Food bank largesse
May. 14th, 2020 08:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickLet me start off by pointing out that I am not suffering from food insecurity in any actual sense of the word. I do not go to the food bank. The food bank is for people who need it, not for people whose level of food insecurity is that the local Weis is out of IQF mango pieces in the handy zip-closure bag. (Totally first world problems over here, but I LIKE the IQF mango pieces. They are tropically delicious in my fucking breakfast smoothies.)
As I have mentioned previously, there is occasionally free food at the horse people's from Trys's husband's stepfather, a man of the preacherly persuasion who gets food that the food bank can't distribute before it goes bad, either because they have too much of it or because it's some weird-ass food that people who visit the food bank do not want. When you are imagining food bank largesse, please do not be imagining a couple of bunches of bananas or six oranges. Food bank largesse is... like a shitbucket of one kind of food, far more than any rational household could possibly use for themselves.
(This is different from the OTHER free food at the horse people's which is because Laur's mom goes to the sale barn and, like, buys a bushel of tomatillos for a buck. Or like five 2.5 lb bags of "ready to microwave" sweet potatoes, also for a buck. Apparently It was only a dollar is a really convincing selling point. You never know what Laur's mom will buy at the sale barn and you might as well adapt to a life where you are flexibly able to eat, well, whatever... in quantity, and on short notice. I find online recipes particularly helpful in these situations. Did you know, for example, that there's a pretty damned awesome soup you can make from tomatillos and sweet potatoes? Google it. It's a good soup. I have made it, because of the aforementioned bushel of tomatillos / 12 lbs. of sweet potatoes problem.)
But anyway, this time it's food bank largesse and not an overenthusiastic time at the sale barn.
Laur has a fifty pound bag of yellow onions. She told me I had to take away some onions when I stopped by yesterday to feed the boys ("The Boys" are Bird and Tin, my horse and Trysta's. Also Skoal, who is not my horse but who is glad to see me every day because I feed him.) So, I took away some onions, like a grocery bag clear full. This sounds like a lot of onions but it did not really make a dent in the massive bag o' onions that was lying* on its side on Laur's porch like a beached whale.
I'm a household of one. I cannot possibly use more onions than what I took AND I LIKE ONIONS A LOT. A LOT A LOT. And still there is an upper limit to the number of onions I can consume. I'm gonna have to go some to eat up these onions before they go bad.
What uses up onions?
French onion soup, right? I've never made it before, but I hear it uses LOTS of onions. I like french onion soup. I have beef broth in the freezer. And I have a shitbucket of onions. Let's DO THIS THING!!
(Googling ensued.)
The recipe says 2.5 lbs of onions. That isn't "A LOT" of onions. That's not even remotely close to A LOT of onions. I have like three times that many onions on my counter at this very moment, taken with the expectation that I would go home and learn how to make french onion soup so that I can return to take away MORE ONIONS from Laur's porch because she is also a household of one who doesn't really have a way to get rid of what's probably forty pounds of onion now that I've taken some. Forty pounds of onions is still a lot of onions.
I googled some other recipes (I always do this, to see the general thrust of the recipes and to weed out any tendency of the writers to get cute with ingredients like the assholes who somehow think there should be effing tapioca pearls in the apple pie or try to make crumble topping with oatmeal(!?). I like something that appears to be a reasonable middle-ground effort at the outset.), but the other recipes also did not have what I'd call A LOT of onions in them.
In fairness, my estimation of how many A LOT of onions is has shifted a bit due to the fifty pound bag of same on my friend Lala's porch.
Since it was my first time doing french onion soup, I did the manual carmelizing method. It took effing forever (three and a half episodes of Archer), but worked as advertised. My beef broth was OK but not enough alleged volume (my soups typically pour in the same way that pudding pours and I feel like french onion should be a little runnier than that) so I added some hot water and two beef bull-yon cubes, the which served to up the liquidity factor and umami and stuff. Much better. Needs freshly ground pepper, french crusty bread, and some of that fancy french cheese, but it's still pretty edible.
I'm gonna give it another go in the crock pot, since the internet suggests that you can do that, too, and it's automagical and you don't have to stand in front of the stove forever while caramelizing onions. Also, given the seriously low moisture content of caramelized onions and the compactness of them, I bet that the caramelized onions part would freeze awesomely for "instant" french onion soup in winter, just add beef broth, french bread, and fancy cheese. This weekend I'm going to production-line it and we'll see how that goes.
*I live in the part of the world where lie/lay is not done properly. I do not actually know which to use when and had to go fucking look this up so as to not look stupid in front of all ya'll, at least not more stupid than I look usually. Left to my own devices, I would have (and not would of because "would of" is not one of my personal issue areas. I will never ever write "would of" but it sounds like "would of" comin' out my mouth because it's would've and it totally 100% sounds like "would of" even though it's not.) gone with "laying" because that's what I'd say out in my regular life. And it would be wrong.
As I have mentioned previously, there is occasionally free food at the horse people's from Trys's husband's stepfather, a man of the preacherly persuasion who gets food that the food bank can't distribute before it goes bad, either because they have too much of it or because it's some weird-ass food that people who visit the food bank do not want. When you are imagining food bank largesse, please do not be imagining a couple of bunches of bananas or six oranges. Food bank largesse is... like a shitbucket of one kind of food, far more than any rational household could possibly use for themselves.
(This is different from the OTHER free food at the horse people's which is because Laur's mom goes to the sale barn and, like, buys a bushel of tomatillos for a buck. Or like five 2.5 lb bags of "ready to microwave" sweet potatoes, also for a buck. Apparently It was only a dollar is a really convincing selling point. You never know what Laur's mom will buy at the sale barn and you might as well adapt to a life where you are flexibly able to eat, well, whatever... in quantity, and on short notice. I find online recipes particularly helpful in these situations. Did you know, for example, that there's a pretty damned awesome soup you can make from tomatillos and sweet potatoes? Google it. It's a good soup. I have made it, because of the aforementioned bushel of tomatillos / 12 lbs. of sweet potatoes problem.)
But anyway, this time it's food bank largesse and not an overenthusiastic time at the sale barn.
Laur has a fifty pound bag of yellow onions. She told me I had to take away some onions when I stopped by yesterday to feed the boys ("The Boys" are Bird and Tin, my horse and Trysta's. Also Skoal, who is not my horse but who is glad to see me every day because I feed him.) So, I took away some onions, like a grocery bag clear full. This sounds like a lot of onions but it did not really make a dent in the massive bag o' onions that was lying* on its side on Laur's porch like a beached whale.
I'm a household of one. I cannot possibly use more onions than what I took AND I LIKE ONIONS A LOT. A LOT A LOT. And still there is an upper limit to the number of onions I can consume. I'm gonna have to go some to eat up these onions before they go bad.
What uses up onions?
French onion soup, right? I've never made it before, but I hear it uses LOTS of onions. I like french onion soup. I have beef broth in the freezer. And I have a shitbucket of onions. Let's DO THIS THING!!
(Googling ensued.)
The recipe says 2.5 lbs of onions. That isn't "A LOT" of onions. That's not even remotely close to A LOT of onions. I have like three times that many onions on my counter at this very moment, taken with the expectation that I would go home and learn how to make french onion soup so that I can return to take away MORE ONIONS from Laur's porch because she is also a household of one who doesn't really have a way to get rid of what's probably forty pounds of onion now that I've taken some. Forty pounds of onions is still a lot of onions.
I googled some other recipes (I always do this, to see the general thrust of the recipes and to weed out any tendency of the writers to get cute with ingredients like the assholes who somehow think there should be effing tapioca pearls in the apple pie or try to make crumble topping with oatmeal(!?). I like something that appears to be a reasonable middle-ground effort at the outset.), but the other recipes also did not have what I'd call A LOT of onions in them.
In fairness, my estimation of how many A LOT of onions is has shifted a bit due to the fifty pound bag of same on my friend Lala's porch.
Since it was my first time doing french onion soup, I did the manual carmelizing method. It took effing forever (three and a half episodes of Archer), but worked as advertised. My beef broth was OK but not enough alleged volume (my soups typically pour in the same way that pudding pours and I feel like french onion should be a little runnier than that) so I added some hot water and two beef bull-yon cubes, the which served to up the liquidity factor and umami and stuff. Much better. Needs freshly ground pepper, french crusty bread, and some of that fancy french cheese, but it's still pretty edible.
I'm gonna give it another go in the crock pot, since the internet suggests that you can do that, too, and it's automagical and you don't have to stand in front of the stove forever while caramelizing onions. Also, given the seriously low moisture content of caramelized onions and the compactness of them, I bet that the caramelized onions part would freeze awesomely for "instant" french onion soup in winter, just add beef broth, french bread, and fancy cheese. This weekend I'm going to production-line it and we'll see how that goes.
*I live in the part of the world where lie/lay is not done properly. I do not actually know which to use when and had to go fucking look this up so as to not look stupid in front of all ya'll, at least not more stupid than I look usually. Left to my own devices, I would have (and not would of because "would of" is not one of my personal issue areas. I will never ever write "would of" but it sounds like "would of" comin' out my mouth because it's would've and it totally 100% sounds like "would of" even though it's not.) gone with "laying" because that's what I'd say out in my regular life. And it would be wrong.
