Tag: pantry cooking

daily recap · what we ate

Day 118: Sandwiches & Sesame Noodles

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Matt took the day off to take Lulu to the vet. She’s fine, just a check up and shots visit. He has a lot of vacation days to use up.

After he dropped her off he went to our local Italian grocery for some cheese and sausage and other goodies (it’s been 3 weeks since we last shopped) and had them make us some sandwiches to go.

It was weird to eat food that someone else made. Tasty! But weird.

The sandwiches were huge so for dinner I made some sesame soba with yellow squash and cucumber ribbons and some fried tofu. It was really good! I heated up the tofu (the pre-fried kind we bought at H Mart) and the squash then let it sit in the sauce (similar to this one) to cool while I made the soba. I had been kind of off soba for a while but it is so easy to make just two portions of it and it is nice to eat something cool when it is so hot. Since Matt isn’t going into work I don’t have to worry about making food that generates so many leftovers for lunches.

Non-food related activities:

Matt was going to attend a live tai chi class via zoom but they seemed to have had technical difficulties so he watched last week’s recorded class. It seems like everyone but him went to the in-person class today. We just don’t feel comfortable until there is some treatment and more info about the long term effects of the virus. People who get it seem to suffer for weeks and months even if it was a “mild” case with no hospitalization. Who knows how they will be in a year or if they get it again.

We watched some Dark season 3. It’s good but I’m glad they are ending it at 3 seasons. It’s so convoluted and the more plot lines they add the less I find myself caring about the characters.

daily recap · what we ate

Day 117: Sardine Cakes & Popcorn

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For lunch I made some sardine cakes with leftover baked potatoes and served them with the leftover couscous. That was our main meal of the day.

After lunch I roasted a pre-marinated pork loin I bought at Aldi about 3 weeks ago. The sell by date was coming up so I figured it would keep better cooked. I didn’t want to eat it today and I don’t like freezing things too close to their sell by date.

For dinner Matt made beet greens and I had some popcorn with Trader Joe’s Everything But the Elote seasoning. Matt had noodles and cottage cheese.

Non-food related activities:

I finished the Riley Sager book at like 1 am. It was fun! I started another book but I’m not sure if I’m going to keep going or give up.

I’m still listening to season 2 of Faded Out. I don’t like the addition of Joe Aguiar. He wasn’t in the earlier episodes but he’s been in the last few. He’s really off-putting and keeps repeating that Doreen was a mature looking and attractive 12 year old or that she looked older than her age etc and that’s really irrelevant and gross. She was 12 and possibly abused and then murdered by her father. Joe Aguiar really adds nothing else. He just loudly talks about nothing. It seems like he’s a producer but I don’t understand why he needs to be on the actual podcast talking. Then in another episode he says it’s “creepy” that another man (the landlord) who met Doreen a few times said she was pretty. What? He does the same thing several times. He also keeps insisting that saying the child looked like “Lydia from Beetlejuice” is strange or damning in some way but really, she was a pale girl with black hair. The movie had just come out. She really did look like Winona Ryder back then.

He really seems to push the other hosts to make some leaps in logic that wasn’t an issue in the first part of season 2. He keeps insisting that people should remember this case among his fellow church goers and other people in the general area but then they both say the case was in the media mostly as a runaway type situation. In 1988. How long are people going to remember that? It’s unfortunate but it doesn’t seem like the case got much attention then and they had only lived in their new house 10 days. How much are the neighbors, a landlord and such going to remember or care? His insistence (that the other hosts have joined in on) that people need to talk to them to clear their name or clear things up is strange. These people who barely knew the ones involved really don’t owe them anything. If I listened to this podcast and heard how they pick everyone apart, I don’t think I’d want to go on either. The way they talked about the new owners of the house was really aggressive. It’s okay not to want strangers on your property and they’d have no way of knowing if you were who you said they were. They had nothing to do with the case at all but they talked about them for like 40 minutes and kept saying how strange they were. Maybe they just wanted to live their lives?!

At night we watched Queen and Slim which was beautifully shot but a little uneven. Great cast though.

daily recap · repurposing leftovers · what we ate

Day 116: Leftovers, Leftovers

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I planned today so I really didn’t have to put forth too much effort.

For lunch we sliced up the leftover steak and had it tossed with mi goreng and frozen chopped spinach I added to the cooking water while the noodles cooked.

Dinner was leftover tteokbokki. I also had an onion hamburger bun I toasted in a pan with butter. The package got squished so they are really too flat to use as actual rolls so ersatz toast it is.

Non-food related activities:

Watched Josie and the Pussycats on (Netflix) DVD. Somehow neither of us had seen it despite the great musical talent mashup of Fountains of Wayne, that dog and Babyface.

Still reading the latest Riley Sager and chugging along on the second season of Faded Out. The Riley Sager book is fun but it always bothers me that the author is a man who clearly chose that pen name so you’d think he was a woman since all of his books are about women.

daily recap · planning · what we ate

Day 115: Tuna Melts & Cornish Game Hens

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For lunch Matt made us tuna melts (on rye swirl) to use up the tiny bit of tuna salad we had left.

For dinner Matt made Cornish Game Hens (that I had frozen a couple months ago) with za’atar, and couscous with kale and chickpeas. Everything was fine but it oddly came out bland despite being well-seasoned. We have a good amount of the couscous left so I have to think of a way to jazz it up.

It’s been almost three weeks since our last grocery shop(s) and I’m trying to make it to next week to help rotate some stuff we already have in the freezer out to make room for new food.

Non-food activities:

More Dark and Babysitters Club on Netflix. It has been so hot and humid. I really want to play cards outside again! It’s just so gross out. Matt’s working so much that it’s hard to get the energy to do a lot in the evenings after dinner.

Matt’s tai chi classes have been doing virtual lessons and recording them but now they are moving to in person and we are not really comfortable about that. I guess the exercise bike might get some more use!

daily recap · what we ate

Day 114: Hominy & Steak

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Our beach plums are doing great! I’m hoping to do something fun with them this year, last year we had a great harvest but my mom was in the hospital/rehab after her brain cancer surgery and didn’t have the energy to do anything with them.

Matt made hominy and sausage (frozen) for breakfast then we just snacked on chips and salsa later in the day.

For dinner we shared a steak (from the freezer) and had baked potatoes and beet salad. We made two steaks but they were so big, we decided to save one for another day.

Matt made brownies after dinner so we each had one but they weren’t quite ready to be cut yet. I’m looking forward to trying them tomorrow.

Non-food related activities:

More Dark (I recommend turning on the CC subtitles, they give you the name of the person taking when they are off screen and it helps keep everyone straight during all the time traveling) and Babysitters Club (they are really hitting a lot of point here—Japanese internment!) on Netflix.

daily recap · what we ate

Day 113: Tuna & Tteokbokki

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The pork smelled really bad this morning so we had to toss it out. I don’t understand what keeps happening with the pork roasts. The expiration date was 7/7 or 7/8. So frustrating because we basically planned all our meals this weekend around it.

So Matt made us some tuna salad for lunch while we thought about what to make for the rest of the weekend.

We had a bunch of stuff from his H Mart visit so he ended up making tteokbokki for dinner. The kimbap place we love makes a really good traditional version that has cabbage in it, hard boiled egg and fish cakes. We didn’t have fish cakes so he used fried tofu and we had a ton of Swiss chard so we used that instead of cabbage. It was really good! Not quite the same as we’ve had out but tasty for using up what we had on hand. It made so much we have another meal covered.

Nonfood related activities:

We watched Hamilton on Disney+ I canceled it but we still have it for a couple more weeks. It was good but I thought that some of the people that were in it when we saw it live were a little better. I wonder why if they filmed it almost five years ago it took so long to come out?

Watched some of the new Babysitter’s Club on Netflix. It was really cute.

daily recap · planning · repurposing leftovers · what we ate

Day 110: Jjajangmyeon

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For lunch I made some frozen shrimp for me and finished the potato salad from Saturday. Matt had some rice and half of the leftover meatballs/zucchini from yesterday since he still didn’t feel great.

I had put up some beef country style ribs I marinated last night in the slow cooker. Matt didn’t feel up to much so he had a tiny bit, eggs and rice and I sautéd up some spinach from today’s produce delivery and served it on some instant jjajangmyeon. The ribs were quite tasty! I had never bought or tried them before but Aldi had them when I went (almost 2 weeks ago) and I’ve been making an effort to try different meat offerings there since I never know what is going to be in stock. The store has always been well stocked but it has varied a bit—one week they only had dark meat chicken, the next white etc.

We have a few packs of tofu from H Mart I need to figure out what to do with too. I should have put their expiration dates on my list with the meat.

Tomorrow will be July already. It’s hard to think we have basically been home 24/7 since min-March. No end in sight as cases have really surged. Maryland seems to be holding pretty steady though.

I did place a Costco order for some basic supplies like dish soap, sponges, laundry detergent and honey (Matt goes through a truly massive amount of honey in his tea, I think it must be more honey than tea) that we aren’t desperate for but will need. They were all items that had been out of stock a for many weeks I thought it better to get them now then when things might shut down again or get worse.

Non-Food related activities:

We watched Ganja and Hess (a classic) on Prime. I always wonder what happens to these extras in movies like this. Like the children in the church choir. They must be over 50 now. I wonder what they remember, being so young during the filming.

Started an ARC of Sally Hepworth’s new book.

daily recap · what we ate

Day 109: Chicken Meatballs

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For lunch I had the leftover cornflake schnitzel and leftover potato salad. Matt had a can of soup since he didn’t feel well. We are actually getting low on soup! They were on sale for about $1.40 a can in very early March and I bought a ton. I don’t feel like we’ve been eating that much but I guess we have.

Matt made some baked chicken meatballs with ginger, garlic, soy sauce etc and zucchini (all on the same pan) and he had it over rice and I had it over a packet of mi goreng.

Nonfood related activities:

I made those ornaments my mom wanted me to make out of felt and pictures. I think the glue gave me a migraine so the afternoon was kind of a bust.

We watched Shirley Valentine on DVD (Netflix) and and the new Grantchester episode on the PBS app.

daily recap · repurposing leftovers · what we ate

Day 106: Dandan-ish Noodles & Hummus

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For lunch I made our “big meal” for the day. Matt bought fresh dandan noodles at Hmart last week and I wanted to make dandan noodles with them (obviously) but I didn’t have all of the right ingredients. So I made some dandanish noodles with Sichuan peppercorns, homemade chili oil, ground chicken (instead of pork) etc but I didn’t have the right vinegar and my pickled greens aren’t quite ready. I subbed in the kohlrabi greens and bulbs I prepped and cooked yesterday instead. It was pretty quick to make too even though I hand-ground the peppercorns and made my own infused oil, it only took about half an hour or so? The noodles and chicken cooked really quickly.

For dinner we had fish sticks (thank you Aldi for cheap, sustainable, wild caught fish sticks) and cucumber spears with hummus.

Matt made cookies after dinner.

Then he spilled about a liter of olive oil on the kitchen floor so that was a mess! On the positive side, the floor is very clean now.

Non-food related activities:

It was warm today (upper 80s) but not humid so I got to use the hammock twice. Miraculously no one was setting off firecrackers or mowing the lawn. I got some of my book read and more came in from the library (digitally).

Watched more Black Spot on Netflix. This season is more supernaturally than the last, I think.

Listened to more of the Faded Out podcast; I still find their priorities and order for each episode a little off. I also feel like the host thinks the police are a lot more involved and competent than they actually are. Why would they interview the landlord or an ex girl friend if they weren’t around at the time of the child’s disappearance? I barely saw my landlord when I rented. He had no idea what I did or who I was.

daily recap · planning · what we ate

Day 105(!): Sesame Noodles & Popcorn

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I felt peppy at lunch so I made some sesame noodles with the kohlrabi. Matt had grabbed some soba by mistake at H Mart last week so it was nice to use some of it up! I had a huge amount of kohlrabi so I went ahead and cooked it all up so I have some ready to do something else with. I don’t know if the greens would have last much longer in the fridge but cooked, they should be fine.

For dinner we had the leftover eggplant pasta and some popcorn with Trader Joe’s “everything but the elote” seasoning.

I harvested 3 raspberries today! The beach plums look really good too. Last year we had a great yield and the fruit was really big (some years they’ve been blueberry sized and they have giant pits) but last June was when my mom was diagnosed with aggressive brain cancer and she was in the hospital/rehab a long time. I was too fried to even bother picking them. Somehow she is still with us (went for a routine MRI yesterday) and seems pretty stable so things are more normal on that front at least. So fingers crossed I’ll feel up to picking plums and making something with them this year? It’s not like we have much else to do.

I still haven’t made that lemonade!! Maybe tomorrow??

Non-food related activities:

Matt zoomed with his parents for their anniversary. The cookies and treats I had delivered arrived safely! I found a local to them place that was a bakery that also sold breakfast and lunch and had regular delivery drivers vs a bakery that packed things up to ship. I thought it would be fresher and cheaper that way!

I’m trying to read an easier book after that mess of a book I read yesterday. I’m doing the summer reading program at the library again so I’m trying to read at a good pace. I have like 6 kindle books checked out so the pressure is on.

I listened to more of Faded Out. It’s pretty good but I feel like they sort of bury the lede a bit. We heard a lot from random people like their landlord at the time before learning that the dad had a record and apparently was a child molester.

We watched a little more of Black Spot on Netflix. Matt’s still on call and was up for hours at like 2 am today so we are all a little tired, especially him, of course!