NINETY WEEKS! Can you believe all this “covid life” started 90 weeks ago? That is just insane. I remember when the lockdowns started. I remember thinking this was going to be more than the two weeks officials were talking about. But there is no way I could ever have predicted our lives would still be so impacted by Covid. And I definitely couldn’t have predicted that we’d be headed into another surge almost two years after it all began. But that is where we are. Week 90 is looking like it gets the marker of when we went back inside.
This week started with a fun time out with friends. The other law firm that I work with had a holiday party. We did it at the office and it involved packaging up cookies for gift boxes for some clients. We started at like 11am, so we ordered sushi in for lunch. Yes, I’ve awoken my sushi cravings. A couple of us then went out after to discuss some future plans we have and ended up at an Irish pub in the neighborhood. They had an appetizer where they serve fries with a curry dip. It was pretty good. And then one of my pals and I wound up at another bar in our neighborhood and we split a philly cheesesteak and fries. A lot of food for one day, but there was also a lot of alcohol, so probably good that we kept eating.
I made another quiche this week. This time I used spinach and mozzarella, which it turns out was really good. I also made a nice pork loin in the instant pot. We had the kid, so I paired the pork loan with a sheet pan vegetable bake. It included roasted red pepper, Bok choy, cauliflower, and brussels sprouts. Brussels sprouts and cauliflower have taken the lead as the youngest’s favorite foods lately, so we try to have them a lot. She doesn’t really ever eat vegetables at her other house, so we try to really push them. And it isn’t hard. If you put a bowl of Brussels sprouts on the table, the kid will not be done until they are all gone.
I got an urge over the weekend and got up and went to the store early to get some ingredients I wanted for the afore-mentioned vegetable bake and also picked up the ingredients to make some chili. Katie had informed me she ate the last batch in the freezer. It turns out she missed one, but who doesn’t need more chili in the freezer? I made a 12qt pot of chili and we had it for dinner on Sunday and a couple of days for lunch before freezing the remainder.
I had also decided over the weekend to make broth. I made two pots of chicken broth and a pot of mushroom broth. My freezer was getting low on both. I have a ton of pork broth. I guess I don’t find as many uses for that one. I’ll have to start trying it out in more things. But I used the chicken I boiled to make a chicken pot pie because why waste the meat just to make broth. For this pot pie, I added potatoes and I made a roux using some of the chicken broth I had made. I thought it was pretty good, but I should have made a little more of that roux. It wasn’t dry. It just wasn’t as gooey as I would have liked.
Most of the cooking happened on the weekend this week and reminded me that I may have to go back to make big meals that create a lot of leftovers on the weekends. As we head into the new year, I think I’m looking at some major changes which may make creating big fancy dinners mid-week a little harder to do. Luckily, I have a host of quick and easy reheatable meals in my freezer, though I am trying to clean those out. I say this as I just mentioned putting a ton of broth and chili in there. Well, stay tuned for whether I ever get to the bottom of that thing!
Foodie's Delimma 