It Pays to Be Stocked Up

We have a potato problem in our area - so many stores are full of green potatoes, russets that look like they've been hanging around for years, or split or otherwise deformed looking spuds both white and sweet potatoes. Last week we managed to grab what we thought were decent enough looking Russets and planned to have them for last night's dinner.

So, the potatoes were in the Instant Pot, the frozen carrots were in the microwave, and a pot of fat-free Golden Gravy was on the stove. Our simple McDougall meal.

At 5pm hubby and I start making our bowls, and his is ready long before mine because I've been peeling the skin of my spuds because I find I tolerate them a little bit better when I do. Being a good husband he waits until I'm done before he eats. Finally I'm ready and take a bite of the plain, gravy-free potato and tell him to wait before he starts in eating. The potato tastes funky to me, to take a bite of his and see what he thinks. Many times I think something is off and he says it's fine and blames my sinuses for weird tastebuds. As expected, he declared to potato good and forked up a few carrots.

"Wait!" This time it's him saying it to me. "There's a bitter aftertaste. "Don't eat the potatoes!"

No argument from me! Now what to do about dinner?!? My stash to the rescue!

While he sat there picking carrots off his bowl I put on a pot of water for pasta. Luckily we had just gotten a VitaCost delivery of 20 pounds of various Tinkyada pastas last week. By the time I got the carrots picked off of my bowl and we got rid of the potatoes not only from our bowls and still in the Instant Pot but the few uncooked ones from the same bag, the pasta was finished cooking. Hubby grabbed 2 clean bowls while I drained the pasta and tossed everything together.

So, our three ingredient quickie McDougall potato meal turned into a pasta meal with carrots and gravy. Hubby mixed some cranberries in with his (The kind that come in the shape of the can, as Ernest P. Worrel described them in Ernest Saves Christmas). I still shudder thinking about it. LOL





Sorry about the bad audio but this was the only clip I could find.

Anyway, this wasn't the first time we had to chuck out a whole bag of potatoes. Luckily, thanks to my sensitivity to them we don't have them too often around here, and the few soup recipes I use do quite nicely with red potatoes. Amazingly, I've never had a bad bag of those. Otherwise, I still have plenty of dried ones left in my Harmony House stash. 

And all this happened just 2 days after I had to toss out a bag of organic sweet potatoes I bought just 2 weeks ago that liquified on me. No wonder they were on sale!

I think last night's dinner was the final straw and we won't be buying fresh potatoes any more, white, yellow, or sweet. I'll use the dehydrated or frozen hash brown cut ones, and that'll be that. I'm tired of spending good money on bad food.