Now the rest of the story.
Homemade syrup and black strap molasses on top.
Butter in the middle.

Cheap work dinner yesterday, mostly from the salvage store.

Sardines and crackers is a great lunch. I haven’t tried them with cheese crackers.

I love sardines. Fifty cents for king oscar sardines is a deal. My son likes sardines, but will pick out the bones. No, you eat the bones! Crystal is a good hot sauce that’s on the mild side and probably perfect for sardines. Twenty cents for crystal hot sauce is a bargain.

I've stocked up on great sardines in the last couple of years, most all packed in olive oil. Several of the brands are expensive and not even available locally. I eat 5 or 6 cans of sardines most every week sometimes more.

Crystal hot sauce is not available here either and has become a favorite of mine. I grab every bottle I see and store it in a spare fridge along with other bargain sauces I find. All of the various hot sauces, as well as A1 steak sauce, kikkoman soy and tamari sauce, and Lea and Perrin's Worcestershire etc are 50 cents a bottle. That was a small bottle of Crystal perfect size and price for a lunchbox.

https://crystalhotsauce.com/about-crystal/

The story of Crystal hot sauce.

I've bought Chrystal for years and it's always been cheaper than the others.

Crystal is about my favorite. It has a more neutral pepper flavor. I don’t like hot sauce or barbecue sauce to taste like taco sauce. Way too many bbq sauces cross that line around here.

Beans and toasted rice with a ground brisket patty.

Got a half pound AKA 1 cup of navy beans soaking and some 3 year old dried homemade bacon simmering in a kettle to soften up.
Yes 3 year old dried bacon.
I tasted it and it has a distinct nutty flavor but not bad at all.
It'll get cut up and put with the navy beans to cook with them.
We'll pretend we're on a sailing ship in the 17th century rounding the horn.
It's cold and the crew needs something warm to fight off the wind.
Look out for icebergs.

The crew also needed some ships biscuits to go with the beans.
Normally these were made before the ship set sail but I'm making some on board.
Whole wheat flour salt and water.

The other week I scored a handful of sirloin tip roasts at $11 a kilo. Roasted one today to send off my son and DIL and her mother joined us for dinner. Sweet potatoes, like mushrooms are the rare vegetable that has not gone up in price so lots of those along with chopped and seasoned spuds and a nice gravy. Salad was the very last Sherwood romaine I started back in november and meant to keep for seed but instead of bolting it just made a very nice head of itself. No joke it was still primo after months of icy cold greenhouse. Anyway the $7 roast fed four and there's a good meal left over.

Aldi grass fed 85/15 hamburger patties, four x 1/4 pound, price $2.99. Aldi hamburger buns, something around $1.40 or so for 8. They are in between slider size and regular size, but perfect for these patties.

Sliced ripe Black Krim tomato, yum, fresh from the garden lettuce, grown in partial shade, I planted on a whim around the first of April, still sweet and no bitterness. Aldi Provolone. Mayo.

I had a hamburger, wife had one with the cheese. Two more for lunch tomorrow. Dinner might have cost $1.50 each and that’s erring on the side of too much.

Even better, it was delicious.

Ships biscuits.
What an insane thing to do.
Hard as a rock and they ring when you tap them together.

Eat them like Biscotti, lol.

Sue_CT wrote: ↑Tue May 09, 2023 11:20 am Eat them like Biscotti, lol.

I'm doing what was one traditional way to use them.
Busted up and added to a soup or stew.
In this case the navy beans.
These beans had my salt water whole peppercorns a whole pickled jalapeno pepper and some chicken bullion powder added.
Then let sit over night and continued this morning with busted up ships biscuits and molasses to simmer some more and get thicker.

I actually got burned out tasting the beans.
Took them out added more molasses brown sugar and some liquid hickory smoke and off to the oven they went on 350F.
Baked beans not Boston baked beans so I won't get beat up not doing some little thing that makes them Boston baked beans.
I'm done with the authentic police so they are just baked beans.
I'll also find out if that knob on top of my lid is oven proof.. Tired of worrying about it too.
If it isn't I can just make one that is, 'but it ((feels)) oven proof.
No big deal.

I was cleaning out the freezer today and came across this strange shaped chunk of chared grilled meat of some sort.
Spiced with lots of black pepper and obviously cured.
It looked like a miniature brisket..
I think it's a big chunk of cured lamb but not for sure but it tastes like lamb.
I don't think it's pork and like a fool I didn't label it.
No telling how long it's been in there and I know over 2 years.
Probably more.
It tastes fine and is very good.
When I first started cutting it up I had chili in mind because I didn't think it was cured and smoked.
Well now I have to fall back and regroup.
By doing so I'm going to cook it with Lima beans.

Quick soaked and partially cooked the beans and added them to the meat stuff after it got tender Now they'll just be on a low, very low simmer.
No spices necessary.

It's hard to beat a big ol butter bean!