Days 3 and 4 of Shopping at Home: Transformed Tomatoes and Jiffy Nostalgia

So…Day 3 went pretty much as I imagined, eating up the leftovers of zucchini soup and pizza.  Perhaps an odd combination, but I do not want to have too many leftovers.  I mean, the purpose of this week’s exercise is to get things out and used up, not to make more to have hiding in the back of the fridge.

Day 4 is a planned evening out with some friends for me, and my son has soccer practice in the early evening, so I need to prepare something that can simmer on the stove or in a crock pot until the boys are ready to eat.  During my sweeping search for shredded cheese, I discovered two more pounds of Triple S ground beef I didn’t know I had.  Also, some of those green tomatoes from the last garden haul?  They’ve magically turned red!  So chili is a natural consequence, easy, tasty, and nutritionally complete.  Mine is not a special recipe by any means; I always have dried black beans or cans of them available, and they are my favorite for chili.  Sometimes I add kidney beans, but I don’t have any this time, and no shopping allowed!  My “secret” final ingredient is to add half a beer while the chili is simmering.  This will help diminish the Corona in our fridge downstairs, as it was left over from a party long ago, and not really the kind we like to drink.

Discovered:  1. Tomatoes needing to be rescued; they look a bit dry for eating, but will be perfect in chili.

2. Ground beef, and lots of it.

3. A giant box of Saltines on the verge of going stale.  I could see my boys using up a sleeve or two of those in chili.

4. Corona.  Don’t even remember how this came to our house, but probably some sort of summer gathering.

Purged:  Nothing this time, but I might want to take another peek into my veggie drawer just to be sure.  Some cilantro might be hiding in there, which is great as a chili topping, but it might be ready for the compost bin.

Back in the day I was less concerned about organic and natural foods, and I kept a stash of Jiffy prepared corn muffin mix on hand.  Believe it or not, I get slightly nostalgic about Jiffy cornbread.  It would go so well with the chili, and it’s so inexpensive and easy. Those little light blue boxes are so cute and compact, and the packaging hasn’t changed since at least the 1970s.  Just add eggs and milk.  Sigh.  But, alas, no.  One look at the ingredient list convinces me that I should either make corn muffins from scratch, or stick with the Saltines.  And begin planning Day 5…