Creamy Red Skin Mashed Potatoes
This creamy red skin mashed potatoes was inspired by the mashed potatoes I made for Thanksgiving Day which was inspired by The Pioneer Woman’s creamy mashed potatoes recipe. They’re all basically the same except I used red skin potatoes this time around and when cooking red skin potatoes, you must include the skin. Well I think so anyway.
Wash thoroughly 6-7 medium red skin potatoes. Cut in quarters, boil in water until soft. Drain the water off once soft, return the potatoes back into the pot. Add 1 stick of butter, 1 brick of cream cheese, a little bit of milk, sprinkle with salt to season, then generously sprinkle black pepper.
Mash the whole thing with a potato masher. Get one if you don’t have it yet. It’ll make your potato-mashing day. Dollar stores have them.
And because I love a lot of black pepper in my mashed potatoes, I sprinkled more on top to serve as a garnish.
TIP: DO NOT add too much milk or else you’ll get pasty mashed potatoes. A little goes a long way.
Thanksgiving Day Dinner For 4/6 People In Under $100
I realized after doing my Thanksgiving Day dinner grocery shopping today that thanks to my Food Lion MVP Card, I would be cooking up a Thanksgiving Day Feast for under $100. This dinner would be for 2 adults and 2 children but could easily feed 6 adults.
The MVP card gave AWESOME deals in everything I need to make the Turkey, 6 different sides, and desserts. A $30 purchase alone gives any MVP card holder a $6 -15 pounds Turkey. There are also the Buy One Get One Free deals that I took advantage of.
That whole thing is under $100. My table will have a roasted turkey, mashed potatoes w/ cream cheese, corn bread casserole, broccoli with crispy bacon bits and garlic, green beans casserole, sweet potato muffins, and 2 sweet potato pies come Thanksgiving Day.
Del Monte canned products were $1.19 each, buy one get one free. You have to be smart about these deals. The store brand will have a price of .79 cents each. 2 cans would be $1.58. At first glance, the .79cents each will catch your attention but once you do the Math you’ll find out that sometimes it’s better to get the Brand ones. Don’t hesitate to get the store brands sometimes though if you’ll be saving more coz frankly there’s not much difference between store brand and brand ones. It all depends on your preferences and the deals.
So the tricks are:
- sign up for the costumer card (you can do this anytime and save instantly)
- pay attention to the prices
- compare while doing the Math
- make a list beforehand of what you’ll need
- bring a calculator
Some of the ingredients like flour, sugar, oil, eggs, shortening, and bacon wouldn’t even be used completely therefore they’ll be added to the regular grocery stock. So that’s another savings there. We wouldn’t be having appetizers this year because my husband will be working that day so we’d be feasting during our regular dinner time which is about about 6pm.
Nevertheless, if I bought Ritz crackers, 2 bricks of cheese, cheese ball and shrimp cocktail ring like we always have as appetizers, to add into the entire bill, it would still come out to under $100. Mind you, I didn’t use any coupons. I just followed the deals in-store and used my MVP card.
Wal-Mart Beef Review
NO, I am not brining these last 2 pieces of steaks from Wal-Mart to make it more moist nor infuse any added flavors. I’m soaking these steaks to remove the saltiness from ‘em.
Before we moved to this new house, we used to go to BJ’s Wholesale Club to buy our meat. The store sell affordable meat in assorted kinds. Great stuff. Now that we’ve moved, we’re not that close to BJ’s anymore so we’ve been buying our meats at Wal-Mart along with the groceries. We’ve purchased meats at Wal-Mart before. Chicken is ok but there was always something different with pork and beef. They’re a bit salty. My husband and I thought we were simply unlucky with the cuts so we shrugged it off. But when Wal-Mart became our sole meat store since we’ve moved, the saltiness of the meat couldn’t be ignored anymore.
After the first 2 pieces of the 4 steaks ended up in the trash coz they were just too salty to eat, my husband read the label from the back of another pack of steaks. Here’s what he found:
Along with the beef, there were beef broth, potassium lactate, Sodium and Potassium Phosphates, Salt, Natural Flavors and Ascorbic Acid. Just like what I wrote on the image, WTF? No wonder the meat were salty. We wouldn’t even feed them to our dog, if we had any. One could arrogantly argue that we shouldn’t expect anything good from Wal-Mart considering its reputation but it never really occurred to us that the aforementioned substances would be added to fresh meat sold in a grocery store.
With a label that says USDA Select: 100% Freshness Guaranteed, no less. Fresh my arse! You want fresh meat, find a local meat/butcher place. That’s what my husband did after a few days. For $35, we purchased REAL fresh pork, beef, and chicken to replenish our freezer.
Compare that label to the Wal-Mart meat above. HUGE difference, no?
I had to soak the last Wal-Mart beef we had on water before cooking because as much I was pissed off, I still didn’t want to waste my money. The beef stir-fry and chicken fried steaks were not bad. But I wouldn’t be going through this water-soaked meat process before cooking anymore. We’re sticking with our butcher from now on.
BEWARE OF WAL-MART MEAT!
The Adventures Of The Pickled Ginger
Many months ago, I bought a jar of pickled ginger at the Oriental Store in Raleigh. What for? Well, if you eat sushi then you know that pickled ginger are served on the side. I make my own sushi rolls sometimes so I figured I’d copy the Hibachi restaurants by having pickled ginger on the side as well. Just because they’re home-made sushi, doesn’t mean they can’t be Hibachi restaurant-worthy.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t open the jar of pickled ginger. I have made sushi since I’ve bought it but I haven’t been able to serve sushi with the pickled ginger. No matter how hard I’ve tried to twist the cap, I just can’t open it. So the jar had been siting in the fridge, unopened. My husband discovered it a few months ago and wondered what’s it’s doing in our fridge. I gave him the story I just told you guys above. He was flabbergasted that I haven’t used it coz I couldn’t open it. That or he’s flabbergasted that I just can’t open the damn thing. I can’t remember. Either way, I’m flabbergasted that he’s flabbergasted over the fact that these things happen in Dexie’s World. Like Duhhhhhh.
Before I completely digress, let’s go back to the pickled ginger.
Today, as in September 18th 2010, at about noon, I grabbed a can of soda from the fridge then I sort of glanced on the side compartment and saw the jar of pickled ginger. It’s one of the few things I was able to salvaged from the cooler when we moved to this new house two weeks ago. I decided that the jar and I have an unfinished business. It’s now or never. It’s do or die.
So I twisted and twisted and twisted until my wrist couldn’t take anymore twisting. Yes, I cussed at the jar a few times too. I’ve given up and was about to put it back in the fridge to sit for how many more months, I don’t know. But then I suddenly remembered my Home Economics Teacher. I can’t remember her name but I know she wears glasses. I think I heard her say, “Do the back of the knife-tap trick.”
I wasn’t confident of the trick but I’ve used it before with other tight jars and it worked so I figured, hey, why not. So tap tap I did. I tapped and turned the jar in between to tap the other sides. After the 1st cycle, I twisted the cap but it still wouldn’t open. So I did another cycle of back of the knife tapping.
And finally, freaking finally, I opened the jar. I finally saw the inside of it. I can finally spoon out the pickled ginger. I can finally display it in my pretty blue Chinese plate. I tasted a few. They taste like pickled ginger, except really really really cold. One of these days, I can serve homemade sushi with pickled ginger. Maybe I’ll chopped some up in small pieces to add in stir-fries too. Or ginger flavored cupcakes, or cookies. Hmmm. I’m just glad the darn thing is finally open without using any expensive kitchen gadgets from those annoying infomercials. Back of the butter knife, imagine that. Those Home Economics classes are serving its purpose. Who knew?
Cooking Term: Fork Tender
You’ve encountered the words “fork tender” a lot in this blog in reference to potatoes especially when the post is about adobo or stews. I’m sure you’ve read cookbooks and heard chefs on TV using the term as well. Basically, fork tender pertains to how soft the potatoes are after boiling or adding into a dish.
Read more
Barbeque Meatloaf
Yes, that’s really a meatloaf. I got the idea of using a bundt pan from Connie of HouseOnAHill.net. Although her meatloaf was meatier and more moist than mine but I’ll tell you more about that later. Meatloaf is just one of those dishes where you make it and then you don’t make it again until after 6 months or perhaps longer, like a year in my case. There’s nothing wrong with this particular meat dish, it’s just, it’s actually kind of a boring dish for a ground beef or any ground meat for that matter. Which is why I try to make it more flavorful when making it like adding barbecue sauce for instance.
INGREDIENTS:
2-3 pounds of ground beef
1 egg
1/2 cup fresh bread crumbs (1 piece of bread, crumbled in a blender)
1 tbsp dried basil
1 tbsp dried oregano
sprinkle of garlic powder
salt and pepper to season
3/4 cup of barbecue sauce
another 1/4 cup barbecue sauce for glaze
Preaheat the oven to 355°
In a huge mixing bowl, combine all the ingredients together except for the lat 1/4 cup of barbecue sauce. Use your hands to mix everything together.
Put the mixture in a loaf pan or a bundt cake pan. It’s really up to you. Cook it in the oven for about 45 minutes or an hour.
Once cooked, take it out, put a serving plate on top of the pan, then carefully turn it upside down. Brush the top with the remaining barbecue sauce.
I served with mashed potatoes (used an ice cream scooper to get that ball shape), and peas. I have to admit that the meatloaf was a little bit dry. My husband said I might have over-mixed it. I said, that and probably cooked it for too long. Hey, it was good thanks to the barbecue sauce but just for a tip, don’t over mix and cook for a little less than an hour.
Peanut Butter & Co. Reviews
Hubs and I discovered the Peanut Butter & Co products at Wal-Mart Supercenter a few months ago. We were intrigued with the combination of peanut butter and white chocolate so we decided to start with the White Chocolate Wonderful variant which has the all-natural peanut butter and white chocolate combo. The website sells it for $6 but if I remember it right, it was about $4 at Wal-Mart. Hubs tested it first by getting a spoonful of it. He told me it was just OK and he was right. The combination wasn’t as rich as I expected it to be. The white chocolate flavor got lost. It was more peanut butter with a slight taste of white chocolate. I was really disappointed. It did not inspire me to make any desserts out of it. It served as spread on toasted breads and kids licking a spoonful for a snack. Just like regular peanut butter.
Even though the 1st variant was disappointing, we decided to try another one. This time it’s the Dark Chocolate Dreams. This was much better. The combination of peanut butter and dark chocolate was balanced. You can taste both flavors. The rich dark chocolate flavor blended really well with the creaminess of the peanut butter. So with that, I was inspired to make cupcakes ala self-frosting nutella cupcakes.
Would I buy it again or try the other variants? Hmmm, perhaps, but it’s not something I would include in my grocery list every 2 weeks. It will be like a novelty grocery item that I might indulge on if I have extra money in the budget.
How To Eat Pork Rinds
I like pork rinds, you like pork rinds, who doesn’t like pork rinds? The best pork rinds are the ones in hugs bags. Or the ones from the butcher place. Don’t get the small bags with shiny packaging from grocery stores. I used to get them but once I started buying my pork rinds at the butcher place where I buy our pork supply, and I haven’t bought it anywhere else since.
How To Make Sweetened Iced Tea
There are iced tea powder mixes that you could just add water and store in the fridge to make iced tea. But I don’t use those in our house. I go for a more traditional way, if that’s how you call it, using actual tea bags.
Here’s How To Make Sweetened Iced Tea.
Baked Chicken Caldereta
Whenever I visit the Filipino/Asian store nearby, I always grab a few packs of different mixes. Mostly I grab caldereta, menudo and sinigang mixes. I don’t live in the Philippines so the mixes are the closest to I have in tasting caldereta, menudo and sinigang dishes. There are also adobo, pansit, stir-fry, and tocino mixes but I don’t buy those coz I can make those dishes with my eyes closed without the help of a mix 
. With the former 3, I need the mixes. But that’s not what this dish is all about..
