Day 1: Chicken noodle soup
Day 2: Spanakopita, Hummus
Day 3: Homemade pizza, Tossed salad
Day 4: Pesto salmon, Steamed broccoli, Orange slices
Day 5: Beef and Barley Stew, Crusty bread
Day 6: Lentils with cilantro lime vinaigrette, Fruit salad
Day 7: Baked lemon chicken with mushroom sauce, Roasted carrots and potatoes
Notes: I usually like to make recipes that are quick to prepare, typically 30-60 minutes start to finish. However, spending more time at home and less time running around to activities allows me more time for food prep. If you haven’t tried a new recipe in a while, I recommend the spanakopita and homemade hummus. This is a bit more of an intense recipe, but well worth it in my opinion. You can use fresh or frozen spinach.
I also am trying to stretch my food that I have and waste as little as possible. I stumbled across a recipe for vegan meringue at just the right time. Have you ever heard of aquafaba? I hadn’t until now. This is the liquid in a can of chickpeas (garbanzo beans). The starchiness of the liquid allows it to foam up like egg whites. I happened to be planning homemade hummus this week so I was able to drain the can and do a little Easter project with my kids. We made bunnies and other shapes out of the meringue. It was fun! The texture was surprisingly similar to traditional meringue, although the flavor was slightly different, but pleasant. If you are having trouble getting eggs from the store, give this fun dessert a try!
Thank you to everyone who persevered and completed the Plastic Reduction Challenge last week! If you are feeling a little down about the situation, that you just worked so hard to reduce your plastic use only to be sabotaged by the coronavirus, you are not alone. I was feeling pretty sad myself after I made my first trip to the grocery store and wasn’t allowed to use any of my own bags, the bulk section was closed, and I was buying a lot more processed foods than usual. You’ll notice in my picture today that I purchased two plastic clamshells and used some plastic produce bags (not all are pictured). I haven’t done that in two years! I’m forced to think and shop like most of the world does which gives me perspective. After thinking on this for a while, I came to the conclusion that despite my inability at this moment to make all the individual changes that I want, overall environmental good is going to come out of this situation. There are several reports and before/after pictures showing that air pollution is at the lowest level in several decades. Concrete proof of human impact. It is also harder to order things online and get them almost instantaneously as the warehouse workers are overloaded and often ill themselves. This helps me think more about my shopping choices, who I want to support and if I really need to buy certain things. Supply of paper goods is low, what better time to switch to washcloths. I even bought a bidet, which is something I never thought I would do! All of these things might never have happened without safer at home orders. What silver lining do you see from the pandemic?
