Kit

I think it's because the steak was won in a raffle

Who the fuck is out here raffling off steaks

like if the parents bought the steak at Costco then it might have sounded normal to me but the idea of steak being raffled threw me off so bad

Twice a month, I get eggs from a local farmer. Lovely brown eggs, taste great, and I haven't seen yolks so yellow since when I lived on a farm as a wee child. Please understand, these are objectively wonderful eggs.

I also get 30 eggs per delivery, making my total monthly egg take home 60 eggs. Now here's the problem.

I can't stand the texture of eggs.

Scrambled, boiled, fried, and I don't intend to pull a @inbabylontheywept and enjoy a couple dozen snake style. I just can't do egg texture.

"But toad, just use them in baking!" I'VE TRIED. My freezer is apocalyptically prepped with baked goods. My parental units have kindly asked me, their beloved daughter, to please stop making them cookies this is the 4th time this week it's getting to be a problem. My neighbors avoid eye contact lest I offer yet another loaf of bread. My friends are too nice for their own good, and now their freezers are apocalyptically prepped with baked goods.

I've become some sort of accidental egg dealer in my circles. Tucking eggs into my coat pockets, gingerly offering them to strangers on the street. Politely begging, please take these eggs I have so many, please take them. It's still not enough. There's still. more. eggs.

I can't cancel my order. I can't, the farmer is too nice. She loves her chickens, calls them her little lassies. She only charges $12 for 30 eggs (I would be paying roughly $25 for the same in stores). This is an excellent deal that I'd be silly to cancel, all because I have too much of a good thing.

You can fry eggs in a waffle Iron, that makes a different Texture than any pan-fried variant of eggs I know of, this May still Not be a Texture you Like but you should at least try.

Zucchini cake Takes a Lot of eggs, If you leave Out the banana and locust-bean-powder. You can eat Zucchini cake every day for breakfast and lunch, If you get tired of the cinnamon Version and the chocolate Chip version, leave Out the sugar and try chili-and-garlic next

You should donate those eggs to people who need them. There's A LOT of people who can't find and/or afford as many eggs as they'd Like, and while Most of them are Not geographically Close enough for you to Bring them eggs, SOME people May be, you Just need to find them. Food Banks, Community Center Type places where cooking classes are being Held, Anarchist collectives, churches.

3 Cups of flour, ideally two Cups of whole-wheat and one Cup of White

1 Cup of sugar

pinch of Salt

Half a teaspoon of baking powder

however much ground cinnamon, ground Vanilla pods, other sweet-compatible spices, and/or unsweetened cocoa powder feels right

mix all the dry together

2 Cups of grated Zucchini

1 Cup of oil (Coconut, or sunflower seed)

4 eggs

mix the wet with the dry with a large spoon or ladle, No whisk, it's supposed to be a thick heavy batter. If it's TOO dry, you can add a fifth egg (I Usually don't, I use only three eggs and a mashed banana to begin with, and some more Zucchini if it gets too dry, but If my Goal was to use Up as many eggs as possible, I probably would)

Twice a month, I get eggs from a local farmer. Lovely brown eggs, taste great, and I haven't seen yolks so yellow since when I lived on a farm as a wee child. Please understand, these are objectively wonderful eggs.

I also get 30 eggs per delivery, making my total monthly egg take home 60 eggs. Now here's the problem.

I can't stand the texture of eggs.

Scrambled, boiled, fried, and I don't intend to pull a @inbabylontheywept and enjoy a couple dozen snake style. I just can't do egg texture.

"But toad, just use them in baking!" I'VE TRIED. My freezer is apocalyptically prepped with baked goods. My parental units have kindly asked me, their beloved daughter, to please stop making them cookies this is the 4th time this week it's getting to be a problem. My neighbors avoid eye contact lest I offer yet another loaf of bread. My friends are too nice for their own good, and now their freezers are apocalyptically prepped with baked goods.

I've become some sort of accidental egg dealer in my circles. Tucking eggs into my coat pockets, gingerly offering them to strangers on the street. Politely begging, please take these eggs I have so many, please take them. It's still not enough. There's still. more. eggs.

I can't cancel my order. I can't, the farmer is too nice. She loves her chickens, calls them her little lassies. She only charges $12 for 30 eggs (I would be paying roughly $25 for the same in stores). This is an excellent deal that I'd be silly to cancel, all because I have too much of a good thing.

"Have you tried-" I have spent the last two days in an egg recipe eggsperimentation frenzy. Here's my list and opinions!

Flan - Delightful! Tastes and feels like pudding with strong opinions (a win). Uses 3 eggs for a small batch, and it's easy to double!

Pasta - It's so easy to make?? I've frozen a couple batches of noodles already and my friends are now having pasta for supper this week. It's delightful, delicious, uses plenty of eggs, and my only gripe is that finding the proper flour was a pain in the ass. I tip my hat to carbonara, truly a delight among pastas.

Mayo - I truly had no idea how much oil went into making mayo. I was gobsmacked and repeatedly asked Google "hey are you sure? are you positive? are you *super duper mega positive?*" Anyway, I'm never buying mayo from the store again.

Avgolemono soup - New favourite soup. This will warm my bones when the cold Canadian winters hit.

Banana pancakes - I assume this would be delightful but I recently learned bananas are not supposed to be spicy, so now bananas are off limits to me. My friend approved though, so take that as you will.

Chinese steamed eggs - I tried. I wanted to like this, I really did. But the texture got me, and I fed the eggs to someone else.

Angel food cake - Personally not my favourite cake, but it is my mum's favourite and that alone makes it a win in my books. Also, you're not supposed to grease the pan for angel food cake, it inhibits the fluffy bounce. Learn from my mistakes (and make sure you have the correct pan).

Swedish pancakes - The beautiful, beautiful love child of pancakes and crepes, I will be experimenting with what fruits go best with it (and thank you to the person who handwrote the recipe, that was very sweet and your handwriting is beautiful).

Zucchini cake - Delightful! An excellent way to use an abundance of eggs! @hempseeeeds recipe is going in my notebook of repeat recipes (and I appreciate the "spice to you hearts content" bit, got a good chuckle from that).

Eat them raw - I leave that to Babs and the snakes.

"How does this even happen???"

By greatly overestimating my egg consumption ability and willpower to cancel/modify my order, though the latter is mostly on account of how damn nice this farmer is. Seriously, she's so goddamn nice.

"Where are you in the USA/Can I come have some eggs?"

Sorry, I'm Canadian. If you can find my super secret bog hidden in the depths of the Canadian wilds, feel free to take an egg for your troubles.

"Get a snake and feed them eggs."

I have a healthy respect for snakes, in that I respect them when they are not in my general vicinity. They're beautiful, and I appreciate the value they bring to the environment, but they can stay 12 feet away from me thankyouverymuch.

"Donate them to your local foodbank."

Weirdly enough, I can't. I asked, but they don't take eggs. They prefer canned or premade foods, as eggs go bad too fast. Apparently. I might chalk this one up to rural peculiarities, and I'll definitely be bugging them again (if not with eggs, then with baked goods). While I could drive eggs over to a different food bank, the nearest one is in the city and I'm not able to drive nearly 2 hours to donate a batch of eggs.

"Feed them to the local ferals/wildlife!"

Ah, quick PSA about that. My area is pretty rural, so we don't have a lot of feral cats. What colonies we do have are monitored and cared for by a local animal shelter. They have set areas for feeding, this helps with monitoring and stepping in to help when needed. It also means they can catch, spay, and release easier. It's not in the cats best interest to disrupt that system, and I don't intend to. I also don't want ferals congregating around my house, that freaks out my own cats. If you're going to feed ferals, do so with caution. Check with your local shelters first, find out if there are any specific colonies to leave alone. Be aware that ferals carry diseases, and potentially rabies.

When it comes to wildlife, while they are cute and you will feel like a Disney princess, do not feed them. Do not teach the wildlife that humans are safe or sources of food, because we aren't and shouldn't be. It is a kindness to let them source their own food, because that is what they are built for. I get wanting to help, but you'll be helping more by leaving them alone.

"Can I offer you an egg in this trying time?"

Favorite sci-fi I've read in years 10/10 no notes, can't wait to read Child of a Wandering Star :)

And that wasn't done on purpose just sort of how it ended up, but Jake recently got an injury so they put him on a Different boat just for a little bit (a sit in the wheelhouse and scout type of boat, instead of the main fishing one) and he only got back to my dad's ship today and he was apparently like Shaking. He was Traumatised.

Dad said Jake kept pulling him aside and going "They were all yelling on there, but in a MEAN way" "They didn't clean... Like at ALL"

Jake experienced what a boat full of old school Aussie fisherman is like. That is the norm Jake. You just happened to be on the all Island boy boat on your first go out. "It was time for dinner and they had FROZEN nuggets" Jake that's what they have on ships that are out at sea for months at a time.

On my dad's boat they are eating fresh fish and coconut milk Ceviche. They're grilling steaks on an open bbq on the deck that probably is not regulation. All the guys have their own special knives to prepare sashimi every couple days. Everyone is happily doing their own work so they can clock out early and set up a movie on the deck. Jake did you genuinely believe that's what every boat was doing.

Twice a month, I get eggs from a local farmer. Lovely brown eggs, taste great, and I haven't seen yolks so yellow since when I lived on a farm as a wee child. Please understand, these are objectively wonderful eggs.

I also get 30 eggs per delivery, making my total monthly egg take home 60 eggs. Now here's the problem.

I can't stand the texture of eggs.

Scrambled, boiled, fried, and I don't intend to pull a @inbabylontheywept and enjoy a couple dozen snake style. I just can't do egg texture.

"But toad, just use them in baking!" I'VE TRIED. My freezer is apocalyptically prepped with baked goods. My parental units have kindly asked me, their beloved daughter, to please stop making them cookies this is the 4th time this week it's getting to be a problem. My neighbors avoid eye contact lest I offer yet another loaf of bread. My friends are too nice for their own good, and now their freezers are apocalyptically prepped with baked goods.

I've become some sort of accidental egg dealer in my circles. Tucking eggs into my coat pockets, gingerly offering them to strangers on the street. Politely begging, please take these eggs I have so many, please take them. It's still not enough. There's still. more. eggs.

I can't cancel my order. I can't, the farmer is too nice. She loves her chickens, calls them her little lassies. She only charges $12 for 30 eggs (I would be paying roughly $25 for the same in stores). This is an excellent deal that I'd be silly to cancel, all because I have too much of a good thing.

You can fry eggs in a waffle Iron, that makes a different Texture than any pan-fried variant of eggs I know of, this May still Not be a Texture you Like but you should at least try.

Zucchini cake Takes a Lot of eggs, If you leave Out the banana and locust-bean-powder. You can eat Zucchini cake every day for breakfast and lunch, If you get tired of the cinnamon Version and the chocolate Chip version, leave Out the sugar and try chili-and-garlic next

You should donate those eggs to people who need them. There's A LOT of people who can't find and/or afford as many eggs as they'd Like, and while Most of them are Not geographically Close enough for you to Bring them eggs, SOME people May be, you Just need to find them. Food Banks, Community Center Type places where cooking classes are being Held, Anarchist collectives, churches.

I walk a very thin line between recycling/anti-consumerism and my hoarding tendencies (don't think it's ever reached the point of full blown disorder but I'm very aware it's a constant lowkey battle to keep it that way) and my perfectionism paralysing me into keeping stuff until I can dispose of it in the Absolute Most Optimal Least Polluting way.

For products for which a large-scale, practical and economic recycling system does not exist (recyclable plastic doesn't have such a system, it's a grift; recyclable metals and glass very often do have such a system but it depends on the material and product and where you live), there is no such thing as optimal disposal. There is only optimal production. Your environmental impact is measured in the effect you have on new things being produced and shipped. Once it is made in a factory, it is already landfill, it's just staying in your house for a bit first.

Trying to repair old boots at home doesn't save them from landfill -- the question is, did your repairing the boots stop you from having to buy new ones, and if so, did that stop new ones from being produced and shipped to your country? Does buying a new pair instead help because you don't have to buy the materials you'd use to repair them, and if so, did that have any effect on whether those materials were produced and sent to your country? In a modern economy, your effect re: repair vs. new is likely to have absolutely no environmental effect at all for most goods, though it does depend on specifically where you live and what the good is and how it's made. Either your old boots go to landfill and you buy a new pair, or you fix your old ones and the new pair goes straight from the warehouse to landfill because the company bought one too many pairs to sell. (It'll probably go on sale and mope around warehouses for a few years first, same as it otherwise would in your closet; this is a completely irrelevant temporary stop).

i am not being metaphorical, i work in a garden center, stop buying plants 'to bring in the bees and butterflies' and then immediately poisoning every caterpillar that dares to consume a single leaf

Start of the workshop: the teacher was telling us about how certain bugs are going extinct and how changing our gardening tactics would help to stop that.

End of workshop: same teacher tells us how to get rid of a specific type of larva in an "eco-friendly" manner.

I get confused. I ask why that type of larva needs to be exterminated. The teacher looks at me like he's never even considered that question before. "Because they make your lawn sparser," he finally says.

I point out that the larva he's talking about is the larval state of one of the bugs he mentioned was going extinct at the start of the workshop.

Put it in the freezer with the lid loose, and come back and tighten the lid after it's frozen.

@blip-bloop-bloop asked: How to make healthy food fairly cheaply, when the spoon bank is closed and you have no freezer

Thank you for this blog’s first ask!

Since you need food that’s low spoons and freezer-free, you’ll need food that’s preserved in ways other than freezing.  That leaves you lots of options, mainly canned, dried, and pickled.  

Pickled is pretty obvious- you can get a number of veggies pickled from the store, and they add great flavor/color/variety to meals without needing any prep other than taking them out of the jar.  They can be relatively expensive, but they tend to last a long time since they’re so strongly flavored that you only need a little at a time.  I’ll do another post on making your own pickled veggies.  In order to encourage my family (of two) to eat more pickled things, I sometimes put a small dish of pickles out on the table for meals.  If you do dishes by hand or the dish is otherwise spooniful, skip it and set the jar directly on the table.  If you find that you really like adding pickled foods to your meals, ethnic grocery stores often have different kinds of pickled foods than your standard western grocery.  Budget tip- don’t buy refrigerated pickled food unless you really like them and can afford them; the canned stuff is almost always cheaper.  

Canned food may end up being a staple for you, and that’s not a bad thing.  There are a wide variety of canned foods, and if you find that one particular type fits your budget really well, you can dress it up into different dishes in almost infinite ways if you have the spices.  Canned food also does well in the microwave, so it can be very quick to prepare.  I’ll include a couple of can-only recipes at the end of this post.

Dried foods are underappreciated, in my opinion.  They include things like spices and beans, but you can also get meats (chipped beef, beef jerky, squid snacks), mushrooms, and veggies.  Dried foods do take longer to prepare; options to decrease meal prep time include soaking overnight, using an instant pot, or getting a crock pot and letting it cook all day.  Some instant pots also have slow cooker options.  

Meat might be your biggest issue since it’s expensive to buy in small quantities.  I’d encourage you to check out what dry and canned meats and fish you have access to and then learn about how to stretch those into multiple meals (I’m also planning a post on this).  If frozen meat is cheaper than fresh, remember that you don’t have to keep it frozen for it to stay good.  Lots of meat that we buy “fresh,” especially fish, has been previously frozen, then thawed in the fridge.  To do this yourself, just put the meat in the fridge and keep it there.  It will probably make a puddle, so putting it in a container or on a plate is a good idea.  For fresh (or previously frozen) meat, instead of trying to stretch it into more servings, you may want to go ahead and eat bigger portions of meat but eat meat at fewer meals.  For example, stretching meat might look like making a can of mackerel into four meals instead of one by having mackerel salad, creamed mackerel on toast, mackerel fritters, and mackerel doria; bigger portions of fresh meat might look like buying a pack of four chicken breasts and having chicken (prepared in different ways) for dinner three nights in a row plus a lunch in there, then switching to beans or tofu for four nights.  Having a decent collection of dried spices can really help with having to eat the same thing “over and over.”

Meal ideas:

Tuna or chicken salad from canned meat on salad, bread, crackers, wraps, flatbreads

Green bean casserole (microwave)- two cans of drained green beans, one can of cream of mushroom soup, a handful of fried onions (the common brand is French’s in the US; onion powder will work if you don’t have fried onions).  Combine in a casserole dish and microwave till hot.  This recipe divides and doubles well too.

Creamed Chipped Beef on Toast

Dried mushroom and bean stew (all the recipes I can find have fancy ingredients that you don’t need to buy like pine nuts.  Do a google, pick one you like, and ask me for substitutions if you need to!)

Fish fritters- one drained 12-oz can of fish (we find mackerel is the cheapest for us), one or two eggs, and enough flour to make a loose dough (holds together but sticks to your hands).  Heat any oil you like in a pan on medium heat, make the dough into discs about the size and thickness of your palm, and fry till golden brown on both sides.  Flip them as many times as you need to.

How to cook dried beans: https://www.tumblr.com/tightwadspoonies/764918865665949696/dry-beans-on-the-stove-in-a-pressure-cooker-and?source=share 

Black bean soup from cans:

2 cans black beans

1 can corn

1 can chicken broth

1 can diced green chiles

1 can diced tomatoes

1 tsp onion powder

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tbsp taco seasoning (or to taste)

Thanks! First meal made on this system:

1/2 pack minute rice (for the spoons)

1/2 can sweetcorn

1/2 can beans

A Couscous-based one-pot meal is easy to make, and dry Couscous is typically/IME more expensive than rice but less expensive than most "Instant" starch-staple products, similar to dry Pasta, but faster to prepare than Pasta. Therefore, you should ideally have a few pounds of Couscous in your House.

that I consider you all

my friends btw