Friday, February 20, the food

This morning we got into the box of Generic Choco-Peanutty Butterpuffs, or whatever the Meijer version of Reese's Puffs is. I wouldn't say it's the most healthy cereal you can buy, but it's cheap and it tastes good, which means that we will actually eat it instead of letting it go stale, as is the sad fate of many healthy but gross cereals I've tried. Cereal with milk for breakfast, and then turkey sandwiches for lunch. I got an excellent deal on Kraft 2% Singles at the beginning of the month, and bought a double-pack of smoked turkey slices at Sams, so there's always the makings for turkey sandwiches around. 

I like to put mine on our little George Foreman Grill (5 dollars at an auction a few years ago), to give it some texture. I don't think I've ever cooked a piece of meat on the George Foreman Grill, but it's excellent for hot sandwiches. The sandwich always ends up flat as a pancake, but that's part of its charm. It's actually an idea I picked up at college, where they had a little sandwich grilling station with two of the big industrial-sized GF Grills, that could each hold two and a half sandwiches at once. Those were good sandwiches, with different kinds of meats and cheeses, but then, each meal cost a lot more than what I spend now. 

For dinner tonight, I used a mix we got in last month's care package, one of those Bear Creek Cheddar Potato Soup things. Theoretically all you need to add is water, but that's not going to get you a very satisfying meal. Considering that those things are usually four bucks a pop, it pays to stretch them a bit! I took a chunk of my frozen ham and let it thaw in the fridge overnight, then chopped it up, cooked it in a skillet for a bit, and tossed it in the soup. I also added two more potatoes, cooked, skinned, and mashed up, and about half my leftover peas from tuna casserole. The rest are for the fried rice, but since M complained of an excess of peas in last week's fried rice, I figured I should give peas a chance, nyuck-nyuck. All this made for a very thick soup, so I added a couple extra cups of water and let it simmer nice and long. Corn muffins on the side finished it out very nicely. The soup turned out great, and there are enough leftovers to knock Ramen and Cheese off the menu for lunch tomorrow. Ramen is an excellent staple carbohydrate when things are tough, but I sort of consider any ramen meal that is avoided to be a small victory.