Woo hoo!  I am so excited by my newest kitchen additions!  I’ve been wanting to get stainless steel baking pans for ages, but they are sooo expensive.  Several years ago, I bought a number of baking pans at Walmart, not realizing they were aluminum.  I soon discovered they were terrible quality (they left black marks on the bottom of the food cooked in it, through the parchment paper) and after a while I threw them away (and I don’t recklessly throw things out – they were really horrible).  And I went back to using disposable aluminum pans lined with baking paper. 

But I really don’t like using them.  I don’t like the wastefulness of having to periodically buy a large stack, and then having to throw them out (I rewash and reuse them, but they still don’t last long).  Pans are something you should be able to buy once and then have them.  And I don’t like the health concerns associated with using aluminum (even though I line them before using).  And my kids really don’t like washing them, since they have those difficult to clean ridged sides. 

But I haven’t been successful in finding affordable alternatives.  I looked at Sam’s Club, to see if they had some decent quality pans, but they were all aluminum.  My husband checked prices from restaurant suppliers for stainless steel pans a while back, and they were out of my budget.  Periodically I think about where and how to get good metal baking pans (not glass because glass doesn’t last long around here), but I  haven’t had any luck finding anything suitable in mainstream stores at reasonable prices. 

On Weds. night, I was totally out of disposable pans, once again unexpectedly (it happens when you discover all the pans you have have teeny pin sized (or bigger) holes on the bottom and have to all be thrown away unless you want a burnt-on mess in the bottom of the oven at the end of the cooking time from the leaks).  And the pan I borrowed when I was given the meat from a restaurant a while back (the meat was in it) happened to catch my eye.  It’s been put to the side for ages, waiting to be returned, but hasn’t quite made it out of the house yet.  I figured since it was the only usable pan in the house and the people I borrowed it from wouldn’t mind, I’d use it for our honey baked lentils last night, and I did. 

Then this morning, I finally took out the Lehman’s catalog that came along with my oil lamps a few weeks ago.  I was flipping through, and in the kitchen section, I looked to see if they had any stainless steel baking pans.  They had one baking pan with a lid for about $35.  The pan I used the night before from the restaurant suddenly flashed into my mind, and it occurred to me that I could ask the owners if they had extra pans like that which they might be willing to sell me.  If they had more than they could use, they’d make a little money and get rid of pans they weren’t using, and I’d be able to buy some more cheaply than I could buy them new.

Yesterday I asked my husband if he could speak to them, since he’s the one who has more of a relationship with them than I do.  He said he’d try, and I figured within a few days, I’d hear if they would sell them and what the price would be.  When he came home several hours later, he brought a surprise for me – nine stainless steel pans!  All of them were 9 x 13, six were standard depth, and three were like the one I didn’t yet return, about double that depth.  So now I have ten strong pans that will last me forever, enough for whatever cooking I do at any given time.  Bye, bye, disposable pans!

And guess what?  They told him we could have them for free!!  Can you believe that?!  I wasn’t expecting it AT ALL.  I would have gladly paid for them and counted myself very lucky to have them at less than the retail price.  (I think the only reason they did that is they like my husband. :)) Isn’t that a nice way to go into Shabbos?  And my ten year old son, whose turn it is for dishes, is very happy about them, too – he hates washing the disposable pans, and just in the nick of time, he’ll have something much easier to wash this Saturday night! 🙂

Avivah

I’ve written about how I find it most effective to store the bulk grains that I buy (http://vibrantmoms.com/food-preservation/storing-bulk-grains/), but since someone recently mentioned to me that they planned to buy buckets, and someone else called us a couple of days ago to ask us about where we got buckets (and I know many new blog readers don’t go too far back into the archives), I thought it would be helpful to share again on this.

You can find 3 – 6 gallon food grade plastic buckets for free or a nominal cost at many restaurants.  Restaurants buy lots of foods that come in them, and usually don’t have a need for them when they finish.  Ask around at local restaurants, and let them know you’d love to take the buckets off of their hands when they have extra.  You may have to wash them out yourself (or you may not – I’ve been lucky in this regard, since they very generously wash them for me), but since it costs about $6 for a five gallon bucket, and $10 for a six gallon bucket, the savings in spending five minutes washing each bucket are justified.

You can also ask at ice cream stores and bakeries.  Frosting buckets can be a pain to wash out, but other than that, they work as well as anything else.  I don’t recommend using the buckets found at stores like Home Depot, which aren’t intended for food use. For the same reasons, I wouldn’t use empty drywall compound or paint buckets.  They could be useful for other things, though.

Because there are so many similarly sized round buckets but the lids vary slightly from one company to another, you might get some buckets and lids that don’t perfectly match up.  My choice was to accept whatever buckets and lids they had, and then keep the ones that didn’t match up for the next time around when I picked up buckets.  Over a period of time, I got lids to match almost everything, and even when I didn’t have the perfect fitting lids for my buckets, they were still adequate to cover the top.  When I put another full bucket on top of it, the lid was held down and pretty effectively sealed against insects or other intruders for all intents and purposes. 

Another option is if you are able to get the buckets but still need lids, you can buy the lids separately online.  Look for gamma lids, which are better than the regular lids because of ease of use.  If you have tight fitting lids, I wouldn’t personally suggest going to the extra expense.  But it can make it possible to take advantage of the free buckets that you otherwise might not think usable.

Avivah

This past Friday, I ran into the store at the last minute (something I rarely do) and noticed that ground chicken was on sale for $1.29 lb.  Hmm, I thought, I smell a bargain.  🙂  So true to myself, I had to buy some – 35 pounds or so; I hate to leave a good deal behind.

No, I don’t worry about if I’ll like it or how I’ll use it.  I figure that I’ll work that out once I get home, and if it’s inexpensive enough, we’ll have to like it. 🙂   I had just finished placing the last of six large packages of it on the conveyor belt at the store when the woman in front of me noticed it, and asked me what I was going to do with it.  While I was answering her, a man behind us in the next lane asked ds15, who had come along with me, what we were doing to do with it.  Fortunately I had told my son I’d use in the same way I use ground beef, so he had a ready answer. 

When I was checking out, I asked the cashier if it was a new item, since I didn’t remember noticing it before (though I didn’t find it quickly even when I was looking for it because of it being in the sales flyer).  She said she hadn’t seen it before I checked out, and I was there on the last day of the week long sale!

I did some online searching for recipes, and came up with some that looked good.  We used one package (five or six pounds) for chicken burgers for dinner on Monday, and they were a huge hit.  (That made enough for two meals for the ten of us, and it cost less than $8.)  I then canned 17 pounds of it, which filled 17 pints.  A pint may only be a pound of meat, but it’s enough to frugally add some flavor and body to a casserole or stew.  And I can always use two jars instead of one for dinner and not be so frugal, so that one canning session should be enough for 8 – 17 meals.  And now it’s not taking up freezer space. 

My experience so far with ground chicken is very positive.  It is juicy and flavorful – I was expecting it to be more bland and dry, like ground turkey.  Because it’s lower in fat than beef, it doesn’t reduce too much when cooked, so it’s really a bargain, since most of what you’re paying for, you end up eating.  My kids all liked it a lot, and I like that it costs a third of ground beef – I can be a lot more generous with it and make it go a lot further.  Ground beef has small pieces that are easily defined, while this is kind of pasty and mushy (sounds appetizing, doesn’t it?!), so don’t picture it being the same consistency, but it’s very easy to work with.  The difference once it’s cooked isn’t noticeable.

So why was I seemingly one of the very few people to take advantage of this great deal in the past week?  I think that it’s because many people don’t want to try something new, because they might not like it.  Or they think that if it’s a really good price, something’s wrong with it, or it’s not worth more than that (the ‘you get what you pay for’ philosophy).  We tend to get stuck in our culinary comfort zones, like everything else.

I checked the online flyer for this week and didn’t see it listed on sale, but I went back anyway, thinking there might be some left at the sale price.  Sure enough, there was – it looked as if no one had touched the shelf since I was last there!  So I did the store a favor and emptied the shelf for them. 🙂  There’s more canning in my immediate future!

Avivah