Wednesday, April 23, 2008

The price of rice is going out of sight……

I told you all about the price of wheat basically doubling in price, well once again a staple item, namely rice, has now doubled in price in the last six weeks. Tonight on the news they were announcing that Sam’s club, as of today, was limiting how much rice a person could buy. You are now allowed to buy four bags of rice per person. I found out from a friend that they have been limiting rice sales at Costco too. When TF. Left tonight for his church activity, I went to the Hong Kong food market and started pricing the rice there. I had my little notebook out writing things down when a little man, standing next to me, said “Three weeks ago this cost $ 12.50 cents and look at the price now”. He said this in the best English he could muster while shaking his head. This was a good quality of Jasmine rice in a 25 lb. bag for $ 21.75. I decided to head for Food Town where I found that the 4lb. bag of rice that was on sale last week for 99 cents was now $ 1.99. I decided to look around the store for prices on other brands. I found a 20 lb. bag of long grain white rice for $ 4.99 a bag. The little calculator, in my head, started computing how much that was per pound and it came to 25 cents per pound. I called a friend and she asked me to get her 2 bags and my married daughter wanted one bag. I ended up with six bags of rice. I will put this into appropriate containers and have it in storage for months to come. If you eat rice, you might consider stocking up on some before it goes up any higher.

Now, to go along with that rice, here is an awesome recipe for Arizona Chuck Wagon Beans that I found on the Chetday.com website.


Arizona Chuck Wagon Beans

1 lb dried navy or pinto beans
6 cups water
1/4 pound salt pork, diced
1 large onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
1 large green pepper, chopped
1 1/2 pounds chuck steak, cubed
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp oregano, crumbled
1/4 tsp red pepper
1/4 tsp ground cumin
8 ounces tomato sauce

Pick over beans and rinse well. Combine beans and water in a large kettle. Bring to boiling; cover; cook 2 minutes. Remove from heat and let stand 1 hour then pour
into slow cooker.

Brown salt pork in a large skillet; remove with a slowtted spoon to cooker; saute onion, garlic and green pepper in pan drippings; remove with slotted spoon to
cooker. Brown beef, a few pieces at a time in pan drippings; remove to cooker with slotted spoon; stir in salt, oregano, red pepper, cumin and tomato sauce. Add
more water, if necessary to bring liquid level above beans.

Cook on low for 10 hours or on high for 6 hours, or until beans are tender.

Talk to ya later.......

14 Comments:

At 1:10 AM, Blogger Diane@Diane's Place said...

I saw a report on ABC news tonight about the price of rice skyrocketing! I love jasmine rice and I'm already paying $3.99 for a 2 lb. bag at Walmart. I can just imagine what it'll be soon. I have 10 lbs. of long grain white rice put back, but I may go ahead and put more away.


That bean recipe looks good! I don't know why you couldn't use ground beef in place of the cubed beef. I have a similar recipe that uses hamburger and it's good.

Hope your week is going well, Lucy.

Love and hugs,

Diane

 
At 2:18 AM, Blogger OldLady Of The Hills said...

I had just heard about this Rice Price problem, too, yesterday or the day before on TV....You did really GOOD, my dear! I order a lot of Take0Out-Delivery...from a Thai place, and Chinese place, and an Indian place....It will be interesting to see if the price of Rice is reflected in what they give you....!
That Chuckwagon Bean Dish sounds quite delicious!

 
At 5:20 AM, Blogger LZ Blogger said...

Lucy ~ You're right... the price of everything is going out of sight! These beans sound great! I must pass this recipe on to Mrs. LZ! THX! ~ jb///

 
At 6:45 AM, Blogger Merle said...

Dear Lucy ~~Like everything else, now rice goes up. It is costing more each time we go food shopping.
Thank you Lucy for your visit, Glad you liked the poem and the photo of my late Mother with the birds. She and her sister went for a holiday to Queensland many years ago, so she was happy. Take care, My friend, Love,
Merle.

 
At 10:19 AM, Blogger Putz said...

lucy, you are so neat, appreciate the recipe, keep suggesting us to use recipes with down to earth cheap ingridiants

 
At 3:58 PM, Blogger Oh great One said...

Some the recipes you put up just make my mouth water. Too bad my hubby is so picky!

 
At 4:57 PM, Blogger Big Dave T said...

NBC news had a segment on the rice problem the other day. According to one observer, part of the problem was media hype.

I've noticed this with oil too. If the media says the price of oil is going to go up, it does. Maybe the media should just let the markets decide, then report, instead of trying to predict what's going to happen.

 
At 5:23 PM, Blogger Jamie Dawn said...

I heard about the limits on rice. I heard that some people were stocking up on rice and also mailing it to their loved ones in foreign countries who are having difficulty getting rice. I have plenty of rice in my pantry right now, but if I didn't, I would surely be buying some pronto!

Yummmmy - rice & beans. I could go for that right now!!
I made some really good, low cal chicken/pasta alfredo today.
My family liked it so much, and they did not realize it was a healthy recipe. Usually, my family KNOWS when something is low fat, but this recipe used cream of chicken soup and it was tasty!

I hope you are having a good week, Lucy, in spite of the skyrocketing prices of some foods.

 
At 10:12 PM, Blogger Jim said...

Hi Lucy (we are back). The price of everything in the U.S. is going up, fast.
Prices will follow the value of our dollar. The Arabs want the same buying power as always for their oil, if it takes more dollars to get it, so be. The rest follows.
Part too is that corn use is down because we are burning it to drive our cars instead of petroleum. The price of corn is too high almost for food, so Americans are eating more rice. Since our price is up, it doesn't pay to export it.
Did you know that China uses much more American rice than they grow locally? Or they were, now they will switch to bamboo and who knows (keep your pets in the house!)?

The Arizona Beans sound a little like my chili. I could make this recipe, I might take a short cut or two. Thanks.
..

 
At 11:14 PM, Blogger Jess said...

Hey..thought I would visit. Great recipe! And thank you for visiting and commenting on my blog; I appreciate it.

 
At 10:58 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Lucy, a tip about long term rice storage:

Put the rice in the freezer for a few days before storing it away in your pantry. It'll kill most lil critters that WILL be in the rice (even the "best" rice will have some critter infestation). Otherwise, you'll spend a buncha time rinsing the rice of their "get" down the road... besides losing some of your rice to their predation.

Of course, storing in airtight containers after the freeze treatment will help maintain freshness, as well, but you knew that already (and may well have known the freeze trick).

BTW, I do this with large flour purchases as well. Works for me.

Of course, it means I need to move some other freezer things out to make space... right. Like I really cry about defrosting those range fed Scottish Highlands Pike's Peak roasts. *heh* (Defrost, pop one in the rice cooker for slow cooking and the other in the smoker. Yum.)

 
At 10:13 AM, Blogger Granny said...

I still have rice but I think I'll shop around for more before it gets worse. Rice lasts a long time with only 2 of us.

You and I do almost the same thing with beans although I like the small reds a little better than pintos.

My friend gave me a huge sack of black beans. Any ideas? I suppose I'd do about the same thing but I've never cooked them before.

Have a wonderful weekend.

 
At 6:14 PM, Blogger Scarlet said...

My father was telling me about this yesterday. We are Cuban, which means we NEED rice (what else will go w/ black beans, right?). I'll have to do what you're doing and stock up! :)

 
At 8:02 PM, Blogger Jamie Dawn said...

Happy Sunday, Lucy.
I hope you've had a nice weekend.
Mine has been busy, but good.

:-)

 

Post a Comment

<< Home