Saturday, November 30, 2024

I had a blast at the Import store

 I have been thinking I may need to wear gloves when I grocery shop though, as nuts are everywhere I shop.  I'm also allergic to crab but not likely to find that at an Indo-Pak grocer.  I don't know, is crab Halal?  Considering what crabs eat likely not.  

Anyway they have a "Hamburger helper" type aisle, one side is massive bags of rice and the other side are little boxes of spice kits for dinner.  You take a cup of this, a scoop of that, half a diced onion and a couple tablespoons of the spice mix and there's dinner.  It's just spices.  I think that's cool and totally in line with my affinity for minimally processed foods.  

I got the Urad Dal (black Lentils), I also got some split dried chick peas to make Chana Masala (a bean curry basically).  I also got a jar of minced ginger you can just put a spoonful in a wok or whatever and there's dinner.  I hate mincing things.  

Travel back in time with me for a minute.  In some ways, I struggled a lot in school and they did a lot of testing.  They found my fine motor coordination is not great.  So mincing things can be hard for me.  If I had someone in the kitchen with me I'd put 'em to work chopping things for me.  Ron bought me a mandolin slicer but we both, on different occasions, cut ourselves on it so I got rid of it.  

My gross motor coordination was so bad I was in special Ed for PE.  Yes, they had such a thing.  They would have me walk around a track or something while the other kids played sports.  

The store had tons of ginger/garlic paste which sounded awesome and what I would use if I weren't allergic to garlic and cooking for someone who loved it.  Such a person is not in my life, so I just got the ginger paste, the Chana Masala spice mix, the lentils, and the chickpeas.  I also got some Tandoori spice mix I can use later - it's a pantry item not a meal prep one.  

They had tons of ghee as well and it looked great but it was rico (expensive) so I figured I could just use regular butter.  I have questions about me and coconut oil.  I know coconut itself is a huge migraine trigger for me.  The oil can't be beneficial, it can't.  

I have some EVOO but that does have a distinctive taste.  I need to have a look at our baking aisle at work and see what kind of healthy (not seed) oils we have.  

I now had a bag of unprocessed foods and spices.  Well the chickpeas were split in half I don't know if that counts as processed.  

 I went to my primary grocery store (I had my purchases in a reusable tote bag which I tied shut).  I got some canned diced tomatoes (always good to have on hand) some chicken broth, small cans of seasoned and unseasoned tomato sauce, etc.  

I had a look at the meat.  Every now and then the store has "the ham" seems to be mainly around the holidays.  It is a nice slice of cooked ham for about $2 a pound, I got about a pound.  That will be nice in a stir fry, in a pot of beans, or both.  I got a pound of that.  

I had a look at the chicken (normally I don't) and they had a nice little tray of chicken leg quarters for $3.  I liked it wasn't the "big" 10 pound sack.  I have a hard time eating all that.  This was just a few of them, good for a curry or a soup.  So I got that (that's why I got the stock).  

I got a 5 pound sack of frozen mixed vegetables because I love them, they're healthy, unprocessed, and I will eat them.  I forgot to get the plain lentils but I can do that another day.  I got butter (real butter).  

Personally I think the FDA should ban the sale of margarine.  That stuff is artery paste.  

I checked out and saw my friend again.  The bus driver to go home (a woman) was very friendly as well.  Then I had to walk home with 27 pounds of groceries because I didn't bring my hand cart.  I could do it though and I only needed to stop once.  I was curious how heavy it was so I actually went through everything and calculated the weight.  

I'm going to take a nap!  That's it for now!  

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