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 #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!