Our salvaged lunch (and some other interesting finds in the fridge)

It's surprising how much stuff can accumulate in the fridge in just a couple of days. You would never believe that most of these leftovers "happened" this week. Throughout the weekend, I was amazed that I could still find things that needed eating up. 

(I must admit, there was one science experiment lurking at the back of the fridge. And actually, it really was an experiment from last summer. Some things just don't pan out. I'll reveal it later, and hopefully deter you from trying this out yourself.)

Here's the continuation of my weekend leftover challenge.

Lunch looked like it would be interesting on Saturday. Leftover turkey and dumplings, 4 lonely-looking oven roasted potato wedges, about a cup and a half of cooked pinto beans, corn tortillas, an almost empty ketchup jar, and some pumpkin pie. How do you divide this between 5 people?

I considered making a master casserole, combining the majority of the leftovers, or maybe some soup, blended with the leftover turkey stock sitting on the fridge's top shelf. Hmm. It could work, or. . . I could have a mutiny on my hands. And so I thought, "perhaps today would be a good day to have a this-and-that lunch".

We divvied up the turkey and dumplings. Anyone who wanted any could have some. Easy peasy there.

The 4 potato wedges were quickly spoken for. (Really quickly spoken for!)

Needing to find more for our lunch, I grabbed a few more containers.

This . . .

. . .became this. (Now I realize that it tasted better than it looks here.)

So I took the cooked pinto beans, almost-empty ketchup jar, along with some onion, oil, chili powder, cumin and salsa, and I made a small batch of bean dip.

I know what you're thinking, "Ketchup? In bean dip?" It's tomatoes, onion, vinegar, salt, right? All good. Turns out ketchup works well enough in a bean dip.

Topping the bean dip was sour cream (and yes, that price tag does say 59 cents! The container was squashed, but seal still good -- yippee!), and more salsa.

To go with the bean dip, I made chips with most of the remaining corn tortillas. Most of us had chips and bean dip, topped with sour cream and salsa. Kind of a snacky part of lunch.

I think I'd been snacking, as I was frying with this plate of chips!

I have to tell you, when I make homemade tortilla chips, I have no self-control. I kept frying and frying, yet the plate of chips didn't seem to grow. I was eating all of the chips, as I fried them.

But usually, I allow 2-3 corn tortillas (cut into 6 wedges each), as a serving.

Many of us were feeling full (we'd all just had a waffle breakfast a few hours earlier) just as I was bringing out the remainder of a pumpkin pie. It looked like about 2  1/2 slices were left. So it was divided between my two daughters, who had missed out on pie 2 nights in a row this week. And, um, I managed to put down a tiny sliver of the pie myself, you know, just so there'd be no leftovers, of course. ;-)

Before I move on to the culinary delights of dinner, I spent some time in the afternoon cleaning out more containers for meals later on.

Not very appetizing, are they?

I had some turkey stock, turkey gravy and drippings from my most recent roast turkey (earlier in the week, not last Thanksgiving, I promise!).

But those 3 containers turned into some delicious gravy!

Putting those 3 together, I made a batch of gravy to go over turkey slices for the freezer. I had enough gravy to top 2 meal's worth of turkey.

Any guesses what this could be? It turned into a rather tasty ingredient in Sunday's lunch!

And no, that was not the science experiment. This is:

Last summer, I was reading online about making my own mint oil, using mint leaves from my garden and vegetable oil. The directions said to leave the mint leaves steeping in the oil for a couple of weeks. My leaves became very moldy. It was truly disgusting. You can't believe everything you read online.

So, this is the oil after removing the mint leaves. I composted the leaves, and now need to dispose of the oil.  This is one of those, "it's just too disgusting to deal with" things. And that's my excuse for why it has resided at the back of the fridge since July.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Understanding current prices on seasonal food items

So, for a lot of folks, this is just way too homework-y to bother with. But others may appreciate my methods a bit more. That's fine, either way. I'm never insulted if you don't want to bother with many of the things that I do.

I watch seasonal prices and store ads very closely. When I think that sale prices are higher than I was expecting, on any particular food, I do some research. (We really are very fortunate to have the internet and search engines.)

This week, it's green cabbage that I'm looking into. I received the store flyers on Tuesday, for sales running Wednesday through next Tuesday (March 18). I was expecting cabbage to go on sale for about 39 to 42 cents per pound at a couple of stores, for St. Patrick's Day this year. Instead, it's running on ad for 48 to 59 cents per pound. What's up with the higher prices, I wondered.

So, I did a little bit of online searching. One of my favorite sites is thepacker.com. Basically, it's market news on produce for the US. They give detailed info on what a particular market is doing this year. Evidently, according to thepacker.com, the Florida cabbage supplies are tighter this year. This is good for the grower, as he'll get a higher price for his cabbage. Bad for the consumer, who will pay more per pound. Cold temperatures are too blame, in Florida, for a slow planting season, and lowered supplies. When supplies are tight, the prices are higher. According to thepacker.com, expect prices to be higher than normal on your St. Patrick's Day cabbage. The other two major winter growing regions in the US are Texas and California. Texas is also seeing a reduced cabbage crop, due to weather, by about 30%. I didn't read anything on California's contribution to the cabbage market, but given how much coverage has been given to the California water crisis, I would expect produce coming out of California to be higher than previous years, as well.

What does this mean to me? Well, the prices that I'm seeing on green cabbage, at my local stores (especially the 48 and 49 cents per pound), may indeed be about as low as I'm going to see for early spring (the month of March and into April, for my area). So, I will still buy 4 or 5 heads of cabbage, for our family, as 49 cents per pound is still a great price for fresh produce (just not as great as the 39 cents/lb I paid last year). And cabbage will again be featured heavily in my menus for early spring. (It's a great vegetable, high in vitamin C and vitamin K, as well as many phytonutrients, which may help protect against cancer and lower bad cholesterol.)

Understanding the current prices on foods helps me plan my purchases. In some instances, I get enough of a lead on a tight market to stock up a bit, in advance of a price hike. A couple of years ago the US had a bad peanut crop. There was enough advance warning on what this would do to prices that our family was able to stock up considerably on peanut butter, enough to get through almost a year at the old price.

Other times, just knowing that I'm getting about as good a price as can be expected simply makes me feel a bit better about having to spend more.


(For those of you hoping to find another installment on my leftover meal challenge, that'll be posted tomorrow. I know, you're all on the edge of your seats- the suspense!)