Mom Money-Saving Tip 108

Every week grocery stores have sales on select items like these: whole chickens for 99 cents per pound, 8 ears corn for $2, 3 8-ounce cans tomato sauce for $1, cherries for 99 cents per pound. Shopping these sales can save you considerable money over time. Some stores may quietly offer daily sales of perishables—meat and fish, fresh fruit and vegetables and bakery items—if you know where to look. They’re usually hidden in some obscure corner at the back of the store. If the expiration date is close at hand, you can pick up items at half-price or less, although you will need to cook or freeze them within 24 hours.

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Mom Cooking Tip 178

Now that summer has arrived and peaches are ripe, here is a quick and easy way to remove their skin before eating or cooking them.

Drop the peach into boiling water and let sit for about 10 seconds.  Remove it from the water and make a small horizontal incision near the stem end.  Gently try peeling the peach with your fingers, starting where you cut it.  The skin should pull right off.  If it doesn’t, drop it back into the boiling water for a few more seconds and try again.

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An Almost Day Off from Cooking

Sometimes I can’t face making a complicated dinner.  During these past few months of stress, I have turned more and more to beans.  My food storage area is well stocked with cans of just about every kind of bean available. 

Real Mayonnaise Made with Avocado Oil: What Is It and How Do I Use It?

Mayonnaise with Avocado Oil (left)     Best Foods Mayonnaise (right)    

For most of my life I kept a 30-ounce jar of Hellmann’s or Best Foods Mayonnaise in the fridge, alongside the ketchup, mustard and BBQ sauce.  I never thought twice about it.  Mayonnaise was mandatory because as a teenager I ate a tuna salad sandwich every day.

A few months ago I happened upon Primal Kitchen’s 24-ounce jar of Real Mayonnaise Made with Avocado Oil

Question for Mom

Roasted Rockfish

One reason that I don’t cook fish very often is that I never know when it’s done.  Can you give me some advice? –William T.

Unlike meat, which becomes firm when it is fully cooked, fish will flake when it’s ready to eat. Flaking means that when you insert a fork into it, a fully cooked piece of fish will separate into thin sections called flakes.  If it does not separate into flakes, it needs more cooking.  Test it again after another 1-2 minutes.  You don’t want to overcook fish because it will become dry and unappetizing. 

Too Many Baked Potatoes?

During this virus pandemic, I forgot about a 10-pound bag of red potatoes I bought and stored under the sink.  By the time I remembered them, mold had struck, and there was a puddle of ick at the bottom of the storage basket.

The Many Uses of Crushed Red Pepper Flakes

My first encounter with crushed red pepper flakes occurred in conjunction with my first slice of pizza.  It happened one fateful evening, probably after a high school football game. I wondered why this new hole-in-the-wall restaurant in my Pennsylvania hometown had such a strange smell.  Only later did I recognize it as the smell of hot Parmesan cheese.

By then I was a regular customer