Weekend 3-way: surplus

On Friday evening, I threw together a veggie tray to bring to a gathering. It was somewhat slim pickings, but I filled the little sections of my trusty travel compartment tray with broccoli, carrots, cucumber, and celery. All were fresh and crispy. I had no dip, so I opened up 3 or 4 of those little snack sized hummus containers we get at Costco (favorite thing), mixed in a dollup of Trader Joe's pesto, and toasted some pine nuts to sprinkle on top. The big bucket in the fridge was gone, so I went to the cupboard to grab some olives, I always have a spare jar of kalamatos in there. But lo, there were none! There were, however, no less than three unopened jars of chinese chili garlic oil. Which is delish, but not to meet this particular need.

But it did bring me to this weekend's 3-way:

"What do you always buy too much of? And/or on a related note, what do you always make too much of? (think lefties that end up down the drain) OR: What do you always run out of?"

Jacquie:

As stated above, I tend to buy too much chili garlic oil. It just always looks so good and for some reason, I convince myself that I've gone through the last jar I bought. I am also known to overbuy the kind of instant oatmeal that my girl enjoys, peanut butter (how many jars did you find that one time, Ellie?), and all manner of delicious sounding dips and spreads.

I make too much of many things. Growing up in a family of eight, I often envision serving sizes by those measures. As I believe we've discussed here at MYE, we Coreys are loathe to throw anything yummy away, but even though Bill takes lefties to work for lunch, every time I clean out the fridge I find several tiny buckets of stupid veggies.

And the saddest story of all, the things I don't buy enough of, and am thus chronically plum out. That list of shame would have to include: pickles, beer, citrus fruit, garlic, and any baking ingredient ever invented. In my defense, I don't bake. But there's no excuse for the garlic.

Ellie:
Jacquie, garlic?! You're half Lebanese! That's a sin and a crime against your People to run out of garlic.

And I too love chili garlic oil. Love it. Love the tall bottle of it with the rooster on it as well.

Anyway. I can't keep turkey in the house: we buy it for the week, and it lasts 2 days. I can't keep pretzels in the house: I buy a bag and I eat a bag. We never run out of beer or wine because there's a package store a couple of blocks away and we're really good customers.

I overbuy beans. Garbanzos, kidneys, black, small white, cannelloni: I've got enough cans to last until the Armageddon. I'm about to lighten my load, though: I'm in the midst of making a killer pasta/bean salad to bring to anybody's house who invites me over this weekend. It's going to be bean-heavy.

Beth:

We always have way too much cereal and far too little beer. But like Ellie, we've got a package store close by and are regular customers to say the least. You know, the sort of customers whose kids call the cashiers uncle.

We are constantly running out of baby food too. I know, I know, a good mother would be making mashed, strained, organic vegetables fresh daily, but I've never claimed to be a good mother. Organic in the jar is all I typically manage, and man, do those jars go fast! But in all fairness, Blanca plows baby girl full of food, so neither T nor I see the daily damage.