Shopping Hungry - the random meal

Did your mother ever give you the advice to never go grocery shopping hungry? Cause my mama did - and she was right! Not only will you end up spending a lot more money than you meant to, but you can also end up with some dangerously random food in your house. Even worse - I fall serious victim to longings that inspire lusts which in turn inspire more cravings. That is exactly what happened to me today.

There I was, innocently going to the store for some ginger ale (aw dang - I forgot the ginger ale!), when I think "I've got some unexpected extra free time today - why don't I make something to post about." Well that is just the kind of free pass I don't need to be giving myself! Distractedly wandering up and down the aisles, a theme starts to develop. Sauerkraut... that would be awesome! Yeah, on a rye grilled cheese with apple cider mustard... Well of course with this on the brain I can't pass up some kielbasa. ...nor could I honestly see the fresh pierogies and not pick some up. Butter fried onions anyone? I'm no saint - I'm just a girl who's clearly missing some good Pennsylvania Dutch food in my diet (though I don't really know how that actually happens to a person).
 

A few days ago I read Matt Wright's blog post about making his own mustard. Now I'm on a whole new inspiration whirlwind of food projects. Really as soon as mustard or a vinegar based food is a part of my craving (in this case the sauerkraut) there's no stopping it. I really want to get into making my own sauerkraut too - as I can never seem to find any potent enough for my tastes. Add cheese to this mess of cravings and it's all over. I give up. I give in. I can't help myself. I slab some butter in a pan and give in to the randomness.What else can a girl do?

Onions frying, I realize I've never made pierogies myself. Do I have to boil them before I fry them? I take my chances (in retrospect I'd say that's why they ended up rather dry inside and next time I'll boil them first, but no worries - it wasn't something a bit of extra mustard couldn't fix).

At the end of my meal though I have to say my mama was right. Don't shop hungry. I had to put this meal on a pretty blue plate just to distract from the fact that the meal itself was entirely the same brown color and covered in butter. Don't get me wrong, that sandwich might just start a grilled cheese habit in my life, I feel good having a few more portions of pierogies waiting for me in the freezer, and I'm never against frying an entire meal in butter... but I probably would have bought more vegetables for my money if I'd stopped for some tea and biscuits before heading out.

Thanks for the advice Mom.

Lies, Lies, Lies... and a little guacamole

So the other day when I posted that I was okay with getting snowed in every week this winter ...I maybe, possibly, accidentally lied to you. I was really trying to be positive and give out a good energy - I was even lying to myself. Truth is - I didn't even want to get out of bed this morning looking out the window.

I grew up in California and I'm convinced I need 10xs more vitamin D than your average east-coaster. Where is the sunshine? People are talking about an early spring - I prefer skipping straight to summer. I want to go running in the park.

So though it is only breakfast time - there was only one thought that actually got me out of bed this morning. Sunshine in a meal. I wanted some fresh cilantro. When I promised myself that if I could crawl out of bed I would run across the street and get some cilantro it almost felt like promising myself a tropical vacation.

But they didn't have cilantro across the street! I grabbed some questionably soft avocados and a jalapeno and headed back out into the wild of wide slush rivers that I used to call sidewalks. Second grocery store - another questionable success.

You know when you pick up cilantro and smell it to double-check that you didn't pick up parsley instead? Cilantro should smell every bit of that promise of sunshine. If it doesn't smell don't buy it. Period. I almost had to face that tragedy (seriously today I was desperate enough to go for grocery store #3), but found one with a whiff of flavor and went for it.

When your cilantro (or any ingredient for that matter) is questionable in strength - use a ton of it! Make up for in volume what you are missing in power.

I was excited, however, to find a few other summer-time treats in my produce isle. I got some red bell pepper and lime. If cilantro is the sunshine in this bowl then lime is the hammock under the palm tree to go with it. :)

I was also excited to find some fresh corn (not an ingredient in my traditional guacamole recipe) - so sweet! Perfect addition to help me lie to myself that it's actually summer for a moment. However, it is also pushing me to the edge of how much one can fit into a guacamole. I finally realized I was going grocery shopping crazy (happens to me a lot - but especially when I have a craving of some kind). I put the breaks on the operation and made a bee-line towards checkout.

How much stuff can you add before you don't have enough avocado to hold it together? And does that really matter?

Don't forget salt! Your avocado will never forgive you for depriving it of it's soul mate.

With the corn, the entire bunch of cilantro, a whole bell pepper, jalapeno, red onion, lime juice and some tomato to a ratio of only two avocados - I definitely turned this into some more closely resembling a guacamole salad. A salad you can still eat with chips, but a salad none-the-less. When you're craving sunshine in February I seriously don't think that this could possibly be more satisfying.

Breakfast of Champions!! :)