Social Distancing: Days 18 - 20

April 9, 2020 8:00 AM

Day 18 (Sunday): We decide to go on a trek to the Asian store. And it was stressful. The line for checking out was very, very long. I don't think I should ever come back on a Sunday. Because of how exhausting that was, we grab takeout for lunch.

And for dinner, we rolled some sushi!

Day 19 (Monday): I need to do something with the green beans since they're starting to look kind of sad. I bought a huge slab of salmon in a previous grocery trip, so I figured we'd do this simple salmon and green beans dish. My sister even de-scaled the salmon.

Slightly fancy and very delicious.

Day 20 (Tuesday): Somehow we're already at the point where we need to get creative again with our meals. We really do have a lot of ingredients, but I'm not quite sure how to put them all together. I look at the top of my white board. Corn Tortillas. I have no idea how long that pack of tortillas has been sitting in my fridge. At least several months. I must use them.

The first thing that comes to mind is enchiladas. (I know, you would think it's tacos, but I like to mix things up!) Looking through enchilada recipes, I can't quite find one that contains only ingredients I have. But this Skinnytaste recipe comes decently close. Except that I don't have the right ingredients for the sauce, so I consult Budget Bytes for that.

We make it work with what we have. Half a can of diced tomatoes with chiles, shredded chicken, some onions, and a bunch of spices. It tastes great.

Social Distancing: Days 21 - 23

April 10, 2020 6:39 PM

Day 21 (Wednesday): Sometimes when my sister and I take a walk around the neighborhood we pass by this Indian restaurant. It always makes me want Indian food. I figured we could make chicken tikka masala since I bought this family pack of chicken breast.

What I didn't realize was the fact that we've been eating so much that we're really cutting it close on having enough for this recipe. But we just make it work. I also didn't realize how low we were on tomato paste. Whatever, we'll just omit that. And the chicken stock.

We also made creamed spinach, and my sister made some naan. We were a little worried since we didn't have any more yogurt and we barely had enough yeast. But it didn't matter! It was all delicious.

Day 22 (Thursday): I haven't had a noodle dish during the quarantine yet, and I have some vermicelli noodles left over from the spring rolls, so I decide to make Singapore noodles.

This recipe called for tofu, but I didn't have any, since I didn't plan to make this meal in advance. But I did have some shrimp so I threw that in instead. I actually think having the crispy tofu would have been nice. It wasn't bad, but I think it could have used a little more flavor.

Also, we're officially out of garlic now. We almost went grocery shopping today. But we stopped ourselves! We can last a whole week! I know it!

Day 23 (Friday): Our supply is seriously dwindling. But we have enough for my sister to make some Nikujaga (Japanese beef stew).

This is one of the dishes she made when she studied Japanese cuisine in school. It seemed easy enough for me to make it, though! And it was delicious.

At this point we're also out of soy sauce. Though I guess we still have some soy sauce alternatives. We're determined to last at least another day without shopping. Can we do it? Tune in to find out...

Social Distancing: Days 24 - 26

April 25, 2020 5:57 AM

So I've been verybusy at work lately, which is why I haven't posted an update in a while. When I start working on a project at work my mind is just in this "I NEED TO FINISH THIS" mode and I can't work on other things. Anyway, I've found a stopping point, so it's time to catch up on blog posts.

Day 24 (Saturday): I have decided to take inventory of all my food. That's right. Everything in my kitchen.

I had already been doing this, but I finally took inventory of my herbs, spices, sauces, etc. Yes, this is what I stare at every day when I decide what to cook and what leftover to eat for breakfast or lunch.

Before I get to the dinner portion of this, check out this super aesthetic coffee my sister made.

So tonight's dinner was Nam Sod (Thai pork salad). I had about a pound of ground pork sitting in the freezer, but what I really needed to use up were some super sad looking limes.

We ate it both with rice and in lettuce wraps. I thought it was great, though my sister prefers something sweeter. Adding some Thai basil would have made this even better though!

Day 25 (Sunday): We decide to go grocery shopping. On a Sunday. But we didn't think about what Sunday it is. EASTER. That's right, all the stores are closed except Whole Foods. And Whole Foods has a line that wraps around the building. We decide to head back home. We'll survive.

Since we have about half a head of cabbage in the fridge, we decide to make Okonomiyaki. It was delicious. We also had some green beans that seemed like they were going to go bad soon, so we fried those up as well. Of course at this point we're starting to struggle a little with what ingredients we had left. We used up the rest of our eggs for this meal!

Day 26 (Monday): We also wanted to go grocery shopping this day, but for some reason my stomach wasn't feeling so great, so we stayed home again. It's okay. We had some salmon in the freezer and some broccoli in the fridge so we made a quick meal out of that.

Unfortunately I didn't let the salmon thaw all the way before putting it under the broiler so that was a bit of a struggle to get it cooked completely. I'm still learning how to use that broiler properly. But the rub we added to the salmon was great, and the meal overall was delicious.

At this point, we were out of garlic, soy sauce, milk, fruit...we absolutely needed a grocery trip.

Social Distancing: Days 27 - 29

April 26, 2020 8:00 AM

Day 27 (Tuesday): Finally! Grocery shopping time! We go to Target since we need some non-food items, and then Trader Joes because Target is seriously lacking on actual food items. We made it to Trader Joes literally two minutes before the store closed. And I am pooped. My sister takes control of dinner because I am too exhausted to do anything else. Shopping is stressful during these times.

She made some Kimchi fried rice which was already on our list of things to make, but the lack of eggs made that harder. And you just need that egg on top. Look at how good that looks. It tasted great too.

Day 28 (Wednesday): We have eggs! And fruit! And other foods! It's amazing! Anyway, I had Mac n Cheese on my list of things to make, and we finally had the ingredients to make it.

What a classic American meal. This was pretty good, but I don't think I'll use shells if I make mac n cheese again. I guess I should have called this shells n cheese. They have a tendency to get inside each other.

Day 29 (Thursday): We still had leftover Indian food, but we were all out of naan, so my sister made some paratha, which is an Indian flatbread. She was so so so excited about it, and even more excited when she tasted it. It was deeelicious.

For dinner that night, we made burgers. I saw a picture of a burger a few weeks ago and since then it's been on my list of things to make.

You can never go wrong with a homemade burger. Burgers are always better when they're homemade.

I wanted a picture of one of us holding up the burger but it was way too messy. I guess that's a good thing though.

Social Distancing: Days 30 - 32

April 27, 2020 8:00 AM

Day 30 (Friday): I don't know what it is, but work is starting to exhaust me. I'm trying to find more easy meals to make. So I decide on some Sesame Chicken.

The original recipe doesn't call for broccoli, but I figured we should have some vegetables. And contrary to the comments on Budget Bytes for this, I think there is plenty of sauce. Maybe even too much sauce. We boiled the broccoli for a few minutes before mixing it in with the chicken, but now I'm wondering if it would have been better if we roasted the broccoli first. I'll try that next time. Overall, this still tasted good.

Day 31 (Saturday): I had a virtual game night on Saturday, so I wanted to do something easy. We've had dumplings in the freezer, so this seemed like a good time to cook some of those. We also had some iceberg lettuce in the fridge, along with other various veggies, so it seemed like a good idea to make some salad. When I think of how to use iceberg, my mind immediately jumps to those salads you get at Hibachi restaurants.

Yes, we had dumplings from two different batches. Look at that color contrast.

Day 32 (Sunday): Another thought about using up lettuce is to put it in soup. So we figured, let's make some noodle soup! We were thinking we might want to make Pho since we're stuck at home all day, but that requires way too many herbs and spices that I don't currently have, so we're making Teochew Noodle Soup 粿条汤 instead.

This made me realize I don't have those large Asian bowls. We still made it work with smaller ones.

We actually never ended up putting lettuce in this. But it doesn't matter, noodle soup is always a good idea.