u/Wildfire271

My friend built a sauna, we get lucky enough to use it a few times a month. I didn’t get to help building it as much as I would have liked so I’m looking to get some items for the sauna to help out.

I’d like to get them a really nice thermostat and some good scents for a start. When I look online a lot of the websites look very sketchy. No reviews or just copy and pasted websites. I’m wondering what websites most people use for buying stuff like this in Canada, I haven’t seen any stores around me.

Whole chickens go on sale around my area every couple of weeks.

Usually going for $16-18 CAD. ($14/kg)

Yesterday I was looking for chicken breast and noticed a sale tag near the whole chickens, 5$ ($4/kg) a chicken. I bought 3. Beside the whole chickens were 2 chicken breasts for 12-14$.

6 chicken breast, 6 drum sticks, 6 thighs and 12 wings. Plus the carcasses which will be used for bone broth.

The chicken breast I use for regular suppers. It is nice having the skin attached for pan seared chicken.

The drum sticks get frozen and used for soup meat when that season rolls around

Chicken thighs get cooked on the night I seperate them, I use that meat for sandwiches or salads.

The chicken wings get seperated and thrown into a big bag in the freezer. Once I have a good amount saved up I’ll do a wing night.

Cooking for just myself I get roughly 6 suppers and 6 lunches for $15. The soup meat and carcasses just feel like extra at that point and basically free in my brain.

If you haven’t tried it, it’s definitely worth attempting. There are a lot of incredible videos going over how to trim them. Lots of different ways to separate a chicken depending on what you’d like.

For those that do buy whole chickens a lot. How else do you use the different parts?

I recently noticed a quick mill Andreja premium pop up on market place for $1350 Canadian. The machine looks really nice and well maintained, pump and reservoir tank were replaced at a local shop. It seems like a fairly good deal and a great machine for the price. Are there common issues with these machines to look out for? And is this a bit of overkill?

I have had a breville bambino for 3 years now, Baratza encore esp grinder. It has done a great job serving just myself. Serving groups has become a bit of a pain, milk takes just about a whole steam cycle to warm. I have been teetering on the idea of upgrading. I used a couple different machines that my friends have and even just an upgrade in the steam department made the whole process feel better. My friend just got a DF54 grinder and the better build quality of it is pushing me towards upgrading.

On a usual morning I make 4-6 drinks, majority of the drinks are milk based. Recently enjoying espresso shots more and Americanos. On weekends I usually pump out a lot of espresso martinis and now recently started loving carajillos(half the steps and tastes better than a martini).

I have started enjoying the more premium things in my day to day life. I work a high risk job and might not be around forever so may aswell enjoy some nicer things. My budget is sitting in the $1500 CAD range, budget could be pushed to 2000 if a different machine is worth the wait. This is what caught my eye on the Andreja. Open to any opinions or even some other options that might suit me better. The rabbit hole is insane but I love it.