So here it is 4:30 in the morning and I can’t sleep, so I’m surfing the MPSIMS and realized I needed to vent about my very own MPS.
My fridge’s lower right crisper drawer is filled to capacity with cheap butter. Boxes and boxes of it. It’s hard to open the drawer as it is now way too heavy, and it has been this way for months and months.
Why, you ask? The girlfriend couldn’t pass up an AMAZING deal on butter at the store, so she bought them out of butter one day and stock piled it in the fridge while I was at work. I tried to point out that butter, of all things, is pretty cheap, and I’m sure the AMAZING sale will come around again in time for us to refuel on butter, but all this landed on deaf ears, angry that I would Question Her Judgement upon this.
So, yeah… butter. I has it. Cheap, low quality butter. The sad part is I cannot buy the fancy, unsalted butter I want now, since, well… we have all this crappy butter.
Does anyone else have a stockpiling fetish for butter or etc?
I buy butter when I find a good sale. I bake a lot, and cook with a fair amount of butter (which is why I shall never ever be skinny, sigh), so I stock up when it’s on sale. Usually no more than 3 or 4 pounds of the stuff at a time, unless it’s Christmas Baking Season. I keep the extras in the freezer until I need them.
I admit to stockpiling certain foodstuffs when they’re on sale, when it’s something I know I’ll end up using a lot of before the expiration date rolls around. I’ll do that with meat sometimes, buy the big family packs when they’re on a ridiculous sale and then freeze stuff in individual portions for later. It saves money, so why not?
I buy butter when it’s on sale, too, Antigen. I don’t use margarine. It freezes well, and I’m the family baker. I’ll be making poundcake for a picnic next weekend, and I’m often called upon to make birthday cakes and so forth. Why not buy butter when it’s $2 a pound or even less?
I stockpile toilet paper and paper towels. I don’t really know why. I’ve never run out completely before or ever been in a situation where I couldn’t get some easily. It is just comforting to have all that toilet paper stashed away, like a hidden box of treasure for your bum. Right now there are two 12 packs of double roll cottonelle in the closet, and another five rolls of the same under the sink. My wife and I are the only people who live in the apartment.
I stockpile butter too. Seems to be a common trait with bakers, which isn’t surprising consider we go through a pound of butter in a blink.
Last time I checked, the regular price for butter in my local supermarket is $5.50 (and that’s the cheap store brand, too!), so it makes a big difference if I can stock up when it’s under $3 instead of buying it when we need it. It’s either that or switch to margarine, and I’ll be damned if I resort to that.
Plus, it’ll keep pretty much indefinitely in the freezer with little to no impact on taste/texture.
(if I could do the same with milk and eggs when a good sale comes along, you bet your sweet patootie I’d do it… unfortunately, neither of those seems to freeze particularly well)
No stockpiling fetishes (yet! but I might be on my way) but I feel for you about the cheap stuff. I’d always buy the store brand butter instead of Land O Lakes to save a few nickels, until Mr. Horseshoe forced me to do a side-by-side taste comparison.
I agree with VunderBob. It sounds like it’s time for you to have a party.
I do all the baking (well, all the cooking period) in my house and I’ve never bought more than two pounds of butter at once even though I bake every weekend. I completely sympathize on the low-quality butter. I’ve actually been known to throw out butter because it can make an enormous difference in the taste of your food. There’s this organic crap at the grocery that’s particularly bad. I had assumed that organic = high quality, but it was not so.
I don’t notice the difference between store brand and Land O’ Lakes (I’m not that discerning), but I do know that the stuff freezes well. And in a batch of cookies, I doubt you’d notice the difference.
Maybe you and the girlfriend could have a baking session, and reap the rewards of her frugality. Freeze the butter you don’t use, and any excess (hah!) baked goodies.
Whoops - just noticed the “months and months” bit. Butter doesn’t last all that long in the fridge, before developing an off taste. Try some, and if it’s gone bad, start throwing it out.
I’m reminded of Brando in Last Tango in Paris: “Get the butter.”
Seriously, if I had a ton of cheap butter, I’d make a metric crapload of scones or drop biscuits and freeze them. Or maybe make a bunch of raw pie crust and freeze it. One always has a need to cheap and convenient pastry products. Or maybe that’s just me - I kind of have a pastry problem.
On preview, Mama Zappa is right - butter will turn if not frozen. We once had a package of butter in the back of our fridge that we forgot about for 3-4 months, and when we used it it tasted - not quite rancid, but not really fresh. There was definitely an off taste to it, tho.
I don’t deliberately hoard things like butter, but if I’m not using something as fast as I normally do, I’ll accidentally stock up on some staple by continuing to buy it at the “using it fast” rate.
