Text 16451, 118 rader
Skriven 2011-10-08 18:33:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: grocery stuff 11
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So I'm staying here with my professor friend who is tearing
her hair out trying to get put the Oxford Handbook of Opera,
herding 45 self-important tenured academics through the
elements of the Oxford style before the advertised 2011
release date turns into a pumpkin.

She's also very proud, and although she allowed me to make
chicken red curry last night, food for the rest of my stay is
her bailiwick, but she's not got time to cook. So here's what
we had for today.

Breakfast - muffins from Roche Brothers supermarket. These
were pretty okay, almost as good as the Jordan Marsh muffins
of yore, which were perfectly decent, quite moist, and huge;
these are moister (maybe too moist) and bigger. They aren't
sugared on top (an important difference), and I think that
the cake batter has less or cheaper vanilla. 

Lunch - sushi (made fresh within a day or two) from
Star Market. Okay, I had to express appreciation for these -
a plastic tray of salmon and avocado inside-out roll and
another of mango shrimp rolls. The former ($8) were decent
but too skimpy pieces of steelhead salmon and a little 1/2"
cube of avocado in the middle, somewhat soft and sticky nori
around, and decent rice outside, with a sesame roll. They
come with or without spicy sauce, but the ones with spicy
sauce were even more parsimonious in the fish department,
Helen thought, so she reached over to buy a half cup of spicy
sauce to go with a regular (a couple extra bucks), and I
almost slapped her hand, saying, let's make it ourselves.
Anyhow, this package tasted decent, made perhaps almost the
same day, and the spicy sauce I made for like 25c for all we
needed was better than what you get at the store and took
maybe 24 seconds to make. The other was less good - $9 for
two rolls, each of which had 1 medium (25-30) shrimp fried
crisp in not great oil, a slice of mango, stale nori, and
rice, red mayo drizzled on top and a tablespoon of tiny mango
cubes strewn over - all fine so far - but then left to age a
day or two so that the shrimp were soggy and the flavors
nicely melded. Oh, both the mango and avocado were ripe,
though the mango had begun to go soft in the juice of the
dish. We're talking 1 oz of shrimp, 20-30c worth of other
stuff, and some modest expertise, $9. At this store we could
get 4.5 lb of chicken breast or ricotta cheese or asparagus
for that price. These supplemented with a banana and copious
amounts of chocolate (just for the potassium, I swear).

Dinner - roast chicken (made fresh the same day) from Star
Market. Okay, it's decent roast chicken (though Helen likes
overdone almost black chicken) but no bargain at $8 for a
salvaged sell-by-yesterday 3 lber. Of course, since the raw
product goes for 1.59/lb, that isn't such a bad deal, except
that one can get one at Stop & Shop for 1.29/lb and cook it
better. This particular example was really, really overdone;
I had a leg, which fell apart on touching, and a wing that
was blacker than Othello, tougher than Brawny, and as dry
as Bernard Shaw's wit. Microwaved potato in its jacket, more
potassium and minimal flavor, which I improved! with the
cauliflower out of a steamed broccoli and cauliflower medley,
extra yums. Post-traumatic consolation: more chocolate, in
the form of Silk regular, chocolate flavor, a few Nestle's
semi-sweet chips, a bite of Lindt 70, and a couple of
Sprungli truffles (an orange one, quite good, and a ?maple
nut one whose flavor was just plain off, though the chocolate
shell was fine and the texture of the filling was smooth.

Roche Brothers at least is a local chain, owned by two
brothers; Star at least is US-owned (part of Shaw's, which
is part of SuperValu, which owns Acme, Albertson's, Lucky,
Save-A-Lot, Shop 'n' Save, and Shopper's Food Warehouse).
The stores themselves are interestingly similar, apparently
modeled on the successful upscale look adopted some decades
ago by Wegmans. Used to be you could tell a store's
affiliation by its layout and look: no more. Safeway and
Harris Teeter are going the Weg-route; Giant and Stop & Shop
are growing alike, as old married folks, and the Gourmet Giant
subsidiary that looked more like the Wegmans model is said to
be defuncted or at least redesigned into bland submission.

Jordan Marsh Blueberry Muffins
Categories: cake, sweet, nostalgia, Boston
Yield: 12 muffins

1/2 c butter, softened
1 1/4 c sugar
2 eggs
2 c flour
1/2 ts salt
2 ts baking powder
1/2 c milk
2 c blueberries
sugar for sprinkling on top of muffins, not in original 
- (adaptation by cookingwithrosie.blogspot.com
- that makes the muffins conform more to the original)

Preheat oven to 350F.

Cream the butter and sugar until light and smooth.
Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each
addition. Sift together the flour, salt and baking powder
and add to the creamed mixture alternately with the milk.
Crush 1/2 c blueberries with a fork, and mix into the
batter. Gently fold in the remaining whole berries.

Grease 12 large muffin cups, including the surface of
the tin (alternative: grease surface of tin and line
tin with paper liners). Fill generously with batter.
Sprinkle sugar over the tops of the muffins, and bake
at 350F for 30 min or until toothpick comes out clean.

Cool 30 min before removing. Store, uncovered, because
the muffins are so moist.

divaofdining.blogspot.com

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