Eating Outside of the Box

$50 can go a LONG way in the produce section of your local warehouse store. Here are the goodies we filled our cart with today…

Would we prefer local, organic fruits and veggies? Of course! But since our garden currently looks like THIS, it’s gonna be a while…But we SURE did enjoy a delicious light and fresh dinner from the bounty we secured from the store today. Even better, we got to enjoy it outside on a beautiful evening -the perfect end to a perfect day! Oh, and Jackson thought he should join in the picnic, too…but no such luck for our canine friend – well, okay, he may have scored a few bits of bell pepper

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesssss!!! It’s finally been a great week for grilling out!! And just in time, too, because we just got our quarter beef from Range West Beef this past weekend. Now our deep freezer is fully-stocked (with over 100 pounds of vacuum-sealed meat) and ready for the grill. And, as you’ve probably figured out about us by now, we LOVE to save money by buying in bulk! Purchasing a quarter beef or more brings down the price of steak so much that it costs no more than the ground beef! Bonus!

Speaking of steak…our first meal from our newly acquired quarter was strip steaks. They were cooked just right – nice and rare, as grass-fed meat should be prepared! Mmm….mmm…mmm!

Gotta love the grass-fed meat! It’s so much healthier for you than the conventional, corn-fed varieties…and it tastes WAY better, too!

Please note – That salad was for TWO of us. Of course, we could still barely get it all down! Our eyes were a bit bigger than our stomachs this evening!

I have never been a big fan of hard boiling eggs. I’ve read about a million different methods for obtaining the “perfect” hard-boiled egg. But when I heard about this kitchen gadget, I had to try it for myself! It works GREAT! The only down side is that it only cooks 7 eggs at a time….

First, you pour the appropriate amount of water into the bottom tray. The Egg Genie comes with a measuring cup that tells you exactly how much water to use, based on the number of eggs you’re cooking and just how firmly you want them boiled.

Then you prick the pointy end of each egg. Trust me, this must be done! LOL!

Place eggs (pricked side up) in the Egg Genie.

Cover the eggs, and plug in the machine.

Don’t worry, Egg Genie will let you know when your eggs are done!

And the Egg Genie is super affordable, too! Get yours today on Amazon.com by clicking here: EggGenie Egg Genie Electric Egg Cooker

In the early days of this blog, I posted a photo of the inside of my fridge. Admittedly, I did happen to catch my fridge on a particularly cleanish day, which left several of you wondering…”are these people REALLY that tidy?”

In an effort at full disclosure, I present to you…MY STOVE! (And, this is not – - I repeat NOT an exception to the rule…my stove is pretty consistently slopped all over! In my defense, though, I do use the heck out of it!)

Doesn’t look dirty to you? Click on the photo to enlarge…but consider yourself warned – it aint pretty!

Lucky for me (or so I thought), my cousin Mandy was hangin’ at my house when I took this picture. And, since she had been very much involved in the culinary devastation that took place in my kitchen on this particular today, I guilted her into believing that SHE should “take one for the team,” and clean the stove. Actually, I think the scene technically played out more like this: She was scoffing at me and saying that she doesn’t understand why I don’t just “wipe it down real quick because baking soda and a little elbow grease would take care of it lickety split!” So I invited her to demonstrate

Look at her go, folks! Just look at her go!

Unfortunately, she ended up “having to go home” before the job was done. (Big surprise there!) And since there was baking soda all over my stove, I was kinda forced to finish the job.

So, clean the stove I did. But it’ll be a while before THAT happens again!!

When it comes to food, lots of folks seek out items that are “fat-free.” I still have not been able to understand exactly how you end up with fat-free ice cream for crying out loud! I mean, cream = fat, the last time I checked!? But I digress.

My point is that, unlike many folks, “fat-free” is NOT a goal of mine. In fact, I am much more concerned with free fat – like the nearly 10 pounds of free beef fat that I scored during my last visit to the Bag ‘N’ Save store on 108th & Maple.

Oh, don’t worry….it’s not for me! It’s for our dog, Jackson! We supplement his diet with this free stuff. Unfortunately, it’s often difficult to find because most butchers sell it off to rendering plants….yes, to be added to commercial animal feed.

But this particular Bag ‘N’ Save location ROCKS! They save the fat scraps in their back freezer because they have customers who come in and request it. And, it’s perfectly priced at $0.00/lb.

Want some for your po0ch? Just ring the magical doorbell in the meat department, and a butcher will appear Tell them you’d like some fat scraps for your “best friend,” and they’ll hook you up if they have some on hand!

Well, it’s Saturday night! So, what better to do than workout with Tony Horton and then…try our hand at shelling and deveining some shrimp!? We had to Google for instructions – sad, I know! But we’d never done it before

How did I end up eating fried eggs and leftover spicy asian slaw for breakfast today?

Well, the eggs just sounded good – they are warm, I was cold – seemed perfect!

And the slaw, well….we seem to have a lot of random “left overs” to use up these days due to my “experimenting” for my cookbook project…and someone’s got to eat ‘em!

Do I recommend this meal to others! NOPE! (especially when the slaw juices run over into the egg…not the most pleasant combo – LOL!)