One new grocery item today about which I am very excited, and one that was a waste of 69 cents.

The Sundip "Chicken Jalfarazee Paste" fills me with joy, because I am looking forward to making yummy, spicy, fragrant chicken jalfarazee this week to serve over rice.

Andrew and I sponsor two children: Sofia in Pakistan (through Plan), and a child in Egypt (through Save the Children). Save the Children does things a bit differently. Instead of telling you about "your" specific child, Save the Children chooses an "ambassador child" to serve as the face of the program for all sponsors with a child in that country.

Save the Children just sent us a pretty little brochure with a profile of their newest "ambassador child," a 6-year old girl named Noura. Part of the brochure was a blurb about one of the most popular dishes in Egypt, "foul" (pronounced "fool"), or fava beans.

(EDIT: Wikipedia article on "ful medames," فول مدمس, can be found here!)

After reading about the different ways it's prepared and scanning the sample recipe on the back, I decided to try it myself this week.

So here are my "funky groceries" for the week, as modeled by the hypermuffin. Save the Children's recipe for "foul" is at the end.

Took the hypermuffin to the HT Market this morning, along with tatterdamelion and his son, who is visiting from Durango. For the first time, I let her walk (run!) along next to me instead of ride in the cart.

She picked out a few extra groceries for me to buy today:

This morning I went to Albertson's, by myself, to see if I could get my grocery bill under $100.

I did, but only because I didn't buy any paper products, failed to find the kind of tofu I like, and skimped big-time on the meats. Overall I found the prices pretty comparable to the QFC, but maybe that's because I'm shopping the absolute bottom of the barrel at both stores.


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I did find one small section of one aisle that was dedicated to Polish imported groceries! I bought some Morello cherry jam -- no high fructose corn syrup -- some gingerbread / chocolate / orange filled cookies, and a jarred marinated vegetable salad. I could not resist it -- the label said "Salad No. 4."



From the label of the jam:

"Dear Customers: We have a pleasure to introduce a new brand: A-Grosik. It is a result of many years owners' experience who have been for decades producing and supervising export for the oldest and one of the most reknown polish export brands. The brand products are made of high quality selected fruits and vegetables grown in ecologically pure region of Poland. We do hope it will not only meet your full approval but also makes you simply love it."

Have I ever mentioned how much I love not-quite-perfect translations into English? I find them so very endearing.

Today's funky groceries:

Butter Coconut Cookies (可口奶滋 - kekou naizi, literally: "tasty milk-flavor." "Kekou" is used as the first two characters in the brand name for Coca-Cola, and has no relation at all to the Chinese word for "coconut," which is 椰子.)
 
These cookies are put out under the label of Kraft Foods, believe it or not, despite being Made in Indonesia (印度尼西亞製造)

The label warns us: ARTIFICIALLY BUTTER FLAVORED (人工奶油調味料)

In the ongoing annals of funky groceries, I bring you -- Starchy Chips That Are Flavored To Taste Like Other Starchy Chips.

Aka, Taro net Potato-Barbeque Flavoured Chips.

Today, in the annals of weird groceries, I bring you: "Okroshka," a 2-liter bottle of Ukrainian root beer from the "Kvas Monastyrskiy"! The label proudly proclaims "The Ancient Tradition."

The label is half in Cyrillic script and half in English. The English part informs me that this is a "Nonalkoholic [sic] beverage made from malt concentrate."

The first in what may be an ongoing series...

Funky Asian groceries!

Today I bought carrot-flavored noodles, "Hello Boss" brand canned chilled coffee, and a "Blessedness Chicken" plastic cup -- the zodiac sign of the hypermuffin  . We already had a "Blessedness Pig" plastic cup, the zodiac sign of the wren.



Sadly, my digital camera doesn't seem to be the greatest for product packaging photography. I don't know how other people seem to do it. Ah well.

McSweeny's has a very very very long page with people's writing about "new" foods. Packaged foods. Processed foods. You can send in your own story, if you have one.

I couldn't tear myself away from this page. The other night, I spent over an hour and a half reading it, until far too late at night, thinking "just one more and then I'll stop... just one more..." Just like eating Pringles or Twizzlers or something else truly dreadful.

At the end I was left with burning eyes and queasiness of the soul.

Another meat substitute, this one I've never heard of -- jackfruit! (Wikipedia article here.) I found out about this at Where's the Revolution?, a vegan recipe blog.

Intrigued, I consulted Dr. Google and found several links on using young, green, tasteless jackfruit as a meat substitute. Apparently this is done a lot in Asia, and I hear one can buy canned young green jackfruit at Asian markets, plus sometimes frozen jackfruit or even fresh.

Thread from "Post Punk Kitchen Forums" on jackfruit: http://www.postpunkkitchen.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=43001
Thai Jackfruit Curry recipe: http://thaifood.about.com/od/vegetarianthairecipes/r/jackfruitcurry.htm
Yelp reviews of "Pure Luck Restaurant" in LA: http://www.yelp.com/biz/pure-luck-restaurant-los-angeles

Check out the pictures of barbecue jackfruit "pulled pork" sandwiches from the Post Punk Kitchen link -- this looks like real meat:

( Read more... )

Amazing!

I Big-Pink-Fluffy-Heart the new Asian supermarket near the Oak Tree Cinema!

Prices: Really really good. I bought a 3-oz. jar of chili powder for $1.59, a big jar of toasted sesame seeds for $2.59, Fuji apples for 99 cents a pound, fresh poblano peppers for $1.69 a pound, a package of tortillas for $1.69... the list goes on.

Don't go there for dairy. Then again, don't go to any Asian market for dairy products.

Seriously, I should start shopping there as my main grocery store. I would save beaucoup bucks, and have much more exposure to healthy foods like soy cakes. Then again, I'd also have much more exposure to POCKY, so it might end up being a wash, health-wise.

Selection: An amazing variety of exotic processed foods. I wandered up and down the aisles with a cheesy grin on my face, lost in a pleasant dream of pickled fruits, soy paste, bean noodles, cheap Nutella from Bulgaria, jarred Greek-style eggplant, fresh duck eggs, dozens of kinds of chile peppers -- fresh, dried, flaked, and powdered -- devotional Mexican candles, 50-lb. bags of rice, fried dough sticks...

Produce: I would call the selection of produce "substantial," and the prices "cheap." They did have some exotic produce -- tamarind pods, fresh curry leaves, that kind of thing -- but not the crazy amount of variety that Uwajimaya has.

Still, "substantial selection" plus "cheap prices" is a much better combination than the QFC where I've been getting all my produce. The QFC sells beautiful-to-look-at produce -- produce that would look great if you bought it merely for decorative purposes. It doesn't contain any actual flavor.

I picked up a devotional candle or two, and a "praying bowl" showing an Asian goddess, and am currently trying to figure out who she is.

On a whim, I bought a bag of "Snapea Crisps." It was only $1.00, and I wanted some more snacky-type food at my desk at work.

The back of the bag is an example of some kind of mangled English. While technically correct (or close to it -- I would have changed the "which" to "that"), it does not sound as though a native speaker wrote it.

My guess it that this is translated from Chinese. The Chinese have a tendency to put everything into a vast, sweeping historical context stretching back through 5,000 years of glorious history. Even snack peas have a place in this overall cosmic order.

The copy reads:

"The pea has played an important role in dietary life and culture since the dawn of recorded history, and because of its nutritional value it has great potential for our dietary lives in the future. We are expecting to see the continuing development of "Snapea Crisps" as a delicate and tasty product which has taken advantage of the pea's original goodness, and we propose this product as a new type of snack."

Distributed by Calbee America, Inc., Torrance CA 90502. www.snacksalad.com

--Wow. It's not enough that they have to be tasty; they also have to live up to being part of the "dietary life and culture since the dawn of recorded history." That's a lot of baggage for baked crispy snack peas.

Whether or not they have "great potential for our dietary lives in the future," I can report that right now, they're crispy and crunchy and salty and delicious. I just had some on a baked potato with cottage cheese. skylerannesmom doesn't agree, but I enjoy different textures in the same dish.  :-)

You may or may not have been subjected to me going on and on about the joys of healthier living. Running, cutting out almost all meat, eating bizarre things like tofu and wheatberries and flaxseed oil and Textured Vegetable Protein (TVP) and whatnot.

Well, I've just jumped up a quantum leap. Not only am I making "seitan" dishes -- I'm making the "seitan" that goes in it.

What is seitan, you ask? You know the glutinous part of flour -- the gluten, if you will? Well, mix that with an equal amount of water, and you get this very gummy, pasty type substance reminiscent of Oobleck. Then simmer that in stock, and you get some expanded chunks of oddly shaped stuff. That, my friends, is seitan.

What does one do with seitan? Well, after you've simmered it, you can cut it into smaller pieces and thread it on skewers as part of a kebab. Or you can saute it in oil with spices. Or you can add it to soups and stews. Or you can smother it in spicy sauce, let it marinate (turning several times), then bake until brown and crispy for a barbecue-style dish. Add to cabbage rolls, or simmer it in tomato sauce to make faux Swiss steak. Or shred it and add to stir fry, or meatball mixture for spaghetti. The raw "dough" can be frozen, or simmer the pieces and then freeze them for later. It's fat-free, and while it certainly depends on other things for its flavor -- you can't make this into patties and revel in the meaty flavor of seitan, 'cuz it doesn't have any -- it's a completely "free" way to enjoy meat-type dishes without ODing on tofu.

Today I bought a package of Instant Wheat Gluten Flour (only $4 for about 4 cups, so that's $1 for enough gluten to make a seitan dish for two people), and I made a double batch of seitan. When the recipe said the pieces would expand, I didn't realize they would expand that much! So it's a good thing the pieces can be frozen. Because two cups of dry gluten translated into about 3 pounds of finished seitan, and that's more wheat gluten than Andrew and I can really handle in the next week. :-/