it doesn't mean milk which prefers the companionship of other dairy, ok
Didn't get to go sushi ingredient shopping today, sadface. However, I did have two exciting culinary developments.
First is that I successfully made authentic Indian food in the crockpot! Well, authentic-ish. More authentic than anything I've made before, at least. I went off of Anupy Singla's Crock Pot Aloo Gobi recipe, but I put chicken in (seven fresh boneless skinless chicken thighs at the bottom of the pot) and also added ginger and extra powdered cumin in addition to the cumin seeds. I omitted the oil altogether and didn't miss it. Instead of chopping fresh chilis I used 2 tsp green chili paste. And I added about a tsp of fenugreek.
Ok, looking at that article now, it's different than the book which I got from the library. The book from the library has one cauliflower and one potato. The ingredients are otherwise identical.
I think the key is to use lots of spices. I might come back later and add the photo I took of the chicken and spices before adding the veggies. You can hardly see the chicken through all the spices dumped on top. The long cooking time mellows the spices so you need to use extra to start with.
The other bit of culinary excitement is that I now have almost all the tools I need to can something. All I have left to get at this point is mason jars.
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Grocery prices on various goods vary so widely from one place to another. Katie mentioned in her blog that she was so excited to buy avocados for $1/each. Now that we're in the height of avocado season, I refuse to pay more than .80 per avocado around here. Last week I got two enormous, perfectly ripe avocados for .50/ea. They had to be eaten that day because they were at peak condition, but they didn't have any brown spots. I made Mexican flatbread pizza with them (flatbread + avocado + black beans + cumin + green onion + tomato + shredded cheese + heat = yum).
I would say fresh food prices in Vancouver are generally not bad. We're on the right side of the Rockies to make stuff coming up from California easy to ship, I guess, plus there's a good amount of local agriculture. Milk does seem a little expensive. It's tempered by the stricter Canadian laws regarding things like antibiotics and growth hormones, which means that conventional milk in Canada is closer to organic. I typically pay $4.50 for a 4L (gallon) of whole milk, or homo milk as it's called in Canada, and around $4 for 1%. (We drink about two gallons of each per month now that Pippa is drinking milk.)
Homo milk made me laugh at first (especially because I had no idea what it could mean the first time I heard it; "homo" is short for "homogenized" as it turns out), but I've actually started using the term. Several reasons. I'm a natural mimic and it's difficult for me not to mirror the language of those around me. There's also a conscious "When in Rome" sort of approach. I can fly under the radar a bit as a US citizen by saying "zed" and "homo milk". It's also a bit irritating how a sexual meaning of a word generally completely takes it over and prior or unrelated uses get abandoned. But that could easily be its own post so I won't contemplate that issue any further.
Anyway I like Canadianisms and I'd like them to survive. So when in Canada, I say homo milk.
Back to e original subject though: what are food prices like around you? What is really cheap or really expensive?
Oh I know what's the worst around here: deli meat and cheese. I don't know if it's because it gets sold by the 100g and people don't realize just what that translates to per pound, but the prices are ridiculous. In PA I used to buy deli meat all the time for sandwiches but here I can't do it. I'm talking about the SALE price for turkey breast being above $10/lb.
First is that I successfully made authentic Indian food in the crockpot! Well, authentic-ish. More authentic than anything I've made before, at least. I went off of Anupy Singla's Crock Pot Aloo Gobi recipe, but I put chicken in (seven fresh boneless skinless chicken thighs at the bottom of the pot) and also added ginger and extra powdered cumin in addition to the cumin seeds. I omitted the oil altogether and didn't miss it. Instead of chopping fresh chilis I used 2 tsp green chili paste. And I added about a tsp of fenugreek.
Ok, looking at that article now, it's different than the book which I got from the library. The book from the library has one cauliflower and one potato. The ingredients are otherwise identical.
I think the key is to use lots of spices. I might come back later and add the photo I took of the chicken and spices before adding the veggies. You can hardly see the chicken through all the spices dumped on top. The long cooking time mellows the spices so you need to use extra to start with.
The other bit of culinary excitement is that I now have almost all the tools I need to can something. All I have left to get at this point is mason jars.
---
Grocery prices on various goods vary so widely from one place to another. Katie mentioned in her blog that she was so excited to buy avocados for $1/each. Now that we're in the height of avocado season, I refuse to pay more than .80 per avocado around here. Last week I got two enormous, perfectly ripe avocados for .50/ea. They had to be eaten that day because they were at peak condition, but they didn't have any brown spots. I made Mexican flatbread pizza with them (flatbread + avocado + black beans + cumin + green onion + tomato + shredded cheese + heat = yum).
I would say fresh food prices in Vancouver are generally not bad. We're on the right side of the Rockies to make stuff coming up from California easy to ship, I guess, plus there's a good amount of local agriculture. Milk does seem a little expensive. It's tempered by the stricter Canadian laws regarding things like antibiotics and growth hormones, which means that conventional milk in Canada is closer to organic. I typically pay $4.50 for a 4L (gallon) of whole milk, or homo milk as it's called in Canada, and around $4 for 1%. (We drink about two gallons of each per month now that Pippa is drinking milk.)
Homo milk made me laugh at first (especially because I had no idea what it could mean the first time I heard it; "homo" is short for "homogenized" as it turns out), but I've actually started using the term. Several reasons. I'm a natural mimic and it's difficult for me not to mirror the language of those around me. There's also a conscious "When in Rome" sort of approach. I can fly under the radar a bit as a US citizen by saying "zed" and "homo milk". It's also a bit irritating how a sexual meaning of a word generally completely takes it over and prior or unrelated uses get abandoned. But that could easily be its own post so I won't contemplate that issue any further.
Anyway I like Canadianisms and I'd like them to survive. So when in Canada, I say homo milk.
Back to e original subject though: what are food prices like around you? What is really cheap or really expensive?
Oh I know what's the worst around here: deli meat and cheese. I don't know if it's because it gets sold by the 100g and people don't realize just what that translates to per pound, but the prices are ridiculous. In PA I used to buy deli meat all the time for sandwiches but here I can't do it. I'm talking about the SALE price for turkey breast being above $10/lb.