The senior brown bag and box

Last week we signed up for the senior brown bag and box here in our city. We were picking it up for our 80 yr old friend who doesn't drive and was told we qualified as well.  We're seniors and my husband is a retired veteran. Wow. So they gave us a box and a brown bag and it had a lot of food. We were shocked. 

Now I know where my other friend got all the potatoes and yogurt - she gave to us. Now she'll have to find someone else. 

We received: 

tomatoes and tomato sauce

canned pears

black beans

green beans

1 gallon of 2% milk

1/2 gallon of chocolate milk

4 pork chops

1 lb of ground beef

1 chicken

2 cans of tuna fish

red potatoes

onions

carrots

oranges

apples

strawberries

pears

yogurt

sour cream

oreo cookies

2 boxes of Cheerios (my husband's favorite)

pepper jack cheese slices

elbow macaroni

spaghetti noodles

rice

We plan to stockpile some of the food - and what we don't use, or need or like - we will pass it on to the Loaves and Fishes food bank for the homeless. 

Yesterday I made a sour cream potato salad with the red potatoes (skin on) We'll eat that tonight with our Costco Hot dogs - the only ones I will eat. 

All of this will really help us out. 

The Burden of free food

1 down, 3 to go

Last night's chicken dinner was delicious however I don't think I will marinate the chicken in yogurt again - it was messy. It did seem as if the chicken was moist and tender. Marinating in good old-fashioned buttermilk is not as messy. 

Here is the recipe for the Yogurt coffee cake.   It was good but needs some tweaking. I plan to try some other "yogurt cake" recipes. 

I now have 3 tubs of yogurt left. I've tried to give a tub away - no one likes plain yogurt. They are good till June 6. 

The Potatoes.

I hate to waste food. I don't have a basement or a root cellar and our 100+ degree summers are just around the corner. I've already made scalloped potatoes with our salmon the other night - Potato soup and last night we had mashed potatoes. I like potatoes but not this much. 

I found where you can cook the potatoes and then freeze them. I do like potato salad and since it is salad time of year, I'm going to make a huge bunch of it. My sons love their Mom's potato salad. 

People nowadays don't use potatoes like my mom did. They tend to buy packaged potatoes. I've always made my mashed potatoes from scratch. 

Next time I won't be so quick to accept the burden of the free food. 

Potatoes and Yogurt. Yogurt and Potatoes.

 

This is not a cooking blog, but every now and then I will post something about food. Saturday I came into 4-32 oz containers of non-fat plain yogurt that is good till June. They also gave us, 2 10lb sacks of Idaho potatoes. I had just bought a 5 lb sack so I gave Char the 5 lb sack and we are left with 20lbs of potatoes. I made a potato soup and tomorrow I will make a potato salad. Tonight we're having fried chicken, (that I will marinate in yogurt) mashed potatoes, and homemade pan gravy. 

I also made a yogurt cake up above. It has a really unique taste - I like it. Not too sweet. You load up half the batter and then top it with walnut, brown sugar and cinnamon crumble - add the final layer and top with the remaining crumble. 

You can't freeze yogurt - it changes the texture. So I have till June. It's plain yogurt - while I don't care for fruit ladened yogurt due to its just too sweet for me, I did get some frozen strawberries. That was good  - and also we can add some honey to it. 

I have a feeling I may be sick of potatoes and yogurt in the not-so-distant future...