And the newest acquisition:
Dumpster diving
New frontiers in boba!
Someone online said that no Bay Area boba establishment has turned them away for asking to use a non-disposable boba cup. That sounded amazing, so I implored sibling C (visiting) to attempt it for the first time. It was too nerve-wracking for me to try in untested waters.
When asked if it was okay to use a jar (wide-mouth quart jar in this case; pint jars wouldn’t be big enough for a normal serving of milk tea), the cashier not only agreed, but did so immediately without any weird looks! Maybe she just saw us coming and prepared herself, or maybe it’s common here! I will definitely do this at Teaspoon again 😀
I usually use the provided plastic boba straws (or wrapped ones that ended up on the ground that no one else wants), but am thinking of buying or making a reusable one. J and I get boba a couple times a month with friends, so it would make sense.
Birthday beans
Guess what my mom gave me for my birthday (so long ago now I’m sorry)?? Beans!!
They’re from Rancho Gordo, a company that grows and sells heirloom beans and traditional Mexican beans (to help preserve local food traditions!). Even though these are just about the fanciest beans that exist, they only cost ~$6/lb. That’s about as cheap as the worst-quality factory-farmed beef you can buy. Amazing.
I also got scarlet runner beans, which I ate before photographing everything. They are huge!!! The cooked beans are the size of the first segment of my thumb. You have to eat the beans one by one, they’re so big.
Granola attempt
I made granola a few months ago, using this recipe, which comes down to:
Combine 6 parts dry ingredients (usually 3 parts rolled oats, 1 part nuts, 1 part seeds, 1 part something else) with 1 part wet ingredient (about half oil and half liquid sweetener) + 1 egg white (optional; makes the granola extra crispy and browned). Bake at 300°F for about 45 min until dry and browned, stirring every 15 min. If you want to add dried fruit, stir into hot granola once you take it out of the oven.
I made a super exciting novelty batch of granola using oats, millet, quinoa, flax seeds, amaranth, and (unfortunately) sorghum. The sorghum did not cook in the allotted baking time. It is like little stones mixed into the granola. You’d think you were going to break your teeth. For the past few months, I’ve been painstakingly picking the sorghum out of the granola. There was a cup of sorghum to start with, so I’m about halfway done…
Takeaway message: don’t get too excited with your granola. If you’re going to add non-oat ingredients, they should be edible raw or small enough to cook in the same amount of time as the oats, which have a stovetop cooking time of 5 min.
Interesting article on eating undesirable foods
Here’s an interesting discussion of eating those less desirable animals or animal parts. J and I sometimes make chicken broth from chicken feet from the farmer’s market. They also sell heads, but J wasn’t into that. Maybe next time!
Bread pudding
I roasted a ton of sweet potatoes last week for snacking on, but my interest in them has waned. To prevent the rest from going bad, I decided to turn them into dessert. Sweet potato pie was the first option, but I also wanted to use up some waffles that had been languishing in the freezer, plus some milk that was getting old. The stars aligned for a batch of sweet potato-waffle bread pudding!
There’s no recipe; I just threw the ingredients together based on my last memory of making bread pudding. Bread pudding usually involves: milk, cream, sugar, eggs, butter -> custard; bread -> bread; cinnamon, vanilla, nuts, and raisins as extras. In my case, I replaced the custard with sweet potato pie filling (using homemade evaporated milk!), and the bread with waffles. Sadly, I forgot about the nuts and raisins 🙁 and we don’t have any rum on hand. Next time!
Hiking and yakiniku with friend A
A few weekends ago, friend A (the one who likes bugs and Bitcoin), J, and I went hiking at Stevens Creek County Park. It’s near the mountainous origin of Stevens Creek, which goes down through Cupertino and Mountain View and into the Bay. The creek is dammed up at the park for flood control, I presume (the dam doesn’t appear to have any hydroelectric turbines).
The trip was nice despite a bad start. Due to a navigation mishap, we took a 1-hour detour up a windy mountain road, only to reach a dead end.
Afterwards, we got grilling supplies at the local Korean grocery store to make yakiniku, Japanese-style Korean grilled meat!
In the background of the above picture, you can see a little blue ink bottle, a pen laying on the table, and a big white canister of soylent.
I got the ink and fountain pen (vintage Esterbrook lever-fill!) from someone on Freecycle, but didn’t like the style of nib. It’s some fancy kind that wasn’t super easy to write with. Fortunately, it wasn’t hard to get rid of – friend A’s sister is into fountain pens, so the pen and ink are going to her.
The soylent is leftover from a J attempt to not have to cook. It turns out that soylent tastes like pancake batter (kind of powdery and tasteless), so it was cast aside… and given to A, who doesn’t want to cook either. We’ll see how he likes it.
More found food
In two different locations a couple days ago. Getting your food-hunting eyes on helps!
Imperfect Produce delivery!
We get a produce delivery every other week from Imperfect Produce. You can choose among the available items, which include fresh fruit and veggies, and special items: mushrooms, defective pasta, mill-grade rice (high broken-grain content), dates, and more! They don’t carry dairy, eggs, or meat, but maybe in the future!
It’s rare that we get something truly imperfect. Most of the produce is surplus.
Found food
I find abandoned food a lot. Whether it’s luck or a skill, finding food makes my diet a little more exciting!
In the past week, I’ve found an apple, an orange, and Turkish delight (which I haven’t had before!). In the last few months, there’s also been a giant protein bar chocolate chip cookie (surprisingly good! And also made of real ingredients), string cheese, trail mix, and loaves of bread (in Sacramento). All this without true dumpster diving!
Just who leaves these things behind?? Sometimes, like with the salad, food is placed on top of a trashcan as a sign that the original owner didn’t want it but didn’t want to waste it either. Most other food was dropped…