Covid Life Weeks 86 & 87

Let’s be fair. I am a month behind and writing several weeks’ posts at once. So yes, the cranky from week 85 continues to carry through. And I’m combining a couple of weeks because I got carried away writing it and because I’m so damned behind again and I have several non-diary blog post ideas I want to get to.

Thursday (11/18) – I made roasted chicken with potatoes and Brussels sprouts. I love the Michael Symon method of roasting chicken. You set the oven at 500 degrees and rub a little oil and your spices on the bone-in chicken. We only do legs and thighs because we love dark meat. This time I only used salt and pepper. It was delicious.

Friday (11/19) – I made white beans au vin and I went out for a happy hour with a friend. Apparently, my white beans au vin was not a big hit this time. In fairness, the leftovers were much less soupy than normal. However, I thought they tasted pretty good.

Saturday (11/20) – I made the French onion mac ‘n cheese again. I’m not sure the youngest offspring really likes this particular version, though she’s going to keep seeing it until she tells me that. I like it. My husband likes it. This time, I had a bit of a mixture of onions just due to what I had on hand, but it was still delicious. I served it with Brussels sprouts.

Sunday (11/21) – I had planned to make roasted chicken and potatoes and we ended up inviting Mel (my oldest) and her family over, so I had to adjust a bit. We ended up doing taco night with soyrizo and I still made the chicken and some roasted potatoes and Brussels sprouts. Everyone came out happy on this one and the kids took home a bunch of leftovers.

Monday (11/22) – Look, I cooked a lot on the weekend so we just had some leftovers.

Tuesday (11/23) – Yep, we did more leftovers. I know, this is not turning into a super exciting week. You want recipes and new experiments. But I just can’t always be so super on top of things. And we had a lot of that French Onion mac ‘n cheese left.

Wednesday (11/24) – I made some tomato basil soup and served it with grilled cheese sandwiches. This is just a perfect combo. Also, I was preparing for Thanksgiving and leaving town right after, so I wanted something a little simple and comforting.

Thursday (11/25) – You’ll find an entirely separate blog about Thanksgiving brunch so please go and read it! But we left right after brunch and headed for Arkansas for the weekend. We ended up staying overnight in St. Louis and I will just tell you that there was poor planning for this one. All restaurants, even your taco and pizza places, were closed. We finally found a dominoes delivery opened. It was awful. I think gas station pre-packaged junk would have been better.

Friday (11/26) – We finished our drive to Arkansas and stopped at one of my favorite placed on the way in, the Dodge Store. These are gas station/convenience stores, but they have a hot food service which is like fried chicken and all things unhealthy. I have been in love with their fried burritos for as long as I can remember. For dinner, we brought Italian beef and the fixing with us. My brother and sister-in-law came over to Mom’s and we had a good little dinner.

Saturday (11/27) – Again, you’re going to find a separate blog post on the Phipps Family Thanksgiving, so please go give it a read! After dinner, the hubby and I headed to Eureka Springs to stay in a tiny cottage in the woods. We totally just ate the snacks in our cottage instead of bothering with dinner.

Sunday (11/28) – This is going to shock you, but we got up and went out for brunch. And yep, they don’t really have outdoor seating in Arkansas this time of year. But we are vaxed and boosted and we decided to just go for it. We had a wonderful breakfast at this little cafe that is above the storefronts. I had duck sausage eggs benedict and the hubby had some fancy biscuits and gravy. And yes, biscuits and gravy can get fancy. For dinner, we picked up some creole food before heading back to our cottage. It was terrible so I will not put the name of the cafe here as I don’t like being negative to small businesses. Honestly, the food wasn’t terrible, it just lacked any seasoning. There wasn’t anything like totally gross about it. We ended up tossing it and walking up the street to a little Italian place. It was okay. I’m not a big red sauce Italian fan, but the people were incredibly nice.

Monday (11/29) – We drove all day to get back home, so there was some very healthy drive-thru food. I’m trying to remember what it was. I know it wasn’t Taco Bell or McDonald’s because we commented that we’d actually made the trip without either one. When we got home, we just made some frozen taquitos and called it good.

Tuesday (11/30) – I took the leftover tomato basil soup from last week and made a tomato orzo soup and served some of the white beans au vin on the side. The soup was less a soup than a pasta dish because I added way too much orzo. I don’t think I’ve cooked with orzo in a while and I forgot how much it expands when cooked. But it was pretty good and we got some veggies and protein, so I’m okay with the meal.

Wednesday (12/1) – My calendar says daal and naan. This sounds great, right? Well, it wasn’t. I decided to try a red lentil daal recipe I found. We do not prefer this style. The red lentils kind of just disintegrated and there was not really any spice. And my naan didn’t come out great this time either. I tried to proof it in the instant pot because I see people do this on the interwebs. I don’t know what those people are doing. I’ll stick with the traditional method.

Okay, well, we’re into the final month of 2021. I don’t think I came close to meeting my blogging goals this year but I have met some other personal and professional goals. And I haven’t totally fallen down on blogging. Whatever, I’ll do another end of year assessment next month and ya’ll can judge me or at least I will. For now, let’s head into this final month with some enthusiasm!