Sunday: It was pretty chilly here, and very rainy and stormy, so soup seemed like a good choice. I made my version of Olive Garden’s Pasta e Fagioli soup, and it was delicious. I also made a loaf of Italian Herb bread in the bread machine.
I made a buttermilk pie for dessert on Sunday that we enjoyed through most of the week. I know it’s not pretty, but it’s so good.
Monday: Cheese Enchiladas. I used this recipe, but halved it. We also had refried beans with our enchiladas.
Tuesday: This was when the takeout started. I had Thai food, which I love, but Nick is less crazy about. Nick had Arby’s, which I refuse to eat.
Wednesday: We had burgers and milkshakes from the McDonald’s drive-thru.
Thursday: Cheese Tetrazzini. It’s not the prettiest dish, but it was so good.
Friday: Taco salad. We were actually able to get lettuce on the grocery order, which was a nice change from the last few.
Saturday: Nick made pancakes for breakfast. I love pancakes, but mine are absolutely terrible. Nick’s are really good, and these were even better than usual. There is no picture of the pancakes because I was too busy devouring them. We had leftovers (taco salad and cheese tetrazzini) for lunch and dinner.
Breakfast was mostly cereal, with one day of egg sandwiches, and one day of this Dutch Apple Pancake, which I did an experiment on. I read recently that oat milk works the best in baking if you’re not using regular dairy milk. I wanted to test it out, but I wanted to do it on something fairly low stakes. We were out of milk by Friday morning, so I gave the oat milk a try in the Dutch Apple Pancake. We’d had it before, so knew how it was supposed to taste, and it wouldn’t waste a lot of ingredients if it was bad. It was fine. Neither one of us could tell any difference. I feel fairly confident now in using oat milk in baked goods if we’re out of regular dairy milk. That should help limit our grocery trips/orders a little more.
I think I may have finally figured out a system for getting produce right now. I’m trying to only do grocery orders every two weeks, or even a little longer if we can manage it. That makes it a little tricky with things like fresh produce and milk. The oat milk experiment mostly solved the milk problem, so that just leaves the produce problem.
There doesn’t seem to be any particular pattern with what’s available as far as produce, so I’m learning to be a little more flexible. I put a variety of produce on the grocery order, knowing we wouldn’t get all of it. We were able to get lettuce, spinach, yellow squash, zucchini, onions, strawberries, asparagus, a couple of tomatoes, cilantro, cauliflower, carrots, celery, and a very tiny head of broccoli. We weren’t able to get cucumbers, parsley, butternut squash, raspberries, green beans, or any shredded broccoli or coleslaw mixes.
My plan is to use the things with the shortest shelf life first, then move on to the things that will last a little longer, and then to probably use some frozen veggies the last few days before our next grocery order.
So what about you? Have you changed the way you shop for groceries? What produce have you been able to get, or not been able to get? Have you tried any successful substitutions?
Why must food be photogenic? If it tastes good, that's all that matters, really.
ReplyDeleteI was going to the store twice a week, before. Two different stores. Now I'm doing once a week, and that's been fine, but now I'm running out of all the stuff I stocked up on, so I need to get a lot. Grocery trip tomorrow...
Everything looks yummy! We are pretty much finding all the stuff we want in the stores though couldn't find mushrooms last week. Someone in Northern California mentioned they couldn't find mushrooms either so not sure about why that would be a shortage. Pretty much here in stock things are coming back. Not an abundance of some things but we were actually shocked Friday at Wal-Mart that the toilet paper was in such mass quantity and finally found hand sanitizer; something we hadn't found since this whole thing began. We're probably in the store more than we should be but do practice social distancing. Lots of people still don't get the concept of it though.
ReplyDeletebetty
Well, the one thing I haven't had trouble finding is produce! I think because people can't stockpile it. I'm doing what you are doing . . . Trying to use up the fresh produce first. We have a salad every night with dinner. Usually with tomatoes, but when I run out, I use dried fruit and nuts as a topping.
ReplyDeleteThat buttermilk pie looks inviting.
ReplyDeleteEvery two plus weeks shopping is standard for me now. I use up all the produce, supplemented with frozen veg in that time. I freeze enough milk for that time too. I don’t want to shop any more than that these days.
ReplyDeleteHave a great day you two.
Would you be willing to share your recipe for buttermilk pie?
ReplyDeleteThis all looks good. And I second Beth B -- will you share your buttermilk pie recipe?
ReplyDeleteOat milk is the closest non-dairy milk in terms of taste to cow's milk. As a note though: if using for tea or coffee, pouring the oat milk in before the water should solve any issues you might have with it seporating. It tastes fine even if it does seporate a bit though, so if it does, don't worry about it.
ReplyDeleteYou might know this one, but I'm also going to include a fruit and veg related tip: if you're concerned about being able to use up all your fresh produce, you can freeze some of the fruit for smoothies or use in baking, and blanch the veggies to freeze them for later use too.
Since we switched to having the local fruit and veg shop bring us stuff, and using the local stores rather than trying to get a delivery from the supermarket, we've had a lot more success in getting stuff.