Got super-frustrated about canned fish at the grocery store today. I was only trying to find some tuna that was less than $5 a can and also from a Canadian or American fishery. I would have accepted an European fishery. I thought I'd found some from Spain, only after going through the check-out, I saw on the side of the can it read "Product of Thailand."
I returned it at customer service.
I was angry.
I did not show it too much.
I also returned some soup that failed to come through at the correct sales price, which I was going to add to my stockpile.
I still spent lots of money.
The shopping, it was not so good this morning.
What I don't understand about all the canned fish from Thailand, is that I remember distinctly hearing about abusive labour practises and atrocious over-fishing in Thai fisheries almost twenty years ago, and ever since, as far as I can tell, the only thing that's changed is that more and more options in the canned fish aisle are from Thailand. Or other Asian countries where similar concerns are raised.
I get why other canned fish options have gotten more expensive and over $5 for wild red pacific salmon is not something that I like to pay but I can comprehend why I see that price - but the Thai-fish-in-Spanish-colours this morning was almost exactly as expensive per gram as the salmon.
I wanted the tuna for a recipe.
I'm going to use my one remaining canned salmon from the pantry instead.
I do eat canned sardines now and then, and I'm glad I can get some from Canadian fisheries, I just don't want to only have sardines left as the both affordable and sustainable-ish choice!
In other food-related news, I still haven't had to throw out anything --- although I have to admit I let the bones from a chicken carcass get away last weekend when my housemate successfully roasted one. (The oven is still clean! Hurray!)
I completely forgot to tell them to save the bones for me when they were carving it up after the meal - I only remembered the bones the next morning, and by that time, they had said sayonara.
However, I did save bacon grease for the first time ever this week. I cooked up a whole package of bacon at once and instead of undergoing my usual tedious and rather gross preparation step where I scissor off and throw out a lot of the fat from the strips before putting them in the pan, I dumped everything into my cast-iron grill pan and poured off the fat as it melted, into a jar.
Then I used the meaty bacon bits in a big bacon (and veggie) pie which fed us for a couple of days, and I've still got most of the bacon fat in the fridge. I've used some of it to fry up some bok choy, and another dollop for something else I can't remember at the moment. I'm quite pleased by how nice and white it looks in the jar, and I look forward to using the rest of it over the next little while.
However, adding to my frustration this morning, my housemate informed me, as they added another package of bacon to the shopping cart, that they prefer their bacon not in pies and would really like it more if I went back to the old way with making a couple of strips at a time, wrapping up the remainder separately, fussing with it, because they "want to see it on their plate." ARRRGH. Just when I thought I'd found a way to make peace between myself and their bacon-wanting.
To be fair, they did say they could make the bacon in the future.
Right, because what I really need is to spend an hour waiting for them to fry a couple of strips of bacon some weekday night, after which I will still probably have to repackage it up and stuff. And I won't get the fat.
Hmmm.
What did go well this week?
Well, I made sweet potato muffins. And oatmeal cookies. They were pretty good. And I made a crustless quiche last night that I'm hoping to enjoy again tonight.
I found part of the potato pancake recipe I was looking for in my last posting, and I hope to try a combo sweet-and-white-potato pancake really soon, perhaps tomorrow.
I'm glad that I did get back to cooking a bit more, as I hoped I would.
I found some previously homemade hummus in the freezer and have been enjoying that with my lunches.
And I ordered my vegetable and herb seeds for the spring.