This morning I thought I’d get the dreaded grocery shopping out of the way early and do it before I had to pick Violet up at her friend’s house (she went to a sleepover last night). I forgot that it was Saturday - the day all the rude and inconsiderate people grocery shop.
Grocery shopping is one of my least favorite activities - I especially hate it when the store is packed with those kind of people. Another reason I hate grocery shopping is the sheer quantity of food that I have to buy. I usually have an overflowing shopping cart by the time I make it to the checkout. Our family needs a ton of food to get through the week and shlepping all those groceries around sucks.
I’ve tried going at “off times” like right after Violet goes to school. Sure, there aren’t that many people but then I don’t have any kids to haul those dozens of bags of groceries into the house. I’ve tried going to the grocery store more often so that I could just zip in and get a few items at a time. The idea being that I wouldn’t have so many bags to lug in and it wouldn’t take me an hour to put it all away. But going for smaller amounts just prolongs the crappiness that is grocery shopping because it seems like I have to go every other day or so.
So now I’m doing a bizarre combination of large and small trips to the grocery. Today - a small trip during which I curbed my impulse to buy more meat. I’m planning to make spaghetti for dinner. I know that I have several pounds of ground beef in the freezer but I don’t really want to use it. I want some non-frozen beef.
I try to buy just the right amount of meat so that I can keep it in the refrigerator. A few days before it’s use or freeze by date, I’ll carefully wrap it up and stick it in the freezer so that it doesn’t go bad. Once I put the meat into the freezer I never want to use it again. Right now I have no “fresh” meat.
I’m not sure what it is about defrosting meat - maybe it’s that there is no good way to defrost meat. You can put it in the refrigerator to defrost but that’s always a crap shoot. You never know exactly how long it is going to take to defrost - it could be anywhere from 1 to 3 days before it’s ready to use.
Setting it out on the counter is kind of dangerous - nothing like a partially defrosted slab of meat for a parasite playground. The microwave? No - I hate the way that the meat gets partially cooked on the edges no matter what you do. I can always tell when meat has been defrosted in the microwave before being cooked. Yuck!
So, my freezer is full of frozen solid blocks of meat. Those packages will stay in their frosty graveyard until I am forced to use them or I clean out the freezer and transfer the frosty months-old packages to the garbage can.
I’m headed to the freezer to search out beef. If I don’t make it back, send help.
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