If your pantry includes fresh tomatoes instead of canned ones (even if they’re not San Marzanos) and if you’re more likely to have heavy cream on hand than wine (and you’re not an alcohol abstainer), you’re doing quaranting wrong. The whole point is that you want to use shelf-stable items.

Hold up. I bought plum tomatoes yesterday at $2.99 a pound. Now at my grocery store, a 28 ounce can (just under 2 pounds) of store brand (often a name brand is one sale as well) crushed (or whole) tomatoes is $1. So you’re saying that buying half the tomato at three times the price is saving money? Now I realize that…

My mom gave me a Le Cruset dutch oven years ago that she found for quite a bargain at a TJ Maxx. It’s not a trendy color, but yay me!

Please note that Corelle plates totally remind me of Prince Rupert’s Drops:

I have my grandmother’s cast iron skillet. It was abused and the seasoning was all flaking off (in huge messy chunks) so I asked a friend to take his grinder to it. Now I am re-seasoning it. It’s not a Lodge though - bottom reads Wagner Ware.  It’s probably an original.  

We have a Pyrex measuring cup that’s older than me with barely a scuff and I honestly feel like ten years of use when you’ve been putting it in the dishwasher is really respectable. I’ve had other measuring cups become just a little pitcher after only a couple runs through the dishwasher.

Complete aside here, but I think it’s a neat-o fact.

Back in the 1960's my Grandfather bought a bunch of enamel coated steel cookware. Most of it hung on hooks above his stove and when I remember him at his stove making the holiday bird, or lefse or his famous Irish/Norwegian/French beef stew, I can still see all the colorful pieces hanging there. After he passed and I…

As if I wasn’t 100% aware of what I was doing. It’s like you don’t know me at all!

Embroidery and baking, baybee! In the bits of downtime that I do have. I’m still working face-to-face with kids in a residential treatment facility. 

I was already cross stitching a lot this winter.Finished the mountains this weekend.  Still just a bit over halfway done

None of my dogs, going back almost 55 years would eat a carrot. The last ones would spit out the tiniest hunk of carrot, cooked or not, that they could detect. Same went for celery, any kind of lettuce too. My last dog King suddenly developed, after he went on treatment for Cushing’s Disease, a taste, almost an insane…

Heat those black beans and use them to fill an omelet.  Very satiating, and almost too easy.  A little cheese wouldn’t hurt.

Two weeks ago in the comments for Aimee’s story about Purim dishes, JimZ linked to a recipe for garbanzos in tomato sauce. As I was lazy and didn’t have whole tomatoes or canned tomato sauce, but did have dried garbanzos, an instant pot, and a brand of cheap pasta sauce which was gathering dust because my girlfriend…

I think that part of the reason they could sell $50 cakes was being in San Fran. This wouldn’t happen in Green Bay. 

Allison, words aren’t enough. Its impossible for you to ever receive the recognition and appreciation you deserve from the public. Thanks for letting us take our best shot.

What is the best way for a home cook to sharpen kitchen knives?

I’m late to this story, but I could immediately picture my Mom’s (and I’m from Upstate NY). I’m going to ask my Dad if he’s seen it anywhere because I kind of really want it now! Plus I am a grazer, not a meal eater, when I’m at home alone or having a small number of friends over, we always are eating pickles, cheese…

The Waffle House had to close a store in GA due to an employee getting the virus and all employees that worked a shift with the infected employee were quarantined with pay and the store closed so it could be cleaned and sanatized.