Friday Cooking in Bulk:

Yesterday was kitchen day.  I had a bunch of food that I needed to take care of so that it wouldn't go bad.  One of the items that I was worried about was a sack of potatoes.  I had caught them in time, before they had grown eyes.  Thank goodness.

I rinsed them well, in the colander of course.

I put them in my favorite baking pan.  It is a cake pan, really, but I use it for everything because of the sides.  I slit to top of each potato with a sharp knife so that they would not explode in the oven.  Some people poke them with forks, but that bends your forks sometimes and I hate eating with bent forks.  That really bugs me.  I baked them for about an hour and 15 minutes at 375* and then let them cool off.

After they were cool, I cut them up into chunks and put them into a Ziplock freezer bag, and put them in the freezer.  Now, they are ready to be fried up as hash browns, for the next time Cary wants to fix me breakfast.  I cook the dinners around here, and he cooks the breakfast.  That is just how we roll.  In this house.

I had a lot of eggs to deal with yesterday.  Nearly four dozen.  So, I took the pack of 18, and hard boiled them.  They had been in the fridge for about 3 weeks.  You want to use the older eggs for hard boiling, not the newer ones, by the way.  Eggs are one thing that I have a frustrating time with, with our hard water situation.  Part of it depends on the pan you use, and this one works fine.  It is stainless steel.  So does my heavy blue one, which is cast iron.  Aluminum pans are the ones to avoid for boiling eggs.

I put the eggs in first, and then filled the pan with cold water.  I set the stove on low (the 3 or 4 setting), and let them come to a boil that way.  It takes a long time, but for me they turn out better. The shells don't crack.  If you want to use them for deviled eggs when you are through, this matters. 

Today, I didn't want to find out if these were going to peel easily or not, so I cooled them in cold water and then put the finished product into a Ziplock freezer bag and put them in the fridge for Cary to deal with later on.  He likes boiled eggs and doesn't care about how the shells come off.  Besides, I had more cooking to do.

Next, I had to do something about that bowl of fruit that we had gotten at Costco, for when we were feeding the relatives.  Cary and I are not to good about eating fruit.  We both have low blood sugar issues, and too much of anything sweet usually backfires.  I have found that I do better with melons than citrus, and this fruit bowl was full of those, along with mangos, grapes, kiwi and pinapple. 

I took out my trustee old blender, which no longer has a lid.  I just put a small plate on top and hold it down.  It works.  The blender itself is very strong and does a fine job.

Man, this kitchen needs painting.  Look at those grease splatters on the wall.

Everything in the bowl fit exactly into the blender.

I blended it all for a while and it turned out so good!  I drank that whole glass, and I felt my blood sugar spike for a little bit, but it didn't get bad.  And, you know what?  I felt really good yesterday, so I think it helped me.  I have some left, saved in a canning jar, and am going to drink the rest of that smoothie it in a little bit.