Here we are in our 4th week of isolation with the refrigerator looming bigger than ever in our kitchen and our lives. We are low on some things and someone needs to brave the Covid-19 epidemic to make a run to the grocery store. My husband, Skip is the designated grocery store shopper equipped with mask and gloves, hand sanitizer, plastic bags, wipes, and Lysol spray. Each week we have taken greater precautions until the last trip to the store when I told him that he was not allowed in the house until he stripped off his clothes in the garage, washed his hands thoroughly, then took a shower. Meanwhile we took in the groceries that were perishable and left boxes and non-perishables on the garage floor. To my shock and bewilderment, I found that Skip had bought more perishables than non-perishables. There were two large bags of lettuce and a large plastic container of fancy-mix of lettuce. Another large tub was filled with spinach and then there was a huge bunch of asparagus, lots of corn on the cob, tomatoes enough to feed an army and other assorted fruits and vegetables. I panicked. What was I supposed to do with all of that stuff? Those bags of lettuce only last about three days. Asparagus goes mushy really quickly. Tomatoes develop black spots within just a few days, bananas go brown and spotted, and strawberries get moldy. Just the thought makes me gag. Skip also bought a large whole rotisserie chicken. My mind was spinning. How would I...how could I make use of everything before it rotted, turned to mush, and had to be thrown out? Being resourceful, I rolled up my sleeves and took out the salad bowl.
Week 4 menus
Day 1:
Dinner - I made a HUGE salad to have with the chicken. I added leftovers from days past. (Waste not want not!) It was a smorgasbord of flavors that turned out to be quite tasty.
Day 2: \
Lunch - Salad with chicken pieces. There was still so much chicken left. I think that I overdid it on the salad the night before, but we also had a huge amount of greens just sitting there waiting to turn into sludge, so I remind myself that I shouldn't be wasteful.
Dinner - Chicken soup and salad. (I used the leftover chicken to make the soup and lots of the fresh vegetables in the stock.) Even though the soup turned out delicious, it was hard to disguise the fact that we had just had the same ingredients at lunch. I was hoping that our digestive systems didn't stage a mutiny.
Day 3:
Lunch - Fruit and salad I also cooked the asparagus but just didn't have the interest in eating it, so I stuck it in the refrigerator for later.
Dinner - Leftover chicken soup with pasta added; but please, God, no more salad!!! I was popping Tums and praying that my indigestion would go away by bedtime.
Day 4:
Lunch - Geez...some of the lettuce is slimy! We threw it out but managed to get lots of the lettuce into the bowl along with spinach and tomatoes for, yup...you guessed it...more SALAD! I added some of the cooked asparagus that really needed to be eaten and also found some leftover chicken slices in our lunch meat drawer. They were borderline greenish but Skip ate it without comment. I fear he might be losing his sense of taste and smell.
Mid-afternoon snack: fruit smoothies. The fruit was beginning to look a bit off so I pureed and disguised it in a smoothie. Skip said it was a bit 'zingy' which in my mind meant that the strawberries were probably starting to ferment. Just for good measure I gave us both some Tums feeling a little queasy about all of that roughage. On a positive note, Skip definitely seems to have recovered his sense of taste and smell. He nailed the fermenting fruit, and then when he passed the trash can he smelled the rotting asparagus bottoms I had discarded.
Dinner: I took the cooked asparagus and pureed it in a bit of chicken bouillon and onion salt. I added it to the last of the leftover chicken soup. It was delicious! Now I wish I had more asparagus, more chicken and more of the soup vegetables. (I can't believe I just said that!)
It is now Day 5 of our 4th week of isolation and my stomach aches. I may have overdone it with the fruits and veggies. I am craving French Fries, pasta, and unhealthy snacks. We are out of popcorn. The Cheetos that we bought during week 1 of isolation (and that I yelled about having in the house) are nothing but a long-ago fond memory, and we have eaten all of the baked goods I made during my ambitious baking spree during week two. I am looking at some old fruit that is beginning to become questionable. The veggies are pretty much gone, along with most of the other perishables and dairy products. Our walk-in pantry which was so well-stocked that it challenged our ability to walk in to retrieve anything now beckons us. I remember that somewhere in the very back amidst cans...lots and lots of cans of soup, there are some crackers. CRACKERS!!! Should I retrieve them or wait another day? But what are my choices? Cautiously I enter the disarray of cans and packages of dried goods. They are the kinds of foods one only considers during the worst of situations. Oh wait...yes! This is the worst of situations!!! I reach for a hidden package of rice-a-roni and realize its expiration date was a year ago. REALLY? I had no idea that Rice-a-roni had an expiration date! I prepare it anyway, and mix it with a crumble of leftover hamburger from last week. I take out a package of grated cheese that I had the good sense to stick in the freezer and spread it on top of the mixture then allow it to melt in the microwave. Mmmm. Delicious. True pantry gourmet. We eat it and dream of the time when we could dine out. But alas, those times are gone as we wait out the Shelter-in-Place orders to be lifted.
Now, I lift my pen to paper to write out the menus for the next few days. Maybe we will have some sausage gravy on stale bread. That'll be fun. Then we can have frozen soup veggies for dinner. Desperate times lead to desperate measures. We will survive!!!
