Once more into the kitchen ...

I never made it to the grocery store last weekend, so I've been mostly living on the stored bounty of the freezer for a while.

Today, I made up for it with three grocery-shopping excursions: first south to Safeway, mostly for assorted veggies (mushrooms, peppers, tomatoes -- which are hideously expensive at present -- summer squash, carrots, potatoes; also a bunch of bananas) and a big bag of frozen chicken parts, then north to Trader Joe's for yogurt, soup, frozen treats and a few more veggies, then Safeway again for what I'd forgotten or couldn't carry the first time: beans (three kinds, dried), an avocado, ice-cream, chilli peppers, gnocchi and pesto sauce, and a few more spices. The plan is to make a batch of chicken casserole tonight (and try not to create chaos in the process), and soak a mixed selection of beans overnight to go in a bean, mushroom and vegetable stew tomorrow, three-quarters of each batch to be frozen for future reference. If I'm still upright after the stewing tonight, there might be cookies, or perhaps gingerbread.


After all that, I forgot the condensed mushroom soup for the chicken casserole, so I'll have to use the last of the carton of Trader Joe's butternut squash soup instead.

Stew update

Well, that ended up with more stew than I expected, but it didn't make a mess. Three medium/small potatoes, one long skinny carrot, four mushrooms, one small zucchini and one yellow squash, about a quarter each of a large red and a large green bell pepper; three-quarters of a largish yellow onion, three large chicken breasts and the last two tenderloins from the previous bag. Liquid was about a cup of soup, beaten up with a similar amount of water and random spices (paprika, black pepper, powdered oregano, basil, and warmed in the microwave. Chicken defrosted, then cut into bite-sized bits and pre-fried with the chopped onion. Then I decided it wasn't all going to fit in the 2.5 quart dish, so I quickly rescued the next-smallest one from the dishwasher, washed it, and used that for most of the meat/onions with a few veggies and a bit of the liquid. It all went in the oven at what the dial said was 300 and my thermometer said was more like 375, and was nicely done after about an hour. Yield, six tasty servings. Unfortunately, I'm now short of containers for the next batch, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Oatmeal-raisin cookies, take 3

This is the most successful attempt yet; this time I followed the recipe exactly, with actual brown sugar and baking soda, while previously I'd been using baking powder and granulated sugar (the second time around with added molasses). I also had two identical trays, side by side in an oven I'd asked for 275, whereupon it gave me a perfect 350. (The bottom shelf did get a lot hotter than that, with the trays on the top one.) I shaped the dough a bit with my hands (rolled it into balls and patted them slightly flat) rather than just dolloping it onto the tray, which resulted in more regular-shaped cookies. They came out nicely; I've eaten one, frozen nine in bags of three, and reserved the other six in a tin for short-term use. Also, for future reference, 30 sec at full power might be just a hair too long for softening one stick of butter in the microwave, but it did the job. (Considering the length of my hairs, perhaps that isn't the most appropriate expression ...)

Mixed beans (pinto, pink, small red and small white, 1/4 cup each) soaking in three cups of water; the rest of the packages mixed and divided between two containers for storage.

The gingerbread recipe calls for orange zest and chopped nuts, which I don't have at present, unless I start trying to chop up eating-quality pistachios, so that one will have to wait a while. I refuse to go grocery shopping again until next Saturday at the earliest!