Had a bit of a scare at Walmart this Monday. At casual glance, there looked to not a single gallon of milk in the store. I finally spotted three gallon-containers of house-brand skim at the very back of the lowest rack in one compartment. So far back that I almost gave up getting one on my own. But I daren't leave to search for assistance in case some longer-armed individual grabbed those gallons during my hopefully-brief absence. I at last managed to grab hold of one container, and greedily placed it in my cart. Had the expiration date been further out I might have grabbed a second gallon. I hope I don't come to regret leaving it behind.

Another scare; the price of eggs. Yikes!

To the plus, I don't believe any item on my list was out of stock, Wowbutter excepted. But I get that at Kroger anyway. It's priced way higher there, but at least it's available. I also got Sugar-Free Blackberry Preserves at Kroger, another item Walmart hasn't stocked in ages.


As to food in general, if the holiday meal I was unexpectedly treated to this past Xmas day is any indication, it looks as if my days of rare overindulgence are behind me. I wasn't able to take a dump for over a week afterward! That despite taking Miralax daily as recommended by my Primary Care Physician office. Even now I am not quite back to normal.

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Jan 10 2023, 06:45 PM

Wow, your body must have REALLY liked your Christmas meal since it didn't want to let it go.

Decrepit's head sure isn't decrepit; his stories are always so colorful!


And yeah, I can agree on the price of eggs!

I know it isn't funny; but I couldn't help laughing at your "after Christmas meal indulgence" dilemma, lol. Poor thing! My dad used to eat some mixture of cereals that included some kind of bran that always helped him; and if it didn't he would drink a small glass of prune juice.

Hope you get feeling back to yourself soon!

The Swiss are noted for their variety of fruit liqueurs, and Pflumli, the plum one, is what I always think of as “prune juice”. I’m certain it’s good for you.

There is a variety of plum preserve -Aachener Pflumli - which is not exactly the same thing. Be careful when ordering.

This post has been edited by ghastley: Jan 10 2023, 10:48 PM

Adventures in Grocery Shopping:

With road icing (yum!) forecast for yesterday late morning/early yesterday afternoon, and this being a Kroger/Walmart run, my first two-store grocery run in three weeks, I decided to leave home earlier than usual. Which meant braving sub-freezing temps. (To be fair, it never rose above freezing here, but it did climb out of the twenties for a while during the afternoon.) I dressed ultra warm, so didn't suffer in that regard. Front and rear windshields were caked (yum!) in ice (meh), a potential setback. Luckily, it proved quick & easy to scrape off. I encountered nothing hazardous on the road.

The one item on my Kroger list was Wowbutter, Walmart no longer stocking it. While there, I decided to play it safe and get a gallon of Distilled Water for my CPAP machine, it being only negligibly cheaper at WallyWorld. I also spotted 2lb bags of Fuji apples for $5.99, a deal too good to resist.

To the best of my recollection, the rest of my list was available at WM. I sort of wish I'd bought an extra tub of "fresh" blueberries. The small tub I bought likely won't last the week. I have a day or two of b-berries left in the large tub bought last week, but those are barely fit to eat (and were when I bought them). Their milk supply was low, but not dangerously so.

Lo and behold, my January food expenditure came in slightly under budget!!!!!!! Admittedly, I used of a portion of 2023's SS and Military Retiree pay COLAs to bump it up from $200 to $220. (If memory serves, I spent roughly $214.)

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Jan 31 2023, 03:02 PM

Brrrr! We enjoy blueberries also and find the fresh ones a bit pricey most of the time and with a short lifespan. Therefore we normally get a 3 pound bag of frozen and keep a small container of thawed ones in the fridge. Prices vary here from $8 - $12 with Walmart generally boasting the best price for them.

I'm chewing on some Juicy Fruit gum at the moment, deducing its flavor to a mix of artificial banana and coconut.

I need to give frozen b-berries another chance. I suspect I don't know the proper way to thaw them out. Pointers are appreciated.

(I actually have a bag of them in the freezer now. My worry is that these were bought before my refrigerator SNAFU. Some frozen foods didn't survive it well. Others, like frozen peach sliders, weren't phased. Nothing seems to bother those.)

I just shake some out of the bag into a 1 or 2 cup plastic container with a lid. They thaw on the counter in an hour or two but normally I'm ahead of things enough that I can just stick in the fridge to thaw overnight. They seem to keep okay in the fridge for days with no problem. They'll never be mistaken for fresh but I find them great for yogurt, cereal, oatmeal.

Pizza!

Mmmm! Blueberry and anchovie….

Anchovie??


Nonononno - more like fillet of beef and béarnaise

Just finished eating some garlic parmesan nuggets and now snacking on some sunflower seeds.

Dark Reaper that sounds good.

Tonight I had what I like to call "middle age" food for dinner. Soybeans and veggies immersed in Bragg's Amino Acids. Town House crackers on the side. Healthiest food I've eaten all week.

This post has been edited by Renee: Feb 9 2023, 02:38 AM

Had steak and green beans tonight!

Just had a fake meat burger, topped with cheddar, red onion and tomato, alongside some oven-roasted potatoes, seasoned with salt, lots of freshly ground black pepper, thyme and rosemary. For a quick and "cheap" (these days I use the term "cheap" in the relative sense) meal it was surprisingly tasty, if not exactly the healthiest. Maybe tomorrow I'll try to muster up the energy to cook something with a heavy vegetable component, though!

Speaking of a "heavy vegetable component", I've added several beans to my salad-suppers, both of which are noted as containing high nutritive value; Chickpeas and Lentils. Thankfully, both are available super cheap at Wally World. I also auditioned Black Beans, also noted for its nutritive qualities. I decided not to add them to my suppers, but now eat them as a standalone for some lunches, mixed with a small amount of Spicy Red Wickles. A smallish serving is quite filling.

I can't say that adding beans has improved the flavor of my salad-suppers but, so long as I can tolerate what I eat, flavor takes a backseat to potential health benefits. (My ideal is a meal both flavorful and wholly nutritious. Alas, budgeting limitations dictate that compromises must be made.)

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Mar 11 2023, 12:37 AM

Another food experiment. Salmon in my salad-suppers rather than tuna. I don't know that I'll stick it out, what with the cost difference and my preferring the taste of well-drained light-chunk tuna. But tuna's mercury content has worried me for some time. To remove it from, or at least reduce its presence in, my diet would be a good thing.

However much I succeed in converting to a wholly nutritious diet, I am not giving up milk. It's one guilty pleasure I will not do without.

Speaking of salad-suppers, today's was yummy. Part of that is due to a freshly chopped head of lettuce. Also, I lucked out and mixed the perfect proportions of EEVO, Red Wickles, and Yellow mustard into a dressing that was flavorful but complemented the salad rather than overpower it. I didn't even miss Cherub Tomatoes, which I forgot to buy during this week's grocery run.

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Mar 11 2023, 12:54 AM

Canned salmon instead of tuna - I'll have to try that.