Grocery Shopping
Yum! I always use a grocery shopping list, but I rarely learn anything from it. We know that food prices are substantially higher over the last few years, but this time the list included things that were not on “special.”
I learned that “politicians holding national office do not do their own grocery shopping.” They would learn about the relationship between their policies and the price we pay for things.
Then I learned about “protein.” Protein is an important part of the human diet but is an expensive element.
Not only is raising beef cattle expensive due to inflation, but there are soaring transportation costs.
In a chat with Little Miss Phillips, she mentioned that tofu is a good replacement for animal protein.
I could feel my breakfast inching upward at the thought of eating soybean curd, but she stopped me in my tracks.
She reminded me of my first taste of pizza, which was a slab of bread with some sauce slathered on it and a shake of Parmesan cheese. It was awful.
My interest dropped again when a girl friend baked a box pizza and covered it with stinky little fishes, anchovies.
I got over it and now make pizza from scratch, but I got her point on giving tofu another chance.
My father-in-law, a Kansas farmer, was asked if he ate soybeans. His face pruned up and he said that “(soy) beans are cow food not people food.”
LMP cut a block of tofu into chunks, sprinkled them with corn starch and dropped them into a skillet. The fried tofu was crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside.
Tofu isn’t so bad after all, and you can tinker with the taste by marinating it in soy sauce, liquid smoke and other flavorings.
Blocks of tofu are cheap, but LMP and I like making our own stuff. Tofu can be made at home with some soy milk and a coagulant. She makes it but I don’t. Yet.
With hamburger at five bucks a pound on a good day, tofu looks better all the time.
There is a short learning curve, but using tofu might be an affordable, tasty and more healthy option even in Kansas.
joenphillips@yahoo.com
