Baked Eggs with Veggies & Goat Cheese

Eggs are one of the most complete foods out there — all the nourishment for the baby chick to be in one nice package.  And most of this is in the yolk, although some good protein is obtained from egg whites.  Every fox in every hen-house agrees…

I eat eggs regularly, and ever since I’ve done grain reduction my blood-work has simply just improved.  Triglycerides are low as is LDL, with the HDL nicely up there, making for a nice ratio.  (Cholesterol itself is about normal, or the high-end of what is listed as being normal, but there seems to be some growing awareness that cholesterol is not the problem.)

I would suggest buying pastured eggs as much as possible, locally.  I’ve seen prices per dozen range from $2.50 to $5.50, which can seem a lot, but for those who do the fast food drive-by for their eggs, or rely on short order cooks at diners and the like — you still save.  And if you look into the practices of your individual local farmers, you can choose from really healthy, nutritionally sound eggs.  Do they get to go outside and perhaps eat some worms or bugs, along with some grass or weeds?  (“Always vegetarian fed” is okay if you can’t find ones that get a little protein on their own, but the latter is preferable.  I do look for “certified humanely raised” if in a pinch in the supermarket.)

Baked eggs with kale, broccolini and goat cheese

Anyhow, I decided to increase my breakfast egg repetoire.

Baked Eggs

2 large chicken eggs per person
Broccolini tips, chopped
Baby kale, or other cookable leafy green, chopped
Goat cheese
A little oil (for greasing muffin tins)
A dash of hot sauce (optional)

For the above veggies, I did not need to pre-cook them.  If you are using the whole stalk of broccolini, or older kale leaves, you may want to blanch to soften them further than they will soften while cooking.

Pre-heat oven to 325 F

Lightly oil the spaces on the muffin pan you plan to use.

Mix the veggies together.    Press into each muffin hole you plan to use, compressing them so that they fill just about over half the size of a  hole.  Indent in the middle.

Break an egg into a small bowl, one by one.  Once you have an egg in a bowl (and its yolk did not break) slide it on top of each pile of veggies, centering the egg yolk as much as possible.  Repeat process until done, reserving broken-yolked eggs for something else.

Add goat cheese, perhaps a tablespoon  for each baked egg, around the outside of the yolk.  (Here you can use the cheese to rectify any stubborn yolks that have rolled over to touch the edges of the muffin hole.)

Top with a dash of hot sauce if you wish, or a little cracked pepper.

Bake for 15-20 minutes in the pre-heated oven.  Eggs will come out soft-ish, but not runny.

A Hearty Appetite?

Well, I haven’t reported on any odd edibles lately, so I figure I should go ahead and add one. Welcome to a continuing but periodical collection of “nose to tail” (or should today we say, “beak to tailfeather”?)  eating.

Poached Poultry Hearts and Kale

A side, or perhaps, with a cup of coffee or tea, a breakfast.

One of the poultry breeders around here sells ducks, quail, and chickens, from whom I occasionally buy a duck or something. They’re GOOD (that’s where the duck came from I’ve written about before).

He knows I use the entire bird with the exception of the quack, so he handed me a bag, no charge, of leftover hearts, livers and necks (from both ducks and chickens, but mostly chicken).

The livers I am freezing to accumulate for a future pate, and the necks were frozen to add to the pot when I render down the carcass from the duck itself. The hearts I simply poached this morning for breakfast, along with kale.

Growing up, the parents would buy whole chickens, and the giblets would always be inside, and they would always cook them along with the rest of the bird. I wasn’t too eager for the liver then, but I’d nail the heart every time I could. I didn’t mind the gizzard, either, but the heart made my own soar. Nowadays in the supermarket, everyone seems to buy “parts”, and boneless “parts” at that, so that when you do see a whole chicken, seldom are there any giblets inside. I guess they all become pet food or something.

The recipe is easy — the below serves one person as a side:

6 Poultry hearts (chicken or duck) — six is what he gave me. 12 would have made a second side…
1.5 ounces kale, roughly chopped
1 clove garlic, roughly chopped
salt and ground pepper to taste

Set the hearts into water, you don’t need to fill the pot especially if you wish to concentrate the flavors in the liquid and perhaps reserve for your future duck stock-making venture. Bring to a boil.

Reduce heat to a rapid simmer — medium hot — and allow to cook about 15 minutes, turning the hearts occasionally if the water isn’t covering them.

Then, drop the garlic and the kale in, stirring to wilt down the kale.

Cook another 3-4 minutes, and either retrieve everything with a slotted spoon, or drain through a sieve.

Serve and enjoy.

Frankly, if you think you are intimidated by the heart, give it a test drive anyway. It’s a good solid muscle meat, and from a healthy animal, it is definitely nutritious.

And if you luck into turkey or goose hearts — just cook them longer (or better yet, cut them in half).

Another option is to poach them in a nutritious broth (veggie or chicken) instead of water.

Swordfish! (with Pear, Cucumber and Onion)

I lucked into some reasonably locally sourced swordfish, and decided to buy it.  I haven’t eaten this particular fish for well over 15 or 20 years, but hey.

It is a large fish, so it is a mercury accumulator, so do keep that in mind.  Also, once it is caught, its flesh turns rapidly into production of ammonia (as does shark and a couple other fishes I can think of).  So cook the day you buy, and make sure you buy it FRESH or don’t bother.

Swordfish with pear, cucumber, onion topping

The main focus of this recipe is the topping, and that it interplayed nicely with the fish. It turned out well, I think.

And so, the recipe below would work with a variety of other firm or solid-fleshed fishes, I think.  Cod, for instance.  Probably even shark, although I am so turned off from bad ammonia experiences with shark that I am unlikely to buy that ever again.

Thinking of the fruit in this, I was reminded of chutney, and so I dipped into my Indian spices to supplement the topping for the fish.  This isn’t exactly going to be a chutney, but I bow my head in that direction.

Three or four servings, depending on your sides.  (May I suggest steamed broccolini?)

For the fish:

Extremely fresh swordfish, the star of the show. (Does anyone eat this as sashimi???)

Approximately 1 pound swordfish (or other)
1 tablespoon or so of either:  coconut aminos, soy aminos or soy sauce (I’d opt for gluten-free)
Ground pepper to taste (I used the Trader Joe’s Rainbow peppercorns, which comes in its own nifty grinder).

For the topping:

The ingredients for the topping, minus the dry spices (and the ghee)

About 1/2 teaspoon ghee (or butter, or olive oil).
1 shallot or very small onion, peeled and diced.
1/2 to a whole Asian (apple) pear.  Cored.  If you want to peel it, fine, but I did not.   (I was going to use a whole pear but there was at least a quarter I cut out due to a big bad spot).  Coarsely chop.  You can always sub in an apple or another variety of pear, of course.
1/2 standard cucumber, peeled and diced.  
1/4 -1/2 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
1 slice (or more!) of lemon (that’s what I had to hand without slicing into a fresh lemon)
Fresh dill, the more the merrier.
1/4-1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/4-1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4-1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
Ground pepper to taste

Pre-heat oven to 350 F.

In a skillet:

Melt the ghee at medium heat, add the onion and ginger.  Let the onion carmelize a little, using a spatula to keep anything from burning.  Once carmelized add all the topping ingredients except the lemon and the dill.

While mixing these around, put the fish in a baking pan (along with the aminos and pepper) and place in the aforementioned oven.

The fish will need between 15 – 20 minutes of cooking time (assuming it is swordfish, which is fairly dense) depending on thickness.  The topping will need about 20 minutes at medium-low heat — and you will need to be attentive to stir it so it cooks through.  Adjust temperature as needed for the consistency you want.

When you think the fish is about ready, load the dill into the topping, and mix some more.  Over-cooking fresh dill can sometimes dilute its effect.

To serve:  pull out the fish, squeeze the lemon over it, let it rest a moment or two, then top it with the topping material!

Cooked fish awaiting the topping whilst patiently dealing with the photo-op thing.

I came up with the Indian seasonings for this due to the fact that the pear sounded almost like this could turn into a chutney, and I did have an Asian pear that was crying out to be used; or else re-fused into the compost pile, if I didn’t attend to it soonest.  The topping  does turn out chutney-like, but if you want to make it a more true chutney, you should probably start cooking it earlier on than I did.  Maybe let it cook about 40 minutes.  But that being said, I liked the mildly-soft, mildly-almost-crunchy results of the final preparation, and so I am posting it as I did this.

As a note, this preparation would overwhelm a truly delicately flavored fish.  And I think the seasonings for something like salmon would go off into entirely different directions.

Sauteed Tempeh

This post gets into both Tempeh, commentary on my food plan for the month, recommended yogurts, and the like.  No, the tempeh recipe does not contain dairy — this recipe is strictly vegan.  

I am actually on my own strict food plan this month.   No wheat, rice or corn, or anything with gluten in it.  No processed sugars (sugar from fruit is fine, just not fruit juice).  Soy has to be fermented (and contain no wheat), which limits one to miso, natto (whatever that is) or (some) tempehs.  No HFCS, no “soy protein isolate” (which also goes under the name of “textured soy/vegetable protein”.  Minimal dairy — fermented yogurt from really good sources is fine; and some cheese (the latter only because I have some still in my fridge to finish off, and cheese gets really noxious and crumbly when you freeze the two types I currently have).  Grass-fed butter (I am picturing a little pat of butter with arms and legs chowing down in my lawn…) Only well-vetted packaged goods this month.  Meat and eggs and yogurt have to be pastured.   Limited starchy veggies, predominantly turnips, winter squash and parsnips.  Non-starchy vegetables can be juiced — I use my immersion blender so the pulp is definitely still there.  I do have wine, which technically I should not allow, but this is my food plan.

But anyhow, today’s meal is about tempeh.  A soy product.   There’s lots of things being said against soy…  quite often for good reasons.

Sauteed Tempeh

Most tempeh on the market these days here in the US does have wheat in it.  The main brand you find in supermarkets, in addition to that, is produced by ConAgra, which isn’t a company I’m really up for supporting to begin with.

Tempeh, however, is a long term traditional Indonesian food.  At some point, the Indonesians figured out how to ferment the soy bean, and they invented tempeh.  I’ll admit  it is an acquired taste, but that’s what herbs, spices and sauces are for.  At any rate, fermenting the bean helps vastly towards diminishing the phytotoxins found in this “food”, turning it into a food.

At some point, I’d like to figure out how to ferment my own pile of soy beans, but meanwhile, my health food store (New Morning, Woodbury, CT), sometimes carries alternate brands of tempeh, and I will then so buy a package or two.

Rhapsody makes a tempeh where the only ingredients are:  (organic) soybeans, filtered deep well water, and Rhizopus cultures.  The soybeans are at least for now safe from GMO contamination.  (GMO’s are their own story which I see a few nuances over, but that’s for some other post.)

Anyhow, the Sauteed Tempeh:  (3 servings by my guesstimate)

1 package (8 ounces) tempeh.  Slice in 1/4 inch strips across and then turn the strips into 1/2 – 1 inch segments.
1/4 onion, chopped
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
1/4 cup tomato sauce (I get mine out of a glass jar & read the ingredients first.  Or use home canned!)
1/2 – 1 coarsely chopped Asian pear (I used the other half of the pear from the previous recipe.  More would have been great.)
1/4 or so teaspoon cardamom
1/4 teaspoon pink Himalayan salt (or Celtic sea salt)
1/4 or so teaspoon ground pepper
a little heat — I used about 1/4 teaspoon unsalted chipotle powder
1 tablespoon olive (or coconut) oil

Set aside the onion and fennel seeds, and the olive oil

Marinate the tempeh with everything else, for say, 20-30 minutes.

In a skillet, heat up the oil at a medium heat, and add the onion and fennel seeds.  Saute the onion until it is at least translucent, or perhaps lightly browned.

Add the tempeh and all the other ingredients, keeping the stove top burner at about medium.

Stir occasionally, for about 15- 20 minutes, until everything is thoroughly cooked, and hot all the way through.  The tempeh may itself brown a little.

Things I might do differently if/when I make this again:  I think bell peppers would be a GREAT addition here.  I would certainly add the WHOLE Asian pear.

(What do I hope to gain from this dietary plan?  For one, weight loss.  I am tired of hovering at the number I am hovering at, and creeping up above it.  For another, I recently read Wheat Belly, a book that remarks about how even those who have no full-fledged gluten intolerance could be impacted by gluten in negative ways.  Studies I’ve seen on processed sugars and food additives.  I’m less convinced about problems with legumes in general, if cooked properly, than with some of these other things.  And I think pro-biotics are good.  Will I continue this food plan out past the month?  Probably to a large degree, but I will then make allowances for eating food prepared by other people, as yes, I am a social person.  February is not a particularly social month, and I was prepared to eat my way at the one last minute thing that cropped up yesterday, supplying my own food, but it got snowed out anyway… )

Good yogurt sources, in order of preference, as an aside:

Arethusa Farm, Litchfield, CT – I get the whole milk plain yogurt. 
Redhill Goat Yogurt – whole milk plain.
Stonyhill Yogurt – as whole as I can find.  

If I ever do get a flavor, it will be vanilla. All the others are overly sweetened.  I’ll add my own fruit in, if I wish — raspberry season around here makes for excellent yogurt, no sugary syrups needed.

 

 

Small Plate: Tuna, Pear, Cucumber, Nori

Hope everyone here in the northeast has pulled out of that snow storm!

This “recipe” is easy, no cooking involved. Raw, actually. This was my morning’s breakfast, no kidding. I allow myself to eat unusually at whim.

Per person:

1/2 Asian pear (also known as apple pear), cored and diced small
1/2 cucumber, peeled and de-seeded, then cut into those fine strips you should remember from sushi restaurants.
about 2 ounces raw fish, sliced.
1/3 sheet of nori (seaweed), carefully shredded along perforations.

You don’t have to peel the pear, unless there are bad spots. As for the cuke seeds, I ate them as I made this dish.

Note, it is best to cut the raw fish very fine, which is easiest to do when it is still partially frozen. I used yellowfin tuna, but any really super fresh saltwater fish will do, that you happen to like.

Arrange as suits your sense of whimsy.

Add on the side a dollop of wasabi, and sprinkle the dish with a bit of finely sliced green onion. (I didn’t have any of the latter, but it makes for a nice presentation.)

(This dish was also going to have a couple avocado slices, but the avocado was well past its prime.)

Test Driving: Eye of Round Roast

Eye of Round Roast

I am in a grass-fed meat share right now, which means one gets beef cuts one would not normally buy.  (I tend to be partial to the flank, skirt and flat iron steaks — rib eye if I felt that it were cost-effective.  Oh, and short ribs and shank and brisket, now that I know how to cook the latter.)

I blew it on the top round roast, so I am hoping for better luck on the eye.  This recipe looks good:  Perfect Eye of Round Roast, posted by Russ at The Domestic Man.  AND it is totally different than the one I checked out elsewhere for the top round roast, which was supposed to provide a nice medium-rare roast beef I could slice and eat cold during the week.  Instead, that one ended up just slightly pink in the center, and I had to cook up the outer part by chopping it up and doing a saute with Jalfreezi stir fry sauce, which gave it back some moisture.

Anyhow, The Domestic Man has you put the Eye of Round into a 500 degree F oven, cook there 7 minutes per pound, then turn the oven (if it is electric) off for 2.5 hours without opening the door.  For gas ovens he recommends putting the oven at its lowest setting possible after the 7 minute per pound heat blast, and checking it at 2 hours. Evidently most gas ovens cool down faster than electric.

He has a rub recipe using ground pepper, minced garlic, Kosher salt, and dried thyme.

Reading the commentary below his recipe, and scratching my personal (nearly gluten-free) noodle, this is what I did:

1 Eye of Round (mine was 2 pounds of grass-finished)
4 cloves of garlic, peeled and minced
1-1.5 teaspoon ground pepper (I used Trader Joe’s rainbow peppercorn variety)
1/2 teaspoon pink Himalayan salt
1/2 teaspoon, heaping, of dried thyme
Perhaps two teaspoons of olive oil (if using)

I used the oil because this is a pretty lean cut of meat and it is grass-finished.  It is definitely not necessary for grain-finished beef, but as another positive, it did help the herbs and spices to adhere to the meat.

Rub down the meat with the oil if using.  Use your hands.

Mix up the herbs and spices separately.

Apply the herbs and spices to all sides of the meat, using your hands.  Good cooking requires getting dirty sometimes.  Allow to marinate for 30 minutes at room temperature.

Heat your oven to 500 degrees F.  The meat can marinate during this heating time.

Place the meat in a roasting pan, on the surface of the pan, not in a rack.  Fat side up, if you have the option — the fat on mine was kinda on the edge, so I picked the side that seemed optimal.  (Optionally, you can add sweet potatoes or other of the thicker root veggies (ie, turnips, celeriac) at the same time.  I’d peel and cube them to 1 – 2 inch cubes, depending on the hardness of the veggie at hand, although sweet potatoes generally do not need to be peeled beyond getting rid of bad spots.  Anyhow, treat them the same way as the meat, with the rubdowns.)

Some people at The Domestic Man’s site used 5 minutes of high heat per pound of meat, for grass-fed.  Others were fine with seven.  I compromised at 6 minutes per pound.

Recommendations from the site and the comment thread:

After the high temp roasting:

Electric:  Turn OFF the heat for 2.5 hours.
Gas:  Turn down the heat to lowest setting for 2 hours, and check; cook more if you need to.
Me:  I have an electric range, but it is probably at least 30 years old.  It was OLD when I moved here 21 years ago.  It doesn’t even have a clock.  It has no tightly-sealed self-cleaning amenities.  SOoooo… I turned it down to minimum for an hour and a half (probably about 150 F, or possibly less, but this thing isn’t all that accurate, either), then I turned it off for the final half hour.

PS:  DO NOT OPEN THE OVEN DOOR DURING ANY OF THIS, UNTIL THE INSTRUCTIONS ALLOW IT.  You’ll defeat the purpose behind this exercise.  It is tempting, I know.

Notes: One half hour after dropping temp to 150ish F:  the oven temp was reading 250 degrees F (which knowing this oven I will assume was closer to 225 degrees F).
45 minutes after – it read 200 degrees (175ish?)
Around 53 minutes after – the oven clicked on.  Which means that it had dropped to the currently set temp of 150ish.
I put these notes in here so people can have a way of fine-tuning their own oven parameters.

Also:  when setting the initial high temp of 500 F, I did move the dial over a little further, in hopes that the oven would really be doing 500 F.  Probably was close enough, judging from past veggie roasting events which also occur at a high temp.

At the end, Russ recommends using a meat thermometer.  Being as mine is worse with the temperature scale than my oven, I did not so do.

Verdict:  Excellent!  The garlic/pepper/salt/thyme mixture was wonderful, nicely crunchy and flavorful.  I did use a bare amount of prepared horseradish while eating.  This should make 3-4 meals, depending on the sides you have.  I opted for salad, but next time (and there will be a next time) I will do some roast veggies alongside.

Go check out Russ’s page at The Domestic Man (link at top of post), to see some really nice photos.

There’s an App for That!….

I have a Kindle, and I’ve discovered there’s a world of apps out there.  Applications aren’t just for smart phones (I still run a dumb phone, although my current one also can hit the internet, sort of, and take photos.)

Three Foodie Apps

Since most apps seem to be made for the Apple operating system then trickle down to the Android (although this may well be changing considering the success of Samsung), the three food-relevant Kindle/Android-able apps I have are likely also available on the iPhone, iPad and iTouch as well.

Grocery Shopping List:

(Yes, that’s what it’s called) This is good… by listing foods one is apt to buy, even if infrequently, one can check them off when done (or not wanted), but they’re on the list to jog your memory.  Sort of like, “Well, if I had thought about needing shampoo, I wouldn’t be running out for just that errand!”

Mostly groceries but some flexible other uses.  The “Shopping List” near the top is their default, not used by me.  You CAN delete it.

On a fairly regular basis I shop at six different grocery-type outlets.  Thus, I’ve set up six different stores and the items I am apt to by at each.  The app comes with a default shopping list which I simply used to get ideas from to start with, but mine are a whole lot healthier. You can drill down three levels:  top-level for instance would be the store itself, the next level would be the general type of item (Veggies, Home Care, etc — all names are fully editable), and the third layer is the specific item (Extra virgin olive oil), etc.  So for veggies I list any veggie I am apt to buy, and check them off until I am ready to consider purchasing them (whereupon I check them on).    For things like seafood and veggies, I also have created a “random” choice — just a reminder that I want something but will judge what I want by freshness or uniqueness or whatever.

Inside Trader Joe’s, general categories.  I don’t shop here that often so the list isn’t extensive, at least yet.  (The 3rd Veggie is “Random”)

You can mail these lists to your spouse or housemate so he or she can pick things up on the way home from work, too.  I would imagine this would be useful for people shut in at home to send to caregivers.   You can order items any way you wish (except on the top layer, where one would put the actual store names — that one defaults to alphabetical).  I find it convenient to order the food categories within stores by the circuit I’m likely to take around the store, but putting household goods (personal items, cleaning supplies) in at the end.

Inside the veggie category inside the ShopRite store. I arranged these alphabetically., it is not automatic.  You can’t see the check marks in the boxes for the items not needed or wanted at this time. But those items are dimmed & crossed out.  PS, I put in a second file category  for the veggies at the far end of the alphabet, but you don’t have to.  It will scroll down.

Anyhow, it is very handy to refer to in the grocery — you don’t need wi-fi connectivity to use this efficiently. You don’t need to do this merely for food.  I have a very basic bill-paying category too — since my credit cards expire this year, I want a way to remember and track which payments go where, which are automatic (and need to be renewed in time!), and so forth.   (I do not EVER again NEED for Netflix to charge me ownership price for the two DVDs I had out at the time the credit card company decided to cancel the card because it was “compromised” in non-specific ways.  And, no, they didn’t reimburse me, despite the fact I sent the DVD’s back.  I may have caught this in time, but I seriously don’t watch very many movies.)   I don’t put any amounts in, but I do track when I will be paying (for the non-automatic things such as the safe deposit box), so I have a heads up reminder.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Cuts of Meat:  

This is a small app which contains a list of most of the cuts of beef you are likely to come across.  (Okay, yeah, it misses out on sweetbreads and kidneys, but they do list tongue.) Each cut of meat comes with a photo of the item in its raw state, a rating system (tenderness, flavor, value, leanness), alternate names if any, and general ideas for preparation.  You’ll also get ideas for cut substitutions if you can’t find, say, flank steak. You can mark your favorite cuts and leave notes on each cut should you wish.

Cuts of Meat app: not seen here – my notes for my favorite way of preparing this excellent & inexpensive cut

RECOMMENDATION LEVEL: GOOD AND USEFUL, BUT COULD HAVE A LITTLE MORE INTERNAL CONSISTENCY.

I keep surfing for a related app:  Cuts of Pork.  Apparently it does not yet exist.   Another good suggestion would be Odd Vegetables/Fruits.  Just to give one a general overview without actual recipes, of things like ugly fruit, cassava, etc.  The app would have to have photos, too.  My main grocery store used to have signs with photos telling us what each vegetable is, and how best to eat (raw, baked, braised, etc.) but some of those signs have now vanished.  A good shopping reference app would be lovely.  Okay, you app developers out there:  Get busy!

Fridge Friend:

I just got this one, and while I haven’t finished setting it up yet, and the initial process will take some time, I’m hoping it will be convenient to use once underway.  I am tired of finding bits of stuff that could have once been animal, vegetable (but probably not mineral) tucked into back bypasses of the fridge.  We will see.  It couldn’t hurt. Plus, being that I have an extra freezer down in the garage, it would be handy to remember where I’ve frozen away, say, that Boston butt, or the homemade chicken stock.

Set up locations for finding your food. This part also allows for some descriptive text, which so far I haven’t used.

It comes with a few default locations — I’m using N/A for items like potatoes and onions that I don’t store in the fridge.  (I am so NOT going to be tracking canned goods.  They have a long enough shelf life.  Okay, hard-core preppers may want to do that, but.)  You can add in new locations, but you can’t re-arrange their order (but you can delete and start again). You can enter specific food in a couple of ways:  Directly each time, or via food templates.  The latter is handy for things you get often enough and which have a pretty standard shelf life.  Templates are remembered alphabetically (hence, I have Lemons, sliced” rather than “Sliced Lemons”.)

Haven’t gotten many templates in yet, but use for foods with a standard shelf life — ie raw chicken should be cooked within 2-3 days. You’d enter that when setting up that food item..

To enter your food into Fridge Friend – write up your item, select the date to which it is good until, and the number of, say, apples, you have.  OR, call up the template and edit anything about it you wish — number of items, say.  These get organized by expiry date.   Obviously with real food you do some guesswork.  Under preferences you can set up the color code you want (although as per my example, it doesn’t have a color choice for really expired food over something you’d better use in a day or two).  You can also set it to set off an alarm (although if you do so, PLEASE change the time the alarm goes off, unless you work nights!)

Eat em soon (red), you have leeway (yellow), safe to have hang around (green). Alas there’s no brown or purple for THROW IT OUT… the top item is a test of that feature, but alas I did find one such item in the fridge just now….

… Let’s zoom on in…  
I do have an extra day on the beef as it is currently fully frozen.  Notes for whatever purpose are available for one to use.  Unfortunately, I don’t get a different color for something truly expired…

You can export data to an e-mail account.  You can scan the little box code that comes on packages if your setup has a camera — presumably that fills in the name and sell-by date.  You can also share this app (I don’t know if that means it will post in your FB account (as that is a choice) that you are using this app, or if it will port up the contents of your fridge and freezer to the site.  Neither idea sounds particularly interesting to me.) I wish you could simply see everything that is in one specific location at a time (occasionally that would be useful), but you cannot.

RECOMMENDATION LEVEL UNKNOWN UNTIL I PUT THIS THROUGH ITS PACES (AND NO LONGER HAVE TO THROW OUT UNIDENTIFIABLE SLIME)

::Final Comments::

There are a LOT of recipe apps out there.  Frankly, when I am cooking I want to see something in bigger print than a Kindle or a smart phone will provide.  For anything “how to” such as recipes, I’d rather buy the physical book, or go to my laptop and write things down (or print them out).  I have friends, though, who have a kitchen-dedicated iPad that they’ve hung on the wall or something, that they can read at just the right height without squinting while they prepare recipes.

PS:  Prices:  

Grocery Shopping List: $0.99   (There’s at least another app out there that tracks prices for you, but I don’t want to enter THAT much data just to shop.  I do have a life.  I make notes on some of my seafood (for instance) items simply to buy them only when they are on sale.)
Cuts of Meat:  $1.99
Fridge Friend:  $0.99

 
Entered into Fresh Bites Friday. http://www.realfoodwholehealth.com/blog/