The weather was dreary all weekend long, cold, grey and wet. We went out anyway. First to the farmer's market to see if our favorite farmers were there - and they were. They are pretty tough, coming to market no matter the weather as long as they got produce to sell. I bought a huge bag of kale and some swiss chard. I never had swiss chard before. After farmer's market we drove to Winston-Salem for some shopping at my favorite grocery store. We took a different route this time and it was more enjoyable and way less stressful than the usual one. I brought a notepad with me this time to write down prices for things we buy a lot of. I have noticed that at the store where we do most of our shopping the prices keep going up and the quality keeps going down. I don't like the fact that the butter contains "natural flavoring" and that there is a note on the milk container about how "the FDA has found no difference in milk from hormone treated cows or non hormone treated cows". The bottle claims that they do not use 'artificial growth hormones' but who knows. I am planning on moving more and more of my food budget to the healthier version of the things we buy most. It is true what the latest store magazine/coupon book said, if you stick to the store brand and the sale items it is possible to shop at Whole Foods on a budget. But because it is a bit of a trip to get there I will re-organize my shopping so we have to go only every other week.
Saturday lunch was inspired by the Mighty Bowls of Goodness. My version contained quinoa, french lentils, sauteed swiss chard and a piece of salmon.
Sunday lunch was a bit of a disaster. I made Moroccan Chicken Stew in the crock pot. Now you need to know that we use a power strip with a switch in the kitchen to turn the electricity off at the point and avoid anything being on stand-by. I put all the ingredients into the pot and turned it on. When I checked an hour later it was cold. One of us must have turned off the power after getting the last of the coffee out of the coffee maker. Force of habit. Not only was lunch very late for some reason, neither the carrots nor the onions were properly cooked, the chicken was done, but not the vegetables. No idea what happened. I remember making the recipe before and back then it looked and tasted differently too. Oh well, we ate it anyway.
The rest of the weekend was spent with reading, playing games and knitting. I finished the Lush-ious Swirl Cowl that I started last week and I am almost finished with my book.
I even amused myself with cleaning the cat boxes on Sunday morning. ;-)
And as usual there were sleeping kitties to be watched. It is just so relaxing to see them sleep.
I hope your weekend was a good one.
2 comments:
I made a risotto last week and did not cook the celery through and it just did not taste right. Love the photo of your desk decorations!! AKA kitties!
I have been noticing the same higher pricing at my market too! I keep trying to live off my land more, but now really need to apply those efforts.
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