt me if it were closer.

What kind of low sodium, fat free spaghetti sauce? I'm on a low sodium regimen too and it's a constant battle to find really good prepared foods. It's getting a little better, but not good enough.

Well, that's a whole different issue. No point in paying for something that's not any good. I won't buy a ready made cake, because I can make a better cake any time. But then we're no longer talking about cost.

Elizabeth

Cinnamon is a spice in a lot of mid-eastern and north African stews. It is even one of the 'eleven secret herbs and spices' in KFC. I roasted some chickens last week and basted them with sweet cider which had some cinnamon in it. Lovely, the sugar in the cider made the skin nice and dark and shiny. The broth I got I used in a stew the other night - it was great.

MargW

snipped

It would be a cold day in H**L before I did that....and it never gets THAT cold here!. Hellishly hot, yes!

Gill

I can't say I blame you. House cleaning is for me just a little better then having a tooth drilled.

OK, Peace, my friend! LOL.

I think I am getting very sensitive to the rapidly increasing price of food, both the raw materials, so to speak, and the pre-cooked things. I look at Soc Sec going up about 2%, and our retiree pensions attached to COLA going up about the same amount. Then I look at the increased price of food over the last year to 18 months. Eggs, doubled, chicken, almost doubled, flour etc etc. The cost of fresh veggies, which is basically all that I use, are astronomical here in Florida, where you think they would be cheap.

I WILL buy a rotisserie chicken, if the mood really moves. I have also been known to buy things for a pot-luck, too!!

I am just getting very Scrooge-like and cost-conscious in my old age. I prefer to call myself fiscally-responsible ( sorta joking).

My cleaning lady, though, is my extravagance, and worth everh penny!

Gill

That's what DH and I did for Valentine's Day. We're not the "going out to restaurants to celebrate" type, and we'd already been out to dinner with friends earlier that week, so I popped into the gourmet grocery and bought two filets and we ate like kings for a fraction of what a restaurant would have cost. (And it was DH's night to cook, which made it even better!)

sue

Last month we had a funeral at church for a beloved member, and the family's request was to have deviled eggs at the reception along with sandwiches and desserts. So, not knowing how many people to expect, the head of the "funeral ladies" organized several people to make deviled eggs.

Well, we had 17 dozen deviled eggs...they appeared to be *everywhere*! "We'll never use this many eggs," someone said, and someone else suggested we'd all be having egg salad for dinner that night with the leftovers.

The church was packed and EVERY ONE of the eggs was eaten! Several of us spent the entire reception just ferrying platters of refills from the tables to the kitchenette area, jostling through the crowd. By the end of the reception, it looked like locusts had swarmed through the room. Nary a crumb was left! The head Funeral Lady said, "I thought we had way too much, but we're running out...it's not enough." I told her it was

That's exactly the kind of funeral I think I want! Food and memories and stories and laughter immediately following! And sing Kate Campbell's song, "Funeral Food".

Sue

Apologies if I've posted this before but Quentin Crisp asserted that after four years the dust does not get any worse.

That sounds about right!!!

Quentin Crisp obviously did not live in the shadow of a coal-fired power plant!

Elizabeth