Quarantine Eating at Home

Each week I try to plan a menu and now, in this current state of existence,  I am trying to plan based on what I have on hand., For now the possibility/probability of running out to pick up whatever sounds good for dinner is no longer an option. I will change all shopping to either delivery or pick up, so I need to be much more intentional with our plan. I do have many bags of frozen vegetables and I have a good bit of fruit (berries) that I previously froze also. This week my aim is to only purchase salad veggies.

This is what I thought our meals for the past week would be:
1. Pork tenderloin, tossed salad, baked potato (or none), broccoli, keto cornbread
2. Chopped Salad, garlic bread or keto dinner roll
3. Ham slices, carrots, green beans, coleslaw, keto cornbread
4. Hamburger helper, coleslaw or cooked cabbage (undecided) I am fasting one day this week so TheHub can have this and then have leftovers for lunch a couple of days
5. Take out from a locally owned place
6. Mac and cheese (or fake mac and cheese, since there is no such thing as keto mac) turnip greens, coleslaw, keto cornbread or real cornbread for the non ketonian.
7. "Night at the movies meal" Snacks that are non-keto for the keto day off. Right now I am thinking popcorn and a corndog, but it is subject to and probably will change.

And this is what really happened:
Monday: Even though I had a lot of frozen meats, seafoods and chicken in the freezer, I planned on having a few vegetarian meals during this period of isolation since we have no idea how long it is going to last, and I really do not want to have to resort to having a delivery service choose my proteins for me. I feel like this might go on much longer than we expect it to. Meals are not big deal for me during the day because I will eat a plate of coleslaw anything else that is leftover  and call it lunch, but I do try to make our evening meal a little better. (TheHub is still working in an essential business so it's just me during the day)
I have said before that I keep foods stored so it was not surprising when I inventoried everything to find I have the capabilities to make a lot of pasta meals plus I have many blocks of cheese in the freezer.
Mac and cheese (or caulimac and cheese for me) turnip greens (canned) coleslaw, keto corn muffins

Tuesday: I found a container of stewed  tomatoes in the fridge  that had to be used that day. I am trying desperately to have zero food waste, so the menu plan had to be altered.
Spaghetti sauce over pasta or zoodles, shredded romaine with black olives and scallions

Wednesday: Once again my plan changed based on a bag of coleslaw mix that needed to be used immediately. I need to get a better handle on our produce consumption because I am finding too many things that are on their last leg.
Smoked sausage with sautéed coleslaw and onions

Thursday: Hopefully this was the last day for me to play catch up using slightly wilted produce.  I had instacart deliver a rather large produce stock up purchase. While I was processing everything (Washing every veggie with peels with Dr. Bronner's peppermint soap, rinse and dry or soaking soft surface produce in vinegar water before letting them join the refrigerator items) I had a couple of bell peppers in the crisper. One still looked very good, so I sliced it into strips and froze it for a meal later, but one screamed "Use me__right now!"
Stuffed bell pepper, baked potato or not, cucumber tomato and onion salad, keto cornbread or rolls

Friday: At last I had all the produce processed and everything could be used as it was intended instead of as an emergency salvage mission. After washing the zucchini I processed them into zoodles. It always leaves the center of the squash (like a zucchini pencil), as well as an end piece of the zucchini that is about 1/2 inch thick. I was not about to let that go to waste so I cooked it and added it to a can of well drained, chopped yellow squash. (That close to zero waste thing again!)
Pork tenderloin, squash casserole, mashed potatoes or steamed cauliflower, tossed salad

Saturday: Saturday was a gathering of the fragments meal (Notice how skillfully I reworded the term leftovers)
Ham slices (last of the Christmas ham from the freezer) turnip greens, rosemary potatoes (box taken from the lake place) coleslaw.  

Sunday: For a period of quarantine we actually had a busy day, yet we never went farther than the driveway (except for my daily time at Mom's and even that is just a few blocks from my house) We visited with neighbors in the driveway, all maintaining the 10 feet apart rule until after dark. TheHub and I came inside and scratched up a crappy dinner. Thank goodness it was not a keto day.
Leftover Mac and cheese, corndogs

And the plan moving forward, in no particular order:
1. Chopped salad, rolls or keto rolls
2. Pasta or zoodles with Alfredo sauce, broccoli, roll or keto roll
3. Leftover pork tenderloin, green beans, wilted spinach salad, rolls or keto rolls
4. Grilled halibut steaks, tossed salad, baked potato or caulimash
5. Taco salad, corn chips (or none) keto cornbread
6. Hot dog hash, coleslaw
7. Easter meal, Stuffed boneless leg of lamb, rice, asparagus (? I think I have some frozen) , salad, something lemony for dessert.


Taken from the freezer:
2 small packs of ground beef
6 mini corn muffins
1 pork tenderloin
small pack of ham slices
2 corndogs
large container of Mardi Gras punch

Added to the freezer:
6 zucchi made into zoodles (5 frozen zoodle "nests")
1 sliced bell pepper
assorted bread slices (they will become either garlic toast or French toast at another time)
keto cookies
leftover snicker doodle cake (cut into squares, frozen on a cookie sheet then bagged)
caulimash
keto freezer slaw

What I need to make/bake
Keto rolls
Keto cookies (not a need but definitely a want)
Lemon cake?

Quarantine Cooking: Snicker Doodle Cake

We are under a shelter in place order now, as are a lot of you. That means staying at home except for the necessities, which also means making our available food stretch as far between grocery visits as possible. It really does no good to shelter in place if we are running to the store every day or two, so we all need to be conserving our at home food resources, and aiming for as close to zero food waste as possible.
I do have a very well stocked pantry and can go for quite a while without having to go to the store, but I also want to use many of my items sparingly. Take eggs for instance! I maintain a keto diet 6 days a week, including one day of fasting. When I make my keto dinner rolls recipe, (I freeze them and use them one at a time if needed to round a meal out) it takes 5 eggs. Yikes! That is a lot of eggs for one recipe, but I will make them every two or three weeks because it makes it easier for me to maintain the keto way of eating. Using that many in one recipe; however, does lead me to try and conserve them wherever I can.
On Sundays I take a day off Keto and always want something desserty that day. For this week I was thinking of making a cake, but that would require a couple or three eggs, plus milk and butter. I was just not willing to dive into my egg stash for a snack cake. And though I love chocolate, I was in the mood for something a little different. Whoo hoo!

Snicker Doodle Wacky Cake

1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cream of tarter (you can leave this out without affecting the quality of the cake)
1/2 teaspoon salt

5 tablespoons oil (olive oil has too heavy of a flavor for this)
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar (can substitute white vinegar or red wine vinegar)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup water

Cinnamon sugar for topping
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
Spray an 8x8 or 9x9 baking pan with cooking spray. Put all the dry ingredients in the pan and mix them  to combine. It is easiest to combine them with a fork. Make 3 wells in the dry mix and pour the oil in one, the vanilla in the 2nd and the vinegar in the third, then pour the water over everything and stir together until well blended (Use the same fork)

Pop it into the oven and bake for for about 35 minutes.  When you take it out sprinkle cinnamon sugar over the top of the hot cake.  Eat it warm as is, or let it cool and enjoy it with a dab of whipped cream, ice cream, caramel sauce, or Cool Whip. You can actually have it any way you like, with anything you have on hand. The best thing about this cake is that it is perfectly tasty all by itself and uses minimal ingredients for a tasty dessert. If you are hungry for something sweet and want to conserve ingredients give this a try.

I found a carton of Cool Whip TheHub had bought to put on top of berries. A dollop of it made a very nice topping for the cake. This is for him, but tomorrow I am having a piece!

TheThirteenth Week of Joys

Since 2020 began I have been keeping up with my daily joys. My aim is to reread all these joys that occur throughout the year on New Year's Eve so I can see how many truly good things happen regularly. (You know, those things that are really good but just don't stay front and center of the vault otherwise know as our brain) Little did I know when I started this project that there would be such a disturbance in the force.
This begins another week of being at home and my biggest single joy is technology that makes this isolation so much more bearable. I cannot imagine how hard it would be if we were not able to connect face to face with our friends and family members even though some of the the distances are vast. Since we are looking down the pipe at another month (at least) of this, I imagine we are all going to become more and more dependent on it.

Wednesday: I woke at the crack of dawn so I could get a shower, put on decent clothes and a dab of makeup. I wanted to be at the grocery store the minute it opened, and even by getting there just 5 minutes after 7, the lot was full!?!  Walking through the store I noticed they were out of many different things, (no toilet paper, paper towels or napkins) and according to an employee they had no idea when they would get any more in.  The produce aisles had about 1/2 the usual amount with some items being completely sold out, and the meat counter was virtually wiped out. I did manage to find one beautiful porterhouse steak and we always share one anyway so it was our dinner.
The sky was blue, it was warm and the dogwoods and azaleas were in full bloom.  The temps were warm enough that I could wash the screened porch to get rid of most of the pollen opening the potential for eating outside during the week. (OK it was really just depollenization, round one, but at least the floor is no longer yellow, and we can sit out there in the evening.)

Thursday: I had a surprise Zoom* video call with the participants of Independence Place. What incredible joy to see their faces and hear their voices. They loved getting to "see and visit" with each other. I plan to join some future calls if I am invited.

Friday:  I really and truly have no clue what happened when or where on Friday. I know I had some fun FaceTime visits with Pip, but other than that I really don't remember what I did. I just know other than going to Mom's I was here__at home__doing nothing special.


Saturday: We headed to the lake to show the house. While there, we loaded up a huge amount of food to bring home. I had non idea I had taken so many things there and since they serve no purpose if we are not spending time there, I figured it might as well come home and be used here. So I got to view the lake and watch the boats going up and down, got to see the herons, and scored a huge amount of food. We left later than we planned so we stopped at one of our favorite bbq joints and picked up some really good food for dinner.

Sunday: We started the morning watching our church sermon which was streamed via Facebook. Then we went about the day doing some odds and ends until early evening. Our Sunday School class decided to try to have a group visit using Webex.  It was not totally successful, but was a way to be in touch even though we could not see several of the participating members.  At least we could hear them. I think we are a bunch of technidiots!

Monday: I suppose the most joyful thing I did was a huge catch up on laundry, plus I got the remaining winter clothes changed over. There are no more cold weather duds lingering in my closet or drawers and for that I am very glad. TheHub is almost through with his seasonal wardrobe changes too. I still have not swapped my comforter and shams for their summer counterparts and will probably wait until mid April, just in case we have one more cold snap.

Tuesday: Well wouldn't you know it. The day after I finished swapping out my clothes, the temps dropped. Fortunately for me the only place I ever really have to go is to Mom's so sweat pants, tee shirts and a jacket will suffice for as many days as necessary. I guess that is what I get for being ahead of the game!
Honestly the day was a little lackluster for the most part until the evening. Son2 set up a game night via the Zoom app  so we could see and hear each other and used JackTV.com to play the actual games.
Son2, DIL2, Son3, DIL3, and I played a couple of games while talking among ourselves. It was a fun way to feel a little less isolated, but my sons are super competitive. I have no idea who they get it from! Son1 and DIL1 were also invited to join in, but the time difference did not work for them. It is just as well since he is as competitive as the other 2 and it would have become an evening straight out of Hunger Games where only one could survive.
Son2 may had sent up a cheesy selfie in a victory pose with the title 3X CHAMP underneath it.  Yeah, he has s big target on his back!


On a different note, I am looking for book recommendations, along with any good Netflix or Amazon Prime movie or series.  I am a threat to take my tablet wherever in the house I am working and mostly listen to a show or series just glancing at it occasionally. I need something good to binge since I seem to have time right now. (I can even hear/see shows from my closet so there is no excuse for me not cleaning it)
If you listened to the podcast S-Town, I would highly recommend Tiger King (Netflix). It was a train wreck I could not quit listening to/watching. There is nothing wonderful about the people in it, or the subject matter, or even the quality of the production yet I was hooked and binged over 2 days. I will just use a few words and let your imaginations run wild: peroxide, tattoos, piercings, amputees, missing teeth, big cats, and a freak on a leash. If that doesn't cause a reaction of some sort or another, then you just can be neither enticed nor repulsed (or possibly both)
Another interesting series is Undone (Amazon Prime). It looks like it was filmed digitally then had an animation filter applied to it. The story is a little far fetched but was still fun to watch. I am not sure if it will be on another season or if it is a one and done thing. If so it ended a little differently than I thought it would,  but I have seen enough things in my life to know sometimes things just end.

*Zoom is a wonderful way to have multi people in on the same chat. I can see it being a sanity saver during the coming weeks.  It is free and really can connect a group with minimal effort!

For Grins and Giggles The Broadway Edition

Just in case you have missed this brilliant Covid-19 inspired video based on music from, Les Mis

And another inspired by The Sound of Music

A Man A Plan A Canal Panama

Sorry about the title but I am bored and amusing myself seems to be a necessity. I like palindromes and it was either this or "Able was I ere I saw Elba"  and I thought that was a tad obtuse for a title about a meal plan.

Sunday night or Monday morning I start thinking about the week to come. And because times are so strange, last week I actually was stupid enough to think there would be very little flexibility in what we would eat.  Little did I know that we would be just as fickle in our tastes and wants as we normally are, but my hard and fast rule was that I would not make any trip anywhere to get anything that was not absolutely necessary.

I had talked with all of Mom's sitters and had done a personal inventory (translation, I cleaned out her refrigerator and pantry) and knew I would run pick up a few things she needed early Wednesday morning. Although I did not really need anything a few things may have jumped in my buggy while I was shopping for Mom.

Based on what I had on hand this was the menu that was planned for the past week:

1. Keto Turkey casserole, tossed salad, garlic toast or none
2. Hamburgers, tater tots (or none), coleslaw
3. Mac and cheese or keto "Mac" and cheese, turnip greens, keto cornbread
4. Meatloaf, mashed potatoes  or cauliflower mash, brussels sprouts, sliced tomatoes
5.  Soup, salad and rolls 0r keto rolls.
6. "Out to eat" take out from a locally owned restaurant
7. " Out to eat" take out from a locally owned restaurant

Monday: I had looked at my food list of  foods I had cooked and frozen previously when I made my menu. I found a small loaf pan of cooked meat loaf, so I took it out and thawed it. A quick zap in the microwave and a couple of sides and dinner was on the table.
Meatloaf, leftover potatoes. tossed salad, brussels sprouts, garlic bread or keto cornbread

Tuesday: I absolutely could not face making a turkey casserole, but I had taken the cooked turkey out of the freezer to thaw, so I was committed to using it. The day was really warm and it screamed for something warm weatherish.
Big tossed salad with turkey and cheese salad, toast or no toast.

Wednesday: When I was out shopping for Mom I was sad to notice there was no chicken and virtually no beef. I did find one nice porterhouse steak. TheHub and I always split a steak so I put up no protest when it leapt into my buggy.
Steak, baked potato (or not), steamed cauliflower (or not if you could have the potato) tossed salad

Thursday: I was just not feeling it. I was not really feeling sorry for myself, or maybe I was. I'm not sure. So I headed outdoors and mostly read until it was about time for TheHub to be home. Then I  headed to the freezer to see what I could find and honestly did not care what it was.
BBQ chicken, coleslaw (Not sure I can really call it bbq chicken though since it was really and truly just cooked chicken I took out of the freezer, nuked it and poured some bottled sauce over it)

Friday: It was gorgeous outside and I was not about to cook anything in the house that I could cook on the grill.
Grilled hamburger patty, wilted spinach salad, pickles, tater tots (or none)

Saturday:  We went to the lake to meet some people who were interested in seeing the house. I took several bags to bring back foods that I had in the pantry or freezer there. I had no idea there was so much! I had taken a large freezer bag and one of those big blue Ikea bags. They were both filled to the gills but I still had to round up several more plastic grocery bags for the overage. Who would have "thunk" it!
We headed home later in the evening and in spite of all the food we were bring back we stopped on  and picked up some real bbq, unlike the fake bbq on Thursday night.
Take out pork plate with coleslaw and collards

Sunday:  Sundays are my non keto day. Don't ask if I made the brownie mix I found at the lake place or don't ask if we had blueberry pancakes for breakfast just to clean out  the remnants of a box of pancake mix stuck in the lake freezer.
PF Chang frozen bagged meal, (chicken something but no idea what kind it was) rice

And now for the new menu plan for the next week (In no particular order);

1. Pork tenderloin, tossed salad, baked potato (or none), broccoli, keto cornbread
2. Chopped Salad, garlic bread or keto dinner roll
3. Ham slices, carrots, green beans, coleslaw, keto cornbread
4. Hamburger helper, coleslaw or cooked cabbage (undecided) I am fasting one day this week so TheHub can have this and then have leftovers for lunch a couple of days
5. Take out from a locally owned place
6. Mac and cheese (or fake mac and cheese, since there is no such thing as keto mac) turnip greens, coleslaw, keto cornbread or real cornbread for the non ketonian.
7. "Night at the movies meal" Snacks that are non-keto for the keto day off. Right now I am thinking popcorn and a corndog, but it is subject to and probably will change.

I need to make:
keto dinner rolls
keto cookies, because a little sweetness keeps me in check
French bread for TheHub 'cause I am really nice, unless I find some when I go to the store for Mom this week.
keto coconut pie (we both like this)

Maybe this will actually happen of maybe not, but this is the plan, or the man, or a canal__Panama!

Isolated Joys for the 12th Week of the Year

I have decided I need to get Son3 and DIL3 to write a little ditty called "Isolation Blues" because I am reading posts from friends who are struggling with the social distancing and not working. I am  looking for every good thing I can find, but I have to admit my world has gotten much smaller. Thank all of you for your posts. Reading them does keep my world feeling larger than it has to be right now.

Wednesday: Found supplies Mom needs regularly ( on sale, to boot!) and did a major stock up for her. I also went shopping for a few food items Mom needed and managed to find some lysol cleaner as well as toilet bowl cleaner and laundry detergent. She had none so it was a joy to find it all at the same place thereby limiting my exposure to more creepy stuff than I have to.
VALIDATION

Thursday: Mom fell again, but she did not get hurt this time so that is an extreme joy. I also spent a good deal of time drawing. I created a game for Pip and I to play over FaceTime, that incorporates play and reading new words.


Friday: Son1 sent me a text with a link to an app he created so Pip and I can play the game I made via iPads while on FaceTime. Whoo hoo! App creation is way above my pay grade.
TheHub stopped at the store after work and brought home a nice bottle of wine. We go out every Friday night, so instead, we did the wine and dine thing at home. Also thankful for Netflix and Amazon Prime. If you have Amazon The Forgiven is a very good movie.

Saturday: TheHub and I had to run a couple of errands. I am amazed at how the people at the grocery store are maintaining the 6 foot rule. After picking up a couple of items we stopped by McDonalds and picked up a cup of coffee, then went joy riding to look at all the trees in bloom.  Next we stopped by Walgreen and found gold, since it is now a premium currency item. 2 multi roll packs of toilet paper!  I still have some but mom is running out.  Now we all have enough though I am keeping hers here and will take to her house one roll at a time.

Sunday: Had the pleasure of watching Gunhild Carling live on Facebook. Music al fresco almost! She was in the open air, and I was watching from my kitchen table that sits in a bay window overlooking the back yard. Fortunately I was pretty good at pretending, and even though it was raining at the time, I still felt like I was sitting in the sunshine with her. In fact I am so good at pretending I actually thought I might run upstairs and get an instrument Son3 had left here to join in. Then I remembered I have no clue how to play horns except for the blowing part.

Monday: This was just another day in paradise. I still go to Mom's every morning and then I get my tail right back home to spend the day in solitude. For kicks and giggles I decided to tackle my laundry room. It was officially the messiest laundry room in the world, and though I did not get everything done in one day 3/4 of it is clean, shining and everything was straightened. (I even washed the ironing board cover). I decided the sewing center could wait for another day though.
Later that night TheHub and I watched 3 episodes of Manhunt. It is a Spectrum original about Richard Jewel and Eric Rudolph. (Olympic bombing and a few other bombings)

Tuesday:  Paradise continued! The day was neither joyless or joyful. TheHub and I met with our lawyer and I did not want to go, but I went anyway. (With a bandana that served as an accessory, but I could pull it up over my nose and mouth. I know it was not a mask, but it was better than nothing.)  Fortunately everyone honored the social space, doors were left open and it was brief.
Later I had some delightful conversation with 2 sets of neighbors while standing in the street in an equilateral triangle formation each side being about 10 feet apart.

And now I put the joys of week 12 to rest and will move on to week 13, with thoughts and prayers for all of us to find joy and toilet paper in this odd time we are living through. Stay healthy, my friends!

Blogger issues so I am adding the 15th week of joys here just to save

Wednesday. Our community decided to have a different kind of Easter egg hunt this year. A PDF file was sent in a mass email with large printable Easter eggs on it. The goal was to out the eggs in prominent places that could be seen form the street so the kids out walking with their parents or driving by could hunt for them. I painted the eggs and hid them in windows, under bushes, behind chairs and peeking out of the shrubs.
Thursday Made  some really cute masks thanks to raiding Moms fabric stash. She had a lot of dense cottons and some thick flannel to use as the middle layer. I had some funky fat quarters for the outside of the masks, and have given several to people who need them. I was also tired of cooking so we picked up takeout from Captain D's.
Friday. My sons have found a way to shed their normally kind personas and throw on the insanely competitive natures via family game box using zoom for the connection and Jackboxtv for the games. Lots of laughter and some extremely non traditional answers later Son 2 was declared winner. There seemed to be a Joe Exotic answer theme throughout the night
;zoom game night with the family
Saturday out for a drive beautiful day take out Thai
Sunday Easter services Webex Sunday school. Lots of Easter FaceTime with Pip
Monday. Conversations with my cousin. FaceTime with Pip and another episode of Ozark
Tuesday: Mom had an event while I was at her house. It was very frightening

Food this week

I had planned a menu based on things I had on hand and had every intention of staying away from the grocery store.  But as usual my intentions and actions seem to play against each other. Mom's sitters would tell me something critical Mom needed every single time I was at her house. The pad I have on her kitchen table long with a pen for keeping an ongoing list is virtually ignored and instead I receive texts asking for 1 or 2 things daily. I have her stocked up on groceries, for now, as well as non food supplies she requires and though I am timing any grocery visits to the hours when fewer people are there, I am still having to go much more often than I would have to for just me.  Anyway when I was shopping for her, I did pick up a few things we could use too, so my menu changed based on that and also on a few things I found when I was inventorying  my upright freezer.

  What was planned:
1. Stuffed bell pepper, caulitato salad toasted bread (keto or regular) keto strawberry pound cake with whipped cream
2. Corned beef, cabbage, potatoes  and carrots (or no potatoes and carrots) keto chocolate mint truffles
3. Crustless ham frittata, tossed salad, brussels sprouts, keto coconut flour cookies
4. Chicken something or the other with mashed potatoes or caulimash, carrots, sliced tomatoes, crustless coconut pie
5. BLT on real bread or chaffles , tossed salad
6. Chili (probably the last for the year. Not what I really want but it is extremely portable) keto cornbread, coleslaw
7. Sausages with kraut and potatoes (or not) green beans.

What really happened:
Monday: I began cleaning out the freezer one shelf at a time. I found some chicken that had been frozen for a bit and needed to be cooked, so I thawed it and it became the main event for dinner.
Oven BBQ chicken, caulitato salad, leftover asparagus,  toast or keto cornbread

Tuesday:  Well I suppose it was a happen enough St Patrick's Day with no fanfare at all. Fortunately I had bought 3 corned beef briskets when Aldi had them on sale so all I really had to do was take one out of the freezer in time to thaw. As cabbage is a mainstay here and so are potatoes, throwing a St.Paddy's meal together was non big deal. We did make it somewhat festive by eating in the dining room by candlelight. 
Corned beef, cabbage and potatoes (or none)  forgot to make the keto truffle (oh well)
Wednesday: I have no idea what happened Wednesday, except for my usual morning at Mom's, followed by more work in the freezer. I did find a zip lock bag of chopped ham I didn't know I had, so I used it rather than the sliced ham I had frozen and knew about. 
Frittata with cheese, ham and asparagus, tossed salad

Thursday: One of the last days prior to everyone knowing we were going to have to self isolate, my local Publix had a vendor offering bites of turkey and sausage. I don't even remember the brand, but it was tasty so I bought the polish sausage and bacon. then when the panic buying started and the canned foods aisle was wiped out except for turnip greens and kraut I bought a couple of cans of both. (yep, we are southern and I can gussie the turnip greens up so they are tasty, and kraut, well it's kraut and we eat it)
Polish sausage with kraut, green beans, sliced tomatoes.

Friday: TheHub stopped by the grocery store on his way home from work. He works in the Health Care industry and he is considered essential. Anyway, there is no chicken to be found in the meat department, but Publix was roasting chickens. He brought one home, I guess it is our solution to our usual Friday night restaurant meal.
Grocery store rotisserie chicken, tossed salad

Saturday: While I was cleaning and inventorying the freezer I found a big ham bone so I made a big pot of ham broth and chopped all the meaty bits into pieces. I added an onion, some cauliflower and a bag of Trader Joes cruciferous mix (it was about to ruin) and called it soup. I intended to freeze it in individual serving sizes but TheHub said it sounded fine for dinner. Sold!!!
Ham and veggie soup, garlic bread or none.

Sunday:  I had planned on Sunday being a non-keto day, and had planned on grilling out hamburgers, but the morning was rainy so I never took the patties out to thaw. Then the day because gorgeous and would have been perfect for grilling after all. Oh well, they will stay frozen until another day.
I had cleaned out all of my baking supplies earlier in the week and knew I had a half bag of chocolate chips. Non- keto day+opened chocolate chips meant only one thing__cookies!
Grilled cheese sandwiches with pickles, chocolate chip cookies

Because I have an accurate count of what is available to eat and what needs to be used first, I have a baseline for what we will have for dinners during the week, but the actual dinner may change with my mood.
1. Keto Turkey casserole, tossed salad, garlic toast or none
2. Hamburgers, tater tots (or none), coleslaw
3. Mac and cheese or keto "Mac" and cheese, turnip greens, keto cornbread
4. Meatloaf, mashed potatoes  or cauliflower mash, brussels sprouts, sliced tomatoes
5.  Soup, salad and rolls 0r keto rolls.
6. "Out to eat" take out from a locally owned restaurant
7. " Out to eat" take out from a locally owned restaurant

I do not need to go to the restaurants, but I feel morally obligated to buy things from some of the local places to hopefully sustain them during this time. I am afraid so many small businesses will not be able to recover from this. I wonder of Cookie Fix and Pastry Arts are doing take out?!?!?!