Saturday, February 1, 2014

Value Added

Yesterday I went to the ethnic market to buy a bag of brown rice.  It's much cheaper there than at my local grocery store, and I have a great time wandering the aisles looking at all the unusual products.

This store has dozens of types of rice stacked on pallets close to the door. I picked out the cheapest one (which happened to be a ten-pound bag of basmati with convenient carrying handles), then added a couple of other things to my basket before I checked out.  When I got home I threw the bag into the freezer to kill any weevils that might be lurking.

Today I removed the bag to fill up the pantry container and discovered that in addition to handles, my bag closed with a zipper.  When it's completely empty it will be a nice tote bag.


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18 comments:

  1. I've never heard of that freezer tip! But I've never found any weevils, either! I'll have to remember this one!

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    1. Even though we have wire pantry shelves that weevils wouldn't be able to crawl on I hate bugs. In my opinion you can never be too sure.

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  2. I've never heard of that freezer thing either!

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    1. When I was a kid we had a bad case of weevils in the pantry. I've NEVER forgotten it!

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    2. I put all my flours in the freezer for that very reason. Of course, you could probably just put yours in the freezing garage!

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    3. dkzody, at some points in the year you'd be right :-)

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  3. That's a great idea to re-purpose the bag! Now you will have rice for awhile!

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    1. We eat a lot of rice. Ten pounds will last us about three months.

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  4. My mother is so picky with her brown rice. It's usually the more expensive one so we can only buy it when it goes on sale.

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    1. At your mom's age I think she SHOULD be able to get what she wants!

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  5. What a great innovation. More products should come like this. reminds me of the pre ww2 days when flour came in sacks that were then used for dresses/towels.

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    1. I've gotten another brand of rice that came in an open-topped cloth bag. The zipper on this one really made it special.

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  6. Wow, whoever thought of this type of packing is genius! I've only cooked brown rice a couple of times, it takes forever to cook... how do you cook it Kathy?

    Have yourself a wonderful week!

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    1. Because it takes so much longer to cook, when I make brown rice I do a large amount at once. Put rice in pan, add twice the volume of water (and maybe a bit of salt). Bring it to a boil, lower the heat, cover, and wait 45 minutes.

      Did you know brown rice freezes beautifully? It's great to be able to pull a meal-size container out on nights I don't feel like making it.

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  7. great tip about the freezer! And hitting up the local ethnic market rather that overpaying somewhere else!

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    1. I place I went to isn't the closest ethnic store, but it has the best prices and largest range of cultures represented. I LOVE seeing what they have!

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