Hell and Grocery Stores

by kessia{Sage}

The only reason Dante didn’t mention grocery stores on his tour of hell was because there was no such thing when he wrote the Inferno. Otherwise, she is sure and certain he would have devoted an entire circle of hell to grocery stores, perhaps as punishment for credit cards or something. Given how she feels about them, it is no wonder kess has streamlined shopping to minimize the time spent wandering about the brightly colored aisles, searching for the best bargains and foodstuffs.

Every two weeks, kessia carves out some time to make menus. Some weeks it is a simple list of meats; other times she plans out entire meals. The calendar type of menu proved to be too rigid for the family, so she modified it. Master would get agitated if we ate Tuesday’s meatloaf on Monday night, so now kessia simply numbers the meals, then crosses them off as they are consumed. With menu in hand, she heads for the fridge and cabinets to check for ingredients.

As an aside, she got sent a link to a nifty site, www.foodmagic.com , that does a lovely job selecting menus and will even make a grocery list based on the foods that are selected. This site tends to be a little short on “American standards”, like burgers and meatloaf, but has some really nice meatless and veggie type recipes.

Rummaging through the cabinets is always a good idea. It keeps the cabinet gremlin (the one that drives you to buy 82 cans of cream of mushroom soup) at bay, and makes sure the food gets rotated to the front. Digging through the fridge is also a good idea. All the unidentifiable, outdated stuff can be removed, the fridge gets wiped down and an accurate list can be made.

Once the food list is made, kessia heads for the bathrooms and cleaners closet and makes a list of supplies that are gone, low or would be nice to have. Then she sits down and re-writes the list by category. No, she does not do this because she is a retentive freak, she does it to review the list, and organize it so she is not darting back and forth through the grocery store. Anything that reduces the time spent with bored kidlets and the Starving One (he always gets hungry as soon as he sets foot in a grocery store), is a good thing.

Since kessia has (so far) failed to present Master with a winning lotto ticket, there is a limit to the grocery money each pay period. As she reviews the list, she makes an estimate of how much it is going to run Master, and if it is too high then the extra stuff gets removed. Since her idea of what’s extra and Master’s idea are somewhat different, the dickering phase can sound like a Turkish Bazaar.

No, we need Downy. Why? Everyone will get a rash if I change to a cheap brand, and it stains the clothes. Ok, we have to get cookies. Master, no one has ever died from a lack of cookies. That’s because we have adequately maintained supply lines, girl. Tell you what, if you are so worried about cookies, you can make some. Yes, Master. Can we talk about the five different kinds of cereal you want please? We don’t really need toilet paper, why are you adding it please? It’s part of that constant supply thing, girl.

For the record, she stands firmly by the notion that Oreos and sugar cereal are ~not~ must haves. She is pretty sure that good hair conditioner is, though.

The one area in which there is no compromise is meat. He would rather be ‘meatless’ than eat cheap meat. She thinks it is all that mystery meat they serve on the ship or maybe it is some genetic attachment. She has noticed that men and meat have a special relationship. So let’s talk about:

Men and their meat:

As a rule, men like meat (steak?). Red meat (steak?). Almost any form (steak?) as long as it is steak. Of course no one can eat red meat or steak all the time, it is too expensive and not entirely healthy, though she can think of a couple of Someones who really disagree with this. Nevertheless, choosing cuts carefully can maximize the amount of red meat while minimizing the health risks and costs. How do you tell if it’s fresh? What’s the difference between the different cuts? What do you DO with it? The rest of this article is going to deal with red meat, so if you know your cuts, know what he likes, then stop here and we’ll see you next month.

What the hell is “aged beef”? It is beef that has been kept at 34-36 degrees for a period of time to break down the connective tissues, increasing tenderness. The longer it is aged, the more expensive it is.

Why does the cow’s age matter? Actually, this isn’t just true for cows. All animals’ muscle tissue, from slaves to cows, tends to get tougher with age. Fat, the stuff that marbles through some cuts of meat, disappears with age and settles along the outside of the muscle. Meat from older animals tends to be cheaper for this reason. They aren’t kidding when they say, “The old grey mare ain’t what she used to be”.

Why is Angus beef so expensive? Because it is from Angus breed cows. ~grins~ As a rule, Angus is more juicy, more flavorful than ‘regular’ cows. It is the Top Gun of beef (Everyone please hum ‘Danger Zone’ now). Angus Prime tenderloin is the best of the best of the best, so it costs roughly as much as a small country. It is, on occasion, worth it, in her opinion.

How much do I get? A good rule of thumb for steaks and roasts is 8 ounces per person. Plan for extra though, because it just wouldn’t do to run out in the middle of dinner. At one dinner, she used a whole tenderloin to feed three men, so she was glad she ‘overbought’. Hamburger is going to depend on what you are doing with it, how much fat is has (higher fat will mean shrinking while cooking) and how many people there are. Nice thing though, is that hamburger nukes just fine so overbuying really isn’t a tragedy.

Oh, by the way, do not nuke steak. Just don’t. It toughens the meat, affects the flavor and will make the Steak God in the sky smite you with his anger (and he would be justified), so please, just don’t. The Resident Freewoman almost killed a family member for nuking a filet mignon, but kessia convinced her that the girl was young and stupid and should only be fed burgers until she sufficiently matured enough to appreciate good red meat.

What are grades of meat? There aren’t really clear-cut definitions for these; they’re more like general guidelines for classifying how ‘good’ the meat is.

Prime: This is the most expensive and is generally found in meat markets. There is less actual meat due to the marbling of fat through the muscle; this grade also tends to taste the richest.

Choice: Usually the high end stuff in the grocery store. Juicy and tender as a rule, this grade makes for excellent steaks and is a good balance between cost and taste.

Select: Leaner and less juicy meat, the most popular for usual meals.

With grades out of the way, let’s talk about different types of cuts. Absolutely the most tender cuts for roast and steak are the tenderloin and sirloin, which come from the center of the animal. There are a bunch of different types of sirloin (boneless, top, round bone) but the bottom line is they are all very tender, very juicy, nice cuts of meat to use if you do not want to have to tenderize the meat with a marinade. Other high-end cuts include: Rib, Rib eye (also called a Delmonico), Porterhouse, T-bone, Club and New York Strip. Each of these has a flavor and character to it, so personal taste and price per pound is going to have to determine what you buy. For a leaner grilling steak, the New York strip (also called a Kansas city strip) is lovely. For tenderness and succulent flavor, a Porterhouse has all the tenderness of filet and the flavor of strip steak. For rich steak flavor, use a rib or rib eye portion. All of these steaks are what kessia calls “company best”. They tend to be pricy, so she saves them for special occasions like holidays or for company.

For usual shopping, she chooses round, Swiss, eye round, flank (London broil), sirloin tip, or top round. All of these do wonderfully well on the grill after some marinating or other tenderizing. Round makes great hamburger because it is leaner and has a great taste to it without loads of the loads of gristle and fat that chuck tends to have. When cooking any of these cuts as steak, it does help to cut them cross-grain (at a slight angle) and make sure you baste them as they grill.

Ground beef: The percent lean-ness you buy will depend on what you are going to do with it. Meat used in stuffed peppers or meatloaf will need to be higher quality and leaner. Burgers on the grill can be less lean, since the fat drips off. Some types of hamburger are sold based on what was used to make it, like ground sirloin or ground round. Some people have distinct preferences for different type. Master for example, could give a tin hoot what she uses in spaghetti sauce, but raves over ground round or sirloin served as burgers.

Roasts: A roast is any cut of beef that is thicker than two inches and suited for cooking in dry heat (like an oven). The premium roasts come from the loin section and make great holiday/special occasion roasts. A word of advice: Get some practice using less expensive roasts before tackling one of these. Holiday cooking is stressful enough without worrying about ruining a fifty dollar hunk of dead animal.

Try a more reasonably priced roast from the round and bottom part of the sirloin like a round tip, rump, bottom or eye round. These are easy to cook, reasonably priced and have a great flavor.

Pot roast: Master hates pot roast, which is sad because it is one of kess’ favorite meals. Done right, a pot roast is juicy and flavorful and makes great day after sandwiches. These roasts generally come from the fore and hind quarters of the cow, the parts that get the most exercise so they have the most connective tissue. Without the moist heat of pot roasting, these cut will be chewy and tough and not have as much flavor. Chuck roast has more fat (which means more flavor) than round roast, but they can be used pretty interchangeably in most pot roast recipes.

Common chuck pot roasts: Bone-in and boneless chuck cross rib pot roast, chuck mock tender roast (boneless), boneless chuck top blade roast and boneless chuck eye roast.

Common round pot roasts: Bottom round rump roast, bottom round roast, eye round roast and round tip roast.

There is also a brisket, which comes from the underside front. The flat part, called first cut or thin cut, is the least fatty part of the brisket and the most desirable. The fat part, also called the point, is fattier and tends to be lower priced. Kess is not much of a brisket cooker, but her mother-in-law swears by the fattier cut because she says it has more flavor. So, once again, let the cost per pound and taste determine what you get.

As if all this were not enough, there is also stew beef, stir fry beef, and kabob beef. Basically, these are all smaller snips of meat from all over the animal, except the shank. I have no idea why, but the butcher made a point of telling kess that, so she is supposing the shank is too tough.

Now that you have some idea of cuts, here is how to pick the actual package of meat:

1. Pick all meats and perishables last, to minimize the time the stuff is out of the cooler.
2. Choose cherry-red beef without grayish or brown blotches. Once exposed to air, beef turns from a darker red to a bright red, so you want to make sure it has that nice cherry color because that means it is at peak freshness.
3. Hamburger looks bright red on the outside, and darker red when you break open the pack. This is normal. After some time in the air though, beef will turn brown and lose its fresh flavor.
4. Check the sell by date.
5. Make sure it is tightly wrapped with no punctures or loose plastic to let air in.
6. Roasts and steaks should be firm to the touch, not squishy or gooey feeling.
7. Don’t be afraid to ask the butchers (even in the grocery store) to custom cut, or help you choose meat if you aren’t sure or don’t see what you would like. Most do this at no extra charge and are more than willing to help.

She will spare you the safe meat handling lecture, since most all of us are familiar with the hazards associated with raw meats. To keep it at its best though, refrigerate or freeze it as soon as you can, and if you are going to be saving it for a long time (more than two weeks) wrap it in freezer paper and date and label it. No matter what you say, you will not remember the date/type so please, learn from kess’ painful experience and just label the package. The freezer paper will prevent freezer burn. If it happens that some meat does get freezer burned, then simply thaw it and trim away the burned part. There is nothing harmful about freezer burn, it just looks awful and doesn’t taste very good.

Leftovers: Leftover hamburger is easy: Nuke it, freeze it, cook it again; it is very flexible. Leftover roast and steak can be challenging because more cooking can toughen it. A good rule of thumb is to add liquid. Stir fry it with a little oil or water and veggies. Slice it thinly and sear it with wine, water or butter, melt cheese over it and make cheesesteak sandwiches. Cut it into cubes and make kabobs. Re-sear it on a grill and have it two nights in a row. Or, if all else fails, horrify your owner and eat it cold from the fridge.

Happy shopping and beef cooking, she will see you next month with other meats, cleaning advice and maybe even a dessert recipe or two. Please write in with suggestions, comments and criticism to: kessia_s@yahoo.com . Thanks for reading, and please have a happy and safe holiday season.