Three Pots

The Discovery Shop at Westlake is having a 25% off sale this week. I stopped by on Tuesday afternoon to see if I could find any bargains. I found three pots that I liked.

The pots were priced at $4, $3, and $2 before the discount. The white one was made in Portugal. Here's another view.

I really liked this hand-made one.

It was signed, but not dated. I couldn't find any info about the potter, Toney Thomas. The pot had a little trademark (a double t) near the bottom. 

The cats were interested in it.

Maybe they think it would be a good place to keep catnip.

For a total of $6.75, I think I got a bargain—especially on the handmade one.

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Handy Little Grater

I stopped buying shredded cheese when I noticed that cellulose was one of the added ingredients. While pre-shredded cheese was so handy to add to salads, quiches, casseroles, etc., I'm trying to eat fewer additives.  An ABC News story considers cellulose one of the "7 Grossest Things in Your Food":

Cellulose is usually made from nontoxic wood pulp or cotton, and the cheap filler is stuffed into shredded cheese, salad dressing, and ice cream to thicken it without adding calories or fat. Cellulose is fibrous, which is why it appears in so many high-fiber "healthy" snacks and breakfast cereals -- and it's even in organic products, according to an investigation by The Wall Street Journal.

Here's another story about cellulose in food, and here's another. Apparently wood pulp is a popular additive in processed foods. But I don't care for it. What to do? Shred my own cheese!

I bought this little grater at Dollar Tree for, well, a dollar.

Does it work? You bet! A hunk of cheese is way cheaper than a package of pre-shredded cheese, too.

It takes no time to shred a bowlful of cheese from a block of cheddar. And the results look better than what comes out of the packages.

Two months ago, on my Peevish Pen, I posted a recipe for crustless quiche that uses 3 cups of shredded cheese. Yep, I shredded my own. Couldn't have done it without my cheap little grater!

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Cast Iron Pan

My husband found a cast iron pan at Goodwill. Here's the "up" side, with heart-shaped indentations for batter . . .

. . . and here's the back.

There's a bit of rust, but the pan looks like it hasn't been used. At least it was never seasoned. Did he get a good deal for $1.95? 

I Googled a bit and found a bunch of cast iron corn muffin pans. This one didn't have a handle, but it was $7:

This one had a handle, but was a different style. It was $7.99

This one matches, but it had already been sold on eBay. I don't know what the price was.

Finally I found this heading, which lead me to another picture:

Vintage 4 Heart Cast Iron Cake Bread Cookie Tray Mold Pan very hard 2 find

Looks like it's a match.

How much was it? Here's the asking price:

Looks like he got a pretty good deal. Or I did—he gave it to me.

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PT Packing

If you remove the back seats from your car, you can really pack stuff in. Here's the old PT Cruiser at Tractor Supply:

Six bags of shavings, two bags of feed, and a bunch of other stuff! And here's another trip:

It isn't like we were actually using those back seats. 

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