On Thursday afternoon, I went to the best food bank around. At this one, you get to choose everything you take home. One item off this shelf, one pastry item from these two shelves, one dairy, two breads, three meats, two breads, one produce. The numbers and items change each month. So, amongst all the items in different places/shelves, you absolutely get the choice to take what you want from what is available, the number they allow.
Some days, I get three produce items, maybe four meats. most come from Publix. They have two side by side refrigerator freezers.
The first thing she asked me was if I wanted garlic. Yes, I do. It's elephant garlic. So, I can plant some of this, too. I got a gallon of milk and could have had eggnog or half gallon of chocolate milk.
Okay, so here is the complete list I chose:
garlic bulb
gallon 2% milk
pouch of tahini (w/ garlic, lemon juice, and salt--ready for beans to make hummus)
loaf of sliced bakery bread
dozen small bagels with cinnamon and raisins from bakery
dozen huge chocolate chip cookies from bakery
two frozen hens (total ten or more meals)
2 lbs ground pork (ten or more meals)
large plastic box of chopped baby kale, 5 ozs. (2 servings. I ate 1/3, will eat 2 more times)
huge glass jar of Nestea unsweetened instant tea.
12 oz glass jar of peanut butter.
two 8-oz. containers of PomPom pomegranate arils
Chex Mix, savory, 8.75 oz, There was nothing on this shelf I wanted, so I got this for exbf. I don't eat this kind of snack.
I put this all away and then wrote this list from memory. Then, I looked at the sizes.I know this is not all there was.
I have not decided whether I will put both the hens in a turkey bag and cook at once or if I will just put one at a time in the crock pot. If a person is careful, there is enough meat to last a month. Maybe one meal a week could be meatless. Then, there is the peanut butter for protein for lunch.
So, that would be 20 meals with meat, four meatless=24 meals out of 30. Maybe the meat could be stretched a bit more in some recipes that have pasta or rice.
Several years ago, I had arils in a broccoli salad from Berkley Bob's. A friend who worked there brought me lots of salads. It was delicious. There was no crunch to the arils. When I have bought arils, they were crunchy, too crunchy for my taste. How do I make them un-crunchy? By the way, I am crunching them, just not enjoying the crunch.
They did have canned food. However, I got what I preferred. I rarely choose a can. Sometimes, there are boxes of produce--fruits and vegetables at this food bank. Could you have imagined a food bank would have so much fresh and nutritious food to offer? Plus, you get to choose?
Choosing at a food bank is unusual but why give food that the recipient will not eat? You got a good selection. Does the Publix meat have a marked down sticker? We eat lots of pomegranate arils here. I find the crunch offputting so I juicevthem.
ReplyDeleteFood banks want to get the pickup over with, so they box up what they have and give it out, telling people if they do not like the food, to give it to someone that will eat it. The meat is still in the plastic bags I gave them to keep any meat juice, even frozen juice, from touching my good bag. I will look later and let you know. How do you juice the arils. I cannot let the arils stick around. I need to eat them.
DeleteI am glad to hear food banks have fresh things and not just tinned and boxed items.
ReplyDeleteurspo,
DeleteThis is the best in terms of choice. There were cans and boxes but not my choice. The trend of having produce and dairy is new in this area.