200 g sun-dried tomatoes
700 g castelvatrano olive, pitted
125 g red wine (cabernet, merlot, or malbec)
1 fresh garlic clove, minced
olive oil, for consistency
Pulse together in a food processor until desired consistency.
Despite my folks and relatives avoiding most dairy cow products, I love non-vegan cheese. Look, don't get me wrong, "cheese" product made with cashews is fine as a spreadable cheese, but sometimes, you just want to make a gooey grilled cheese sandwich (because it's now autumn and roasted tomato basil soup + grilled cheese sandwiches are delicious), add some cheddar to ramen noodles, or nibble on cheese blocks with cured slices of meat.
Here's what's in a typical plain cashew cheese recipe:
Here's what's in a typical cow milk-based cheese recipe:
The other downside to cashew "cheese" is that it has the consistency of chunky cream cheese and is used wherever a 'spread" or the look of the "cheese" in the finished cooked product doesn't matter. E.g., as a substitute for ricotta cheese in lasagna or ravioli, as a sauce or spread used with crackers.
This has been one of my go-to meals this year. Mostly because I'm both tired and lazy; and after work, I just want something simple without a lot of prep. Thank goodness that the Ninja Foodi still works after two years. This uses the stainless steel rack insert that the NF comes with.
In the NF, insert stainless steel rack and add 1 cup of water.
On the rack, place frozen chicken thighs.
Season to your liking. I use sea salt, fresh ground black pepper, and garlic powder.
No pre-heating needed.
NF settings: 10 minutes on HIGH. Natural release 20 minutes.
Stab with meat thermometer in the thickest part of the thigh. Should read at least 165 F. If not, flip the thighs over and set NF to air crisp settings (390 F) for 5 minutes.
You can use the same prep time doing other things while the chicken is cooking; such as preparing a vegetable dish stovetop or a salad or whatever.
You can cook rice at the same time; though I have not tried this because the chicken needs that water to pressure cook & steam to perfection; the rice also uses the same amount of water to cook. The remaining liquid is essentially chicken broth and can be used or consumed.
Side note: when chicken thighs (bone-in with skin) are on sale ($0.99/lb or BOGO) at my local Fred Meyer grocery store, I buy . . a lot. Half gets baked or grilled, then eaten in meals for the week. I freeze the rest in 2 thighs per resealable quart bag.
Let's say that you did nothing at meal time with the leftover chicken broth. You could add more water and add uncooked rice to make a congee for breakfast tomorrow. Or, you could add more water to that the liquid volume is back to 1 cup and make a batch of pressure cooked steamed rice (1 minute on HIGH, 10 minutes natural release).
How you store food items makes a big difference in how long the food can be safely stored.
Apples can stay firm for about a week without refrigeration (in the Pacific Northwest); but as it gets warmer and there is less humidity in the air, the apples will start to wrinkle and become not as firm. They'll start to rot after four weeks at room temperature without refrigeration during winter/spring, maybe faster during summer/fall. They can last a lot longer when kept in a sealed plastic bag in the refrigerator for a month or more; but not longer than six months.
During each year of the pandemic, I dehydrated about 40 pounds of organic apples, some with the skin on and some with the skin peeled off. That is another way to create a sugar-free snack with a very long shelf life. I would recommend that you eat these dehydrated apple rings before the following year; but the apple rings are still edible, they're not as tasty as when they came out of the dehydrator.
Is that too long? Hahaha. By then, the apples, if you got them on sale and have not done anything with them, you could still chop them up and cut off the bad parts and use the fruit in a pie or bread or make applesauce.
Fresh lemons and limes can be stored in lidded Cambro containers (food-safe plastic). Costco now carries the 2-quart Cambro containers ($15/4 containers) which is a great price; considering that I used to buy these containers from a restaurant supply store. I generally put as many as the container can hold, up to three lemons and/or limes a quart-sized container. If you want, you can also add a clean folded paper towel at the bottom to absorb any condensation. Stored in the refrigerator, these fresh fruits can keep for about a month without wrinkling or drying out.
Fresh eggs:
Always refrigerated. I reorganized the shelves in my refrigerator so that these egg flats can fit on the top shelf. However, I also buy 4 dozen organic eggs at a time (from Costco) and for me, it's about a month's worth of eggs.
Butter/Ghee:
I typically store 4-8 pounds of butter; half in the freezer and half in the refrigerator. And generally, one stick of butter sits on a dish in my cupboards at room temperature regardless of the season we're in. Except for summer when the cupboard temperature rises above 80 F, then it gets stored in the refrigerator.
I keep ghee in a mason jar at room temp.
This would likely explain why my franken apple tree (has 5 varieties of apples grafted to its trunk) only produces 1-2 apple varieties per growing season. Each major branch represents a type of apple. Though, the identification tags have fallen off the tree. At least one of the varieties is golden delicious.
Washington State's apple season typically runs from August to November, with the peak harvest occurring in September and October. The harvest dates vary depending on the apple variety, with some varieties ripening earlier or later than others.
By apple variety:
The pandemic and risk of COVID-19 certainly changed how I shopped for groceries and how often I shopped at which stores for particular food items:
The quality of fresh items such as fruit, vegetables, and dairy became an issue during and immediately after the pandemic from both Chuck's Produce and Trader Joe's. Refrigerated dairy spoiled faster than the "use by" date and fresh vegetables rotted quicker. Don't even get me started on apples. The apples from Chuck's Produce, especially when purchased off-season, were all rotten inside. The apples certainly still looked pretty on the outside, but once you cut into the apple, the apple flesh looked as though it had been in cold storage for a year. It was awful.
New rules to prevent food waste: