Scallops for supper

My wife came home with a pound of fresh sea scallops that she picked up at the store on her way home from work. She said they were a good price, and since we hadn’t had scallops for a long time (probably a year or more!) she decided to cook them for supper tonight. She also picked up some fresh snap beans. So she cooked a great baked scallop dish with a cream base and stuffing on top, and served them with the fresh beans and sliced tomatoes picked from our garden. We had freshly baked sourdough bread along with the meal. What a feast that was!

Shrinkage

I am outraged at how the consumers are being ripped off once again at the stores.  Companies are raising their prices and providing less product, both at the same time.  This means I often have to buy two of a product when I would normally only buy on.  When I think of how much more plastic and cardboard is being wasted and put in landfills, just so I can have the products I need, I get really upset.  We are paying more money for a product AND creating more waste at the same time.  This really bothers me a lot!

Farmers market

I really would like to support the local farmers as much as possible.  But when I went to the new farmer’s market at South Wales last weekend, I could not believe my eyes at the outrageous prices that were being charged!  One lady was selling freshly baked bread for $6.00 for one loaf of plain white bread!  Now I’m certain that her home made bread was probably healthier than the commercially produced bread, but I just can’t bring myself to pay $6.00 for one loaf!  I wonder how many loaves of bread that woman sold that day.

Well, it did pop the corn

I had the chance to try that new microwave pop corn popper that I mentioned a few days ago. It is supposed to pop “one service” of pop corn. That “one serving” was 1/4 cup of unpopped corn.

I used Orville’s pop corn because that is what was given to me. And I guess the commercials about it popping larger might be true because the corn popped so much that the lid had a hard time staying on the popper. So next time I’ll put it a little bit under the 1/4 cup. The popcorn came out quite good, actually. I think I’ll be using this little gadget quite a bit in the future!

Popcorn popping

A few years back I heard that there was a large controversy about how bagged microwave popcorn was bad for you. The kind that was already buttered, that is. Well it seems that the people that worked in the factories were getting sick from something that was in the butter. People were freaking out and throwing their microwave popcorn away! I didn’t do that; I reasoned that people in the factories were exposed to a lot more of the “bad stuff” than the average home-owner that only pops corn on occassion.

I did, however, stop buying microwave popcorn. I figured it was the right thing to do. Last month my niece gave us a big jar of regular, unpopped popcorn. My wife has been hinting at me cooking it. I’ve told her that I would, but somehow it has just never happend. Imagine my surprise when UPS delivered a box today addressed to my wife, and when she unpacked it we found two microwave popcorn poppers! These things are individual serving size, and are dishwasher safe. They are in the dishwasher as I write. I wonder how the popcorn will turn out!