Homebound Day #35: The Other Shoe Falls.

Well, it's been a couple of weeks since my last blog post on the stay at home order and much has happened. For one, our governor has declared school buildings will not reopen for the remainder of this school year; all classes will continue online. So that means it's a good thing I cleared the yogurts out of my classroom fridge before I left.
The other big thing was that my car died. With The Wife and Spud in it, and the dogs, and $100+ in groceries, and the curbside order from Chili's we picked up. Stone dead. Friday evening. Had to get the mother-in-law to come pick us up. I had a spectacular meltdown. Had the car towed to the dealership. Good news, the battery just died. Like forever dead. I also found out I needed front brakes and a tune up (this was not a surprise, the car has like 115,000 miles on it.) Fortunately, it's not like I need the car for anything.
I also discovered that white flour is Nigh Impossible to purchase. Stores that do have flour are selling it in one pound zip bags, like cocaine. The other choice is the convenient 25 pound restaurant/hotel bag.

But at $15.99, I can't complain.
Time to bake 6,000 cookies.

Amazingly that curbside pickup from Chili's was the first meal during this ordeal that was not cooked at home. (They also screwed up my order and gave me fries instead of the onion petals I paid an upcharge for. Granted, the world is coming apart at the seams, so I'll let it go.) I've been cooking a lot, even more than normal. We even ordered a box of meats from a local farm to support the locals and ensure we have good things to eat. 

As far as booze, we've worked through about a third of our supply of wine (originally 48 bottles), and we're close to running out of tequila and gin. We will soon find out how a tequila sunrise is with vodka.

The Spud is taking it all in stride, especially now that the weather will permit her to hang out in the yard. She does comment that she misses school and her friends, and we worry what will happen if her 5th (!) birthday is socially distanced. Honestly, if the cake is big enough, she will be fine.

Hope everyone is doing well and staying safe!

Homebound Day #20: Red Sauce

Holy moly. We are heading into our 4th week of sheltering in place. I finally had to risk it and run out for milk for the Spud. I figured I'd pick up a few essentials, as well, since I'd be out. We didn't have any masks available, so I had to improvise.

And I figured maybe I could rob a train on the way home. 

I decided to stay close to home and hit the Dollar General in town. Milk was $3.69 a gallon, which was horrifying. Milk, creamer, cheese, orange juice and a few other staples set me back nearly $75. Granted, the store was mercifully devoid of people and within a mile of my house. With my adventure out of the way, I whipped up a batch of red sauce, and added some meatballs, rib bones, and Italian sausages. We served it up over some ravioli with some home made giardiniera. 

Just like you'd get at Olive Garden, but good!

Whenever we make this sauce, we have plenty of leftovers, which is intentional. The Spud loves the meatballs and the sauce is versatile. The next day we had The Wife's Eggplant Parmesan with the sauce. Today we took the leftover Italian sausage and made grinders with pepper jack cheese and giardiniera. 

Just like Portillo's, but totally not!

During this time, we worked through the last of the turkey pasta we made with our "Thanksgiving" leftovers. We also have been enjoying a tray of chocolate chip peanut butter bars for our treats. I was saddened to see that I'm working through my supply of bottom shelf bourbon faster than I'd like. I will have to console myself with vodka, gin, scotch, and rum. 

I don't know when this will all be done. As I've mentioned before, I think the school year is done for. It will likely be online learning for the rest of the year. I am at least encouraged by the fact that we were able to go nearly four weeks without needing to go to the store, and were it not for milk, we'd probably last another 2-3 weeks. 

Stay Safe!

Homebound Day #15: Tempers Flare

We are into the third week of shelter-in-place and we got the news from the Governor: the order to hunker down is extended through the end of April. At this point it is unlikely we will be able to avoid going to the store for that long. At least not as far as milk goes. Supplies are doing well. However, we have noticed that tempers are a little shorter than normal. Fortunately, we have lots of good food to keep our spirits up, or there'd probably be casualties by now. We've been having quite the exciting time with food. We decided to do a Thanksgiving in March.

The upshot is this Thanksgiving was relatively quiet due to the lack of visiting relatives.

We've also made sure to make a few kid friendly meals. You'd think any 4 year old would be happy to have cheesy pigs in a blanket and French fries!

You'd be wrong.

We've also been making sure to bake something fun at least once a week. Last week we made two loaves of colored bread. This week it was something sweet: chocolate chip peanut butter bars.

These should last about 18 minutes.

We had a fair amount of leftovers from our Thanksgiving. Not surprisingly, an 8-1/2 pound turkey breast was a bit too much for two adults and a four-year-old. I had a brilliant idea and made it into a tasty turkey pot pie that my daughter would not eat.

See her turn it down in HD!

So there we have it. We're at home for another month. Hilariously, we just got the coupon book for our local grocery. I figure we'll wait another week so anyone who has to get in there right at the first of the month can do so. Then I'll get in there, grab some necessities, and get the hell out before I catch something.

Stay Safe!

Homebound Day #8: Casualties of the Bar

As we head into our second week at home with no end in sight, we had our first casualty. I finished a bottle of Lawson's Super Spiced Scotch. This is a genuine problem as they do not make this particular libation any longer.

Which is why I bought a case and a half.

I have to hope that the 16 bottles I have left can hold. I also found a 1.75L bottle of Tito's Vodka that I had forgotten about, so the day wasn't a total loss. The find was bitter sweet as I realized we are almost out of white rum.  will have to make due with the handle of Admiral Nelson and the two fifths of premium rum I've stashed away. 

The pork loin has come and gone. It turned into carnitas and is now well on the way to turning into poop. Circle of life and all that. Tomorrow we're going to cook up some ground beef and make tacos. 

Spirits are medium-high. In a fit of boredom, I decided we would finally move a cabinet down a flight of stairs and convert it into a game cabinet for the Spud. This was accomplished with no discernible screaming.  That's it for now.

Stay safe! 

Homebound Day #6: I Get Productive

Days are already starting to blend together, so I have to make sure I have some time markers. One of my standard time markers was Sunday. Normally, it would be marked by weeping that I had to go to work the next day, but that doesn't look to be a real concern for some time. So I have to remember, Sundays Are For Baking. I figure I'll just keep up with my habit of baking something every Sunday.

The baking took the form of two loaves of sour cream bread. They hold well and are great for sandwiches. Plus, it's a very simple bread to make.

And if you let your daughter help, you get to add 25 drops of blue food coloring.

While the bread was rising, we through a couple of things in the slow cooker. We used the last of our smoked chicken for a Faux Pho. 

This was unbelievably good.

We also threw a pork loin, onion, and some cucumber-honeydew preserves in another cooker. No pictures, as there's not much to look at. It will likely become carnitas, or possibly a stir fry or soup. This is our multi-use food for the week.

 

Finally, The Wife reminded me that we had a single pie crust in the fridge, as well as a couple of containers of  strawberries that were not long for this world. 

So naturally we made a strawberry pie.
Not much to look at, but tasty.

And that's where we are right now. Food supplies are still good. We still have a couple of gallons of milk and plenty of toilet paper and napkins. Fairly likely we will make the two week mark without needing to go our for anything. Past that, we will run out of milk and possibly one or two other minor things. If I keep baking, flour may be a concern. 

Stay Safe!

Almost forgot, I made coffee smoothies for breakfast:

Homebound Day #5: Made it to Saturday

The first week of homebound is drawing to a close and we are officially shelter in place. It looks like there will be no real possibility of returning to school before April 14. Naturally, the weather is still cold and gloomy, so getting out into the yard is still not an option. Today, I decided to make something special for breakfast: French Toast. Granted, this is not really all that special but for bread, I'm using something I normally do not use for anything under any circumstance.

Panettone. I fucking HATE Panettone.

I truly hate Panettones. I am extremely vocal about how much I hate these. Naturally, my mother-in-law insists of inflicting these on us every year. This particular one has sat up on top of the fridge for over two years.  This is a testament to how unnatural they are. This was still squishy. I'd trust a Twinkie more. Panettones are the cockroach of the baked goods. They last FOREVER. However, The Wife likes them. The only way I'll tolerate them is if I can convert them into French Toast and drench them in butter, jelly, and syrup.

And they still have the consistency of gas station fruit cake.

With breakfast out of the way, we all found things to do on our own. The wife started getting seeds prepared for our garden, the Spud rampaged around the house until she discovered mahjong on The Wife's tablet. The kid has a knack for the game. I amused myself by playing some games on my Steam account that I loaded back up after a seven year hiatus.

Dinner was a simple affair. We made chicken wraps with the leftover chicken from last night, and served them with some more corn on the cob and the last of the jar of dilly beans. We finished up with some ancient rice pudding for dessert. 

A little spicy brown mustard and garlic herb cheese spread seals the deal.

There was enough chicken left that I'm going to try my hand at Pho for dinner tomorrow night. I'm pretty sure I have all the ingredients. So far my plan of using up all of one main ingredient before starting another is working well. We'll get at least 3 days of meals from that chicken, depending how much Pho I end up with. We are also defrosting a pork loin for use in the slow cooker tomorrow.

Toilet paper and booze supplies still look good. 

Stay Safe!

Homebound Day #4: Shelter In Place

So as we enter into day 4 of homebound, we get the notice. The Governor will be ordering to "shelter in place" until further notice. Pretty much you can leave for food, medicine, or doctor visits. Other than that, don't go anywhere if you don't have to. We actually did have to go out, as our dog has Addison's and needs regular injections of a steroid or his kidneys eventually fail and he dies. Other than that, he's the picture of health. He's had Addison's for about 10 years

Look at that face. He's worth it.

We went into town, took care of it, then headed back home. Many places were empty, but the Sam's Club was absolutely jam-packed.

Breakfast was once again a simple affair of toast with butter and Vegemite and a fried egg. The Spud had a toaster strudel. We skipped lunch as we were getting ready to head out for the dog appointment. The daughter had another tray of lunchmeat, fruit and yogurt with a cookie. The Wife had to make a trip to her school for some supplies. While I waited, I got peckish and had a snack:

Sardines in mustard sauce and Ritz crackers. Don't judge me.

The Wife returned home and we had a pretty nice dinner. Corn on the cob, dill bread, pickled dilly beans, and a smoked chicken that one of my student's parents gave me as a gift for rehabilitating his son. This dad does BBQ competitions, so this chicken was crazy good. For dessert, we polished off the rest of the pineapple cake.

Who said teaching is without reward?

There was plenty of chicken left, so I stripped the carcass and stored the meat, and then did what any survivalist would do during the apocalypse: I boiled the carcass to make stock, which I will freeze for later use. 

Celery seed, onion salt, pepper were added.
Bear Grylls can bite me.

So now we head into the weekend and a serious lockdown. I'm looking to download Tabletop Simulator and finding some people willing to do the same, so I can play games with people. I'm also looking at setting up an RPG group to play online.

Stay safe!

Homebound Day #3: The First Cracks Appear

We are into the third full day of being stuck at home and the first cracks are appearing. It's been raining for the last 48 hours and we can't go outside. Today, everybody overslept and we immediately fell behind schedule. I actually had a fair amount of school stuff to do today, so the Spud wasn't supervised like she's been. Everybody was a bit on edge today.

Breakfast for everyone was a simple affair. The Spud had a bowl of Fruit Loops and a bagel with cream cheese and smoked salmon because what child doesn't wan't $15/lb. smoked fish on a daily basis. The Wife and I had toast with butter and Vegemite and a fried egg.  Coffee supply is solid.

Lunch/Snack for the Spud was a half bag of chips and some grapes. I had a leftover smoked sausage. The Wife had a bag of chips because she will die/kill everyone if she doesn't get enough sodium.

Dinner was a slow descent into madness. We served the rest of the shepherd's pie and realized it wasn't going to be enough. Then I realized we had corned beef left. That's when it happened. I suggested an atrocity and The Wife cheerfully said it was a great idea.  BEHOLD:

Reuben quesadillas. 
I am become death, destroyer of worlds.

We'll be outside gnawing on tree bark before you know it.

The Wife seemed to think these were absolutely wonderful, she finished hers with great gusto. I was less enthused and finished mine mostly out of spite and to finally be done with the corned beef and cabbage we were working on since the weekend. The Spud wisely avoided this entree and opted for yogurt, fruit, and some sliced turkey lunch meat. Everyone had another slice of the pineapple upside-down cake from yesterday.

Fortunately, the temperature is climbing into the high 60's. Once the Spud is in bed, we're retiring to the patio for Adult Beverages and  I will have a Big-Ass Cigar. 

Stay Safe!

Homebound Update #2

So, I'm on day two of being homebound. (It's day three for The Wife and Spud. I had to go into school Monday for a few hours to grab my resources to take home). So far, we have made it without screaming or throwing each other out windows. Basically, we have enforced a schedule upon ourselves. As The Wife and I are both basically running our classrooms from home, we have to make ourselves available from 9-2. This is also peak Spud Time. Here's the rules so far:

For Adults

1. You must get out of your pajamas and into actual clothes for the day. They don't necessarily have to be school appropriate, but they can't be what you woke up in.
2. You must maintain the same level of hygiene you would maintain during a normal work week.
3. No more than one snack bag of chips per day.
4. No drinking before 2pm. 
5. One room a day will be cleaned thoroughly
6. The last 1-2 hours before bed must be completely devoid of electronics except for music. That is quiet grown up time for games, reading, or "other."

For The Spud

1. Adult rules 1-3 apply to you.
2. You will follow a weekday schedule:
   9am-11am: Educational time (worksheets, reading, practicing numbers and letters, etc.)
   11am-12pm: Snack and free time
   12pm-1pm: nap or quiet activity time
   1pm-2pm: Educational time (flash cards, educational electronic toys, educational video like NatGeo or PBS)
   2pm-4pm: free time and helping with clean-up. Baths when appropriate.
   5pm-6pm: Utilize the free streaming from zoos and aquariums
   6pm-7pm: Garbage TV time (My Little Pony, Glitter Force, Voltron, She-Ra)
   7pm or so: Wrapping up and bed time.
3. The schedule is flexible when weather will allow us to go outside.

It seems to be working for everybody so far. As far as food, we have been working through the corned beef and cabbage I made on Sunday. It has been utilized for three meals as well as snacks:

Colcannon from Sunday became the mashed potato topping for a shepherd's pie yesterday!

The cabbage and potatoes became the side dish for smoked sausages tonight!

The corned beef became Reuben snack bites!

We are also trying to keep spirits up with snacks and desserts. I found a box of pineapple upside-down cake mix (with a can of real pineapple enclosed!) lurking in the back of a cabinet. The Spud helped me assemble it and it turned into a serviceable dessert!

Doesn't look like much but it works.

So that's where we are right now. Things look grim as far as returning to school. Looking more and more like the remainder of the year will be online learning. Stay safe and we will stay in touch!