Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Costco Shopping

Finally made it to Costco this evening. And I can confirm that weekday shopping is by far the best way to go.

First, I found a pizza small enough to fit in my tiny oven. It is thin crust, and I mean super thin crust:



I cut up some of this Italian sandwich meat and added to the pizza before baking. I thought this looked similar to pepperoni, and it worked out well.



I break up the large package into two, and freeze one. There are three meats in the pack, and I can only identify the Salami. It was the meat in the upper-left of this photo that I cut up and put on the pizza - it must be either Calabrese or Capocollo.



This was my first time to bake a pizza in the oven. I tried to pre-heat it as instructed on the package. Problem was, the display on the oven didn't show me the current temperature, only the set temperature. I just let it heat for about 15 minutes, then put the pizza in. The box said cook it 10-15 minutes, and I set the timer for 12. It was almost burned when I checked it at 11 minutes! I forgot that the convection oven cooks quicker than a regular oven. Fortunately, it was not ruined, and it came out pretty good for my first time.

The standard hamburgers and hot dogs. I'll freeze all the hamburger tomorrow. The hot dogs were new - they used to sell a brand of Brats in this same size package. Besides these ones called Polish Sausage, they also had one called Cheese Dogs. I like cheese, but I'm suspicious about cheese that the factory puts in the hot dogs. If I really want cheese in my hot dog, I'll put it there myself.





I considered getting a steak, but the cuts that looked like good grilling steaks (well marbled cuts) were packaged at about $50/tray. The price per pound was probably reasonable for Korea, it was just sold in a tray of 7 or 8 steaks - far more than I need. If (and that's a big IF) they resume American beef imports, maybe I can find a decently priced steak.

Not shown here are the two large frozen bags of healthy meats, that is Salmon Steaks and Chicken Breasts.

The other interesting purchase was "organic" peanut butter. I wasn't so much interested in an organic product, but instead I wanted something reasonably sized, and creamy style instead of crunchy. When I got home, I realized that organic peanut butter separates from the natural peanut oil in shipment. I tried to stir it back up, but it was too stiff to stir without making a mess. Finally I put it into the blender, and managed to mix it that way. Problem is, it made a big mess, and I lost a lot of peanut butter to the sides of the blender. When I was all done, the resulting peanut butter was WAY to soft and runny. I'm not very satisfied so far, and unfortunately it was a double-jar pack of peanut butter!

5 comments:

TacyLou said...

Chris,

Store the peanut butter in the cabinet upside down. The peanut butter itself will settle, then when you turn it over, the oil is at the bottom.
We use natural peanut butter, and this tip works great for us.
You can also refrigerate it, but that makes it very hard to spread.

Anonymous said...

Hey Chris, Not sure what your plans are with your Costco bag of salmon, but we're having a salmon recipe contest. We're awarding the winner with 15 lbs. of wild salmon, but the down side is we can only ship it in the U.S. But we'd still love to have a favorite recipe of yours if you're interested.

Anonymous said...

After all your efforts to re-blend your peanut butter, it will only separate again after sitting for a while. Try Chris's suggestion. That's how I stored it when you were a child and I ground my own peanut butter. Works great. Now if I could just find that old peanut grinder, I'd make myself a yummy sandwich!

Chris said...

Yeah, Mom, I have since learned that. At first, I thought this settling was related to the shipping and self storage time on the way to, and in the store. I now understand that it settles much quicker than I thought. BTW, I think you mean "tacylou's" suggestion, storing it upside down. I've had it sitting that way for two days, but I honestly haven't checked it yet since I haven't eaten any peanut butter since then.

Unknown said...

I buy that Costco old-fashioned peanut butter, too.

I just stir it up with a chopstick and then stick it in the fridge.

It isn't so hard that it can't be spread.