Grocery Shopping in Boston

Finding good deals on grocery items isn't an easy task in Boston. I have definitely learned a lot about how to be a smart shopper in just a few weeks. Here's how the process went.

-First stop: Stop & Shop -- this is owned by Giant, so I thought the prices would be pretty decent. Attempting to stock up my fridge since I had nothing, I went to one close by. I came home with juice, 3 bananas, and a loaf of bread... not exactly "stocking up". Everything was way more expensive than back home! Even ramen noodles were more expensive! I did find out that you can use a Giant card at the Stop & Shop, and it works just fine.

-Attempt #2: Shaw's -- this must be a northern thing. Their prices were better... if things were on sale, then they were prices that I would be willing to pay when I was living in D.C., but they weren't sales that rivaled the "good" sales in D.C. They do double coupons up to 99 cents, though!

-Third try: Target -- their food prices seem pretty stable to what you'd see in other areas. Their sales on food are nationwide, so that is another advantage. I found a few great buys on clearance items, but not everything at Target is always a great deal.

-Numero Quatro: Market Basket -- finally!! I was talking with my landlord and his wife about the best place to buy groceries. They highly recommended Market Basket as having the most reasonable prices in town, and although I have to drive a bit of a ways to get there (meaning it is a weekend-only kind of place), I was actually able to stock up on food! Some of their prices are even lower than what I have seen in D.C. (although some are still higher). At least I will now be able to eat more than just PB&J all the time!

-#5: Trader Joe's -- I can walk there, and there are always a few staples that I like to get: 100% durum semolina pasta for 99 cents a package, their tasty minestrone soup, frozen naan, and jarred masala simmer sauce.

So, it took a while, but I finally found some places in Boston that will be able to serve my needs as a poor graduate student while still eating semi-healthily. Now the challenge is to see whether I will have the time to actually eat once I am loaded down with law school classes!

Arrival in Bean Town

So, I'll admit it. I was trying really hard to stay blog-active this month, but it really didn't work out. There are a lot of reasons for this, but the primary one is that I just picked up and moved to Boston!

I'll post a little more about the area of the city I'm in during another post, but I would like to say that I'm very excited that I am fully moved in, except for 3 boxes! My dad helped me move up here on the 15th, and since then I have been working really hard to get everything organized and put away -- while at the same time working my full-time job remotely.

I can tell just from my few experiences at the grocery stores in Boston that food is going to be a real challenge for me here. Since I have prices for a lot of products memorized for what was a "good" price is in Virginia, there will need to be some change in expectations. I'm used to going through the weekly circular and picking out items that are about 50% off, and then using a coupon on top of that when I can. Here, it seems like food sales are not actually a bargain, and not much is on sale. It will definitely be an adventure figuring out where to shop.

My apartment situation is a bit unorthodox (in a good way!), and thankfully one of my first meals was made by my landlord's wife. She is an Italian-born immigrant, so her pasta was amazing! :) Plus, I didn't have any food yet, so I really appreciated a home-cooked meal.

Yum!

Pollo Guisado

One of my absolute favorite foods in the whole world is pollo guisado. It is delicious, fall-off-the-bone tender chicken in an amazingly flavorful broth. You can look up a bunch of authentic recipes online, but this is how I make my own version in the slow cooker, in somewhat of a "healthified" way. All the ingredients you may not have, you should be able to easily buy in the international section of most supermarkets or definitely in a Latino supermarket, for very little. They are also good ingredients to have around to flavor other dishes (especially the adobo).

Ingredients:

• 2-4 heaping spoonfuls of sofrito (either buy the can or make it using a recipe online)
• 1-2 packets of sazon goya
• 1 green bell pepper
• 2 cups water
• A few tablespoons of adobo seasoning (buy or make your own blend with seasonings you already have)
• 2-3 carrots
• 1 onion (yellow or white)
• Chicken (any cut) equivalent to 4 chicken leg quarters, with or without skin/bones

Start out by locating your slow cooker/crock pot. If you have a small one, you can always halve the recipe, but I have a large one so I like to make a lot at a time. Add the water, sofrito, and sazon to the pot and mix them up to combine. Smell the broth. If you want more flavor, add some. At this point, you can crank up your crock pot to get it heating up. Generally, go with the high setting if you are leaving it for half a day, or the low setting if it can cook all day.

Next, prepare the chicken. I used bone-in chicken leg quarters and cut them up to separate thighs and drumsticks.  I took the skin off to make it healthier, but it will be more flavorful if you leave the skin on. You can also do this with more lean cuts of chicken (like boneless skinless chicken breasts), but just remember that fat adds flavor! Once you have the chicken prepared, sprinkle each piece with adobo on all sides, and add the chicken to the slow cooker.

 I prefer to add the pepper, onion, and carrot towards the end of the cooking process (about 2 hours before I'm going to eat it) so that they aren't too soft, but that's personal preference. Cut the veggies up into bite-sized pieces before adding them in. You can always add them sooner if you won't be around until you're ready to eat it, too. If you get around to it, stir the contents of the crock pot every so often to get all the flavors melded together.

 At this point, your home will smell like heaven... Yum. About 20 or so minutes before you're ready to eat, cook up some white rice (just not the sticky kind) in your rice cooker. I went with basmati rice, because I had some around. Now add some rice to your plate or bowl, and top it with the pollo guisado (don't forget to add some of the broth!). Eat up.

A more authentic variation on this recipe would be to add chunks of potato in with the chicken to cook, but I was trying to reduce the number of carbs in this meal. Make this recipe your own by adding different veggies (red pepper, etc). Enjoy!

Happy August!

Since it's August, I decided that such a lovely month deserves a little bit of a theme. I've been doing a lot of cooking at home lately, which involves trying to plan ahead with meals and using mostly items that can be stored long-term to buy them when they are the cheapest. The fresh produce and perishable items I buy dictate a lot of what I am making.

By grongar via Wikimedia Commons

So this month's theme is food!

I'm going to try and put some of my best ideas... many of them being modified versions of recipes I've found on different websites. The fewer [quickly] perishable ingredients, the better. Items like shredded cheese and salad dressing I don't really consider perishable, because they tend to last a long while before going bad.

This Creamy Seafood Lasagna recipe from Food.com went over very well with my family. Since I make mine using a 9x9 baking dish rather than a special lasagna dish, I end up halving the recipe. For three people, that amount lasted for two meals when I had a small side salad or bread served with it.

Yum!

The [relatively] expensive ingredients: I buy imitation crab meat and shrimp and freeze them when they go on sale at Harris Teeter, buy one get one free or better. Most of the other ingredients were ones that I would already have anyway, except for half-and-half and ricotta cheese. When I saw both of these items go on sale at the same time a couple of weeks ago, I knew it was time to try out the recipe.

The changes: I didn't' have an onion, so I just left that out. I used wheat flour instead of all-purpose to try and make it a little healthier. I also added a little less half-and-half and a little more canned chicken stock for the same reason. Looking through my freezer, I found some squid and added that in to the seafood mixture. Instead of buying mozzarella and parmesan, I just bought one of those bags with the mixed Italian cheeses. I also used dried parsley rather than fresh. When making the ricotta mixture, I also added some Italian seasoning to flavor things up a bit.

The preparation: For those of us relatively new to cooking -- layer of sauce, layer of lasagna noodles, layer of ricotta mixture, layer of seafood -- Repeat -- add cheese to the top. The end. If you know the general idea of making a lasagna, the only differences about this one are that you have to make the sauce rather than opening up a can and the meat portion isn't already in the sauce. It doesn't actually take very long, either. Just follow the recipe and make any substitutions you want. Because the shrimp and squid I used for this were raw in the bag, I just added them that way to the lasagna and they cooked up just fine in the oven.

Creating a Candy Bar

Being that I was a bridesmaid in one of my best friends' wedding not all that long ago, it also necessarily involved throwing a great bridal shower. Along with all the decorations, games, and regular food, we created a candy table that ended up looking really great, if I do say so myself. :)

If you've never done it before, it can seem like somewhat of a daunting task with all of the different elements, but I think I've now got a good handle on the best way to get all of them to come together and look really great. I decided that it might help someone else out there to have some tips on making this aspect of a bridal shower, wedding, or really any event come together as smoothly as possible, even when you are on a budget like me.

Candy Buffet!

1) Ok, so you've decided to do a candy bar for your event. Wonderful idea. Your first task is to keep your eye out all the time for whimsical glass jars, bowls, and containers to use. If you go to some of the more expensive places, you can end up spending your life savings on glass containers... so don't. Enlist the other event helpers to check out their local thrift stores for unusual-shaped glass items. You'll want ones of different heights and shapes, so keep that in mind. The display will look the best if you can keep all the containers with the same clear glass theme. The places I had the most luck finding these items at reasonable prices were:

• Thrift Stores (Salvation Army, Goodwill, etc.)
• Craigslist (make this website your best friend! it really pays off -- make your own "looking to buy" ad, as well as checking ones from sellers.)
• Your mom/aunt/friend/other person who already has these items for you to borrow
• World Market
• HomeGoods Store -- I had never been into one of these stores before this project, and it's got a lot of cool stuff! The glass containers are some of the most reasonably priced with the largest variety you'll find at any regular kind of store.

2) Choose a color scheme. The presentation will be much more eye-catching if you stick with 2-3 color options. Our colors were blue and green, obviously, but it can be a bit of a challenge to find candies that are in that range -- you'll just have to think outside the box for that one and come up with unique ideas to stay as close to homogeneous as possible with the colors.

3) Find scoops to scoop up the candy! This was the hardest thing for me to find. Everywhere I looked online seemed to have very expensive options. In the end, I found very nice metal scoops at World Market, along with a few others from a local dollar store and thrift store. You may also need tongs or a cake server -- so check with friends and family, or go to World Market for those too.

4) Create or find labels to label each candy type. Our maid-of-honor found a really cute set of labels made especially for a candy table from a local party supply store, with three different display formats: cards folded into a "v" to place directly on the table surface, labels attached to popsicle sticks to place directly into the candy, and ones with ribbon to tie around the outside of the container. Obviously each display format will not work for every type of candy, so it was easier for us to go through the options the night before and pick which containers would have which labels and candy type, so that we didn't have to worry too much about figuring that out the day of the party.

• A great place to purchase labels or get ideas is Etsy, like these cute printable labels you can order.

5) Find the candy and other items for the candy bar! Depending on where you live, it can be a bit of a challenge to find bulk candy to put in the containers. Living in Virginia, we had the most luck at Wegman's and Martin's. It got a little annoying at times to pick out the candies with the blue or green wrappers from the bulk bins, but it looks a lot nicer in the end, so it's worth spending your time doing that. I spent a lot of time figuring out if it was more expensive for me to purchase the candy in-store or online, and by far it was cheaper in-store. Even with certain websites offering discounts and/or free shipping, it still wasn't worth it.

Here are some helpful ideas for items that you can make for a candy bar, and the ingredients/colors used can be interchanged depending on your color scheme:

• Double Blueberry Pie - I actually made this with blackberries for the party, but again with blueberries later. It's a really delicious pie and very refreshing with fresh berries on it. If one of your colors is red or pink, try raspberries or strawberries.
• Cookie Balls - Use food coloring to make the white chocolate coating the appropriate color for your scheme. I used regular double stuf oreos instead of the mint, but either would taste great.
• Chocolate-Covered Pretzels, Sugar Cookies - Do the same thing with the food coloring as for the cookie balls.
• Mochi - This is a delicious Japanese dessert that is really easy to make. Use the basic mochi recipe with food coloring to make it whatever color you want.

6) Set up the display, and enjoy eating your creation! Yum!

So this is why I'm fat?

I'm not exactly sure how I feel about this... but it was strange enough that I wanted to share.
http://thisiswhyyourefat.tumblr.com
To be honest, I don't really find this spaghetti & meatballs cake to be all that appetizing.

Chocolate cake covered in spaghetti icing, with Ferrero Roche meatballs smothered with raspberry sauce.

Just Hungry

One of my favorite foodie blogs is Just Hungry. This is the perfect blog to visit if you have thought about trying to cook Japanese food but don't know where to start. The recipes are all very authentic and cover a huge variety of food types (from the Japanese food you're probably familiar with to things that you didn't even know existed). There are even guides to help you cook rice properly, make your own tofu, or understand the plethora of different types of rice.

Sukiyaki - One of my favorites!

A closely-related side project is Just Bento. I for one get board of packing a sandwich every day for lunch - and this is a great alternative to that. There are some great [healthy] ideas on the site, and not just for what you would assume to be specifically Japanese foods.

Spring vegetable bento with jumping fish - so cute!

And just in case you prefer actual cookbooks to online blogs, there is a Just Bento cookbook!

Beginning the Lenten Season

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday. That means the beginning of a 40-day period (Lent) in which Christians traditionally refrain from eating meat (not including fish) on Fridays and some people decide to deny themselves of something as a form of penance to God. Many of us can remember the difficult time I went through when I gave up chocolate for Lent in high school. Although that did serve as an act of reverence to God (it is extremely difficult to do when you normally eat chocolate multiple times a day), I wanted to give up something this year that would be an even more surefire way for me to grow as a person and develop my faith.

So, I decided to give up watching T.V.

Yes, I know. 40 whole days without television. 46 including Sundays. Although I won't be watching any shows or movies at home, I will allow myself the opportunity to go see a movie at the theater if it so happens. Thinking back on my lifetime at all of the time I have spent watching T.V., it is really appalling to think about all the ways I could have used that time instead. I saw a commercial a while ago that mentioned the amount of time that Americans spend commuting to and from work in their lifetimes, and I was horrified. But really, I can do a lot more about my lifestyle choices at home than I can about my commute (in the short term). We'll just have to see how successful (or unsuccessful) I am!

These are some of the exciting things I hope to do instead of watching T.V. over the next two months:

• Spend time with my dog, family, and friends
• Clean the house
• Read my current book: Ethics for the New Millennium by the Dalai Lama
• Exercise more
• Brush up on Spanish and Japanese

• Read the New Testament of the Bible
• Pick up a new hobby
• Bake new kinds of desserts
• Do a better job of keeping in touch with old friends
•  Make lunches at night for work

And here is some interesting information from Wikipedia about Lent:

• Ash Wednesday gets it name from the practice of placing ashes on the foreheads of adherents as a sign of mourning and repentance to God. Ashes were used in ancient times to express mourning.
• In the Catholic Church, Ash Wednesday is observed by fasting, abstinence from meat, and repentance—a day of contemplating one's transgressions.
• The traditional purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer — through prayer, repentance, almsgiving and self-denial — for the annual commemoration during Holy Week of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus (Easter).
• "Lent" initially simply meant spring (as in the German Lenz and Dutch lente) and derives from the Germanic root for long because in the spring the days visibly lengthen.

Photo of Pope Benedict: roblisameehan

Sustainable Seafood Consumption

Figuring out how to be an environmentally-conscious consumer is important, but let's not kid ourselves --- it's also complicated. Especially when it comes to seafood. Some fish species are best to buy farm-raised, others are recommended wild-caught only, and some just shouldn't be consumed at all because of the state of the fisheries.

Salmon farming is a great example of this problem. So we don't want to over fish the wild populations of salmon, so why not just farm them? Well, farming can actually harm the wild populations in some cases. Crowding together fish in such a small area causes diseases to become epidemics, where as in the wild the diseases would be kept at low levels by predation on the sick ones. Huge groups of farmed salmon infected with sea lice cause wild salmon to have a higher likelihood of catching the parasite, with greater amounts of sea lice being transported to waters around the farmed salmons' cages. So not only does the farming hurt the local environment because it produces so much waste contamination in the water from the huge masses of fish that would not normally be there, but it also hurts the wild salmon by infecting them with parasites. You can learn more here.

Poor baby salmon. :(

Since we all want our descendants to be able to enjoy these species once we are long gone, but realistically, there is no way for us to research all of this intricate information on all species of fish we purchase at the grocery store or at a restaurant, I'd like to encourage the world to take advantage of the following tool. The Monterey Bay Aquarium has created a sustainable seafood guide to help consumers purchase wisely. Through either an online guide, printable pocket guide for your wallet, or mobile guide for your smart phone, the vast majority of the work is done for us. I can just whip out my phone if I am thinking about purchasing some fish at the grocery store, and the guide will give me a good idea as to what my best options are. Even some grocers that tout themselves as more environmentally conscious, like Whole Foods, still offer seafood options labeled as "Avoid" by the Seafood Watch Guide -- so as consumers, we have to be conscious of this all the time. Fish are yummy, so we might as well keep them around as long as possible and try to avoid population collapse.

Aeri's Kitchen

I have been really impressed with some of the great blogs out there that are dedicated to a specific type of cooking. One of my favorite blogs is Aeri's Kitchen - Aeri does a great job of making Korean cooking accessible for people who have never tried preparing it before. I really like that there are often substitutes for ingredients - like honey instead of Asian pear juice - because otherwise many of the recipes would probably not be feasible for me.

One of my favorites is BiBimBap - a very traditional Korean dish with rice, meat, and vegetables (so it's healthy!). I usually substitute chicken instead of beef, and the marinade always turns out really well. I also just substitute whatever vegetables I happen to have in the fridge for the more exotic ones, and it's great!

My other favorite Korean dish (especially at restaurants) is bulgogi. I really think that the best cooking blogs are the ones that provide step-by-step instructions - and Aeri provides pictures with written instructions as well as video instructions. It doesn't get more comprehensive than that! I don't cook beef dishes too often, but bulgogi is one that I will make an exception for. It's pretty quick to prepare the marinating meat one night and have it ready to cook up quickly the next. Why pay for a cookbook when this is so much better?!