Tell me more about these rice pouches. I have no idea what you are describing.
Pretty much everything. I got spoiled living in San Francisco back in the 80’s and 90’s, and fresh produce that was sitting outside at mom and pop stores was everywhere. You could shop every single day in different parts of the town to get totally different stuff. Veggies and fish in Chinatown, Mexican stuff and organic fruit in The Mission, frozen piroshki in the Tenderloin.
I especially liked looking at the ducks that were squished flat and hanging on lines in Chinatown. Never got the courage to eat one, but it made for an interesting display.
Oh, they’re terrific. You just tear a little notch near the top, set the microwave for 90 seconds, and you got yourself a whole bunch of rice. It got a heck of a lot more rice in my diet, because I simply wasn’t going to put in the time and effort to prepare it the old-fashioned way. I even turned my mom onto the packets, and at no point in my life did I ever expect to pass any kind of culinary recommendations her way. I kind of always assumed that I’d be on the receiving end there. The brand that I usually go with is Ben’s Original (i.e., what Uncle Ben’s used to be). There’s an endless variety of flavors, although I’ve really begun to favor their basmati and their jasmine rices these days. If your grocery store has an “international” aisle, that’s probably where they’re going to be.
I saw these on the grocery store shelf just yesterday. If they weren’t right next to the rice in a bag or box, they were near packets of rice side dishes (and boxes of couscous) where you just add water, cover, and simmer. The Dollar Tree seems to have a lot of heat-and-eat rice packets.
I usually will need produce, dairy, meats and bread/buns and salty snacks. Beer and cat fud.
First time yesterday did a grocery shop online for pick up of staples for the coming week.
Chicken tatas
Hot Italian sausage
Smoked Turkey sausage
Tombstone pizzas -2
Zatarains jambalaya
Panko breadcrumbs
Salad greens (power greens and iceberg)
Garlic bulbs
Cucumber
Oranges
Yogurt 24oz
Raisin Bran family size
A lemon a lime
Dole fruit cups
Kettle Chips snacking size
Wasabi Almonds
Spaghetti sauce
Parmesan
Turkey deli meat
Sandwich bread
Hot dog buns
Nathan’s hot dogs
1/2 gal milk
Cat fud & cat treats
Beer ( 2/12’s of two hearted. Craft beer buy 1 get 1 40% off!)
$148.
Next trip I know we’ll need TP, butter, rice, onions , cheese and eggs.
We try to eat a big salad with a protein like salmon or grilled chicken for dinner once or twice a week, so I always buy spring mix, plum tomatoes, avocados, yellow bell peppers, red onions and goat cheese. I always have dried cranberries, but I don’t have to buy them once a week. For my lunches, I buy apples, carrots, broccoli, Wheat Thins, string cheese,
and unsweetened tea.
They are just as @Snooooopy described. Very convenient indeed. I’ll just add that some of the flavoured ones tend to be high in sodium, but that’s not an issue with the basic basmati or jasmine. One of my quick-and-easy seafood dinners consists of briefly marinating skewers of shrimp and scallops and throwing them on the barbecue for a few minutes while microwaving a bag of Uncle Ben’s basmati rice.
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I’ll just mention an oddball staple that I’ve recently started to keep around – Strub’s pickled eggs. I used to think of pickled eggs as something strictly associated with pubs and beer-drinking, but it’s a great way to preserve precooked ready-to-eat peeled eggs. Just take one or two out of the jar, slice in half, add salt and pepper, and instant snack! They keep practically forever in the fridge even after opening.
The ones I like are from a company called Seeds of Change. They do a quinoa, brown and red rice, a quinoa with brown rice with garlic and a Spanish rice. They’re all good.
I see Ben’s Original does something similar with regular rice in a variety of flavors.