I have been eating a lot of popcorn and pretzels and chips, and so has everyone else in this house. I added a couple of bags to an online order—and they arrived in the same box as the cans of soup and the boxed 16-pack of Ensure Plus drinks (for Edward, who has trouble keeping his weight up), so they were pulverized. I am absolutely not doing any complaining about such things at this time, to anyone: not to the store, not to you, not even to my own secret heart of hearts. I will eat my delicious chip fragments and be truly, genuinely, deeply grateful for them, and for the people who shipped them to me, and for the people who delivered them to me.
BUT: I was thinking next time I might place an order that is all the lightweight things together: just the chips, pretzels, popcorn, tortillas, and snack cakes. And perhaps some soft stretchy pants, I think those would be lightweight enough not to squash anything.
Tonight we are having the leftover spaghetti sauce I made/froze last week, with the spaghetti noodles I was lucky to find at the store on Thursday, and I am going to make Italian Herb bread in the bread machine again. I was going to try the bread on the Dough setting this time, and then take it out and put it on a baking sheet or in a loaf pan, because the bread machine makes such a ridiculously tall, torn-up loaf—but I am too worried I’ll mess it up and ruin the bread; and at a time like this, the loss of dinner bread can be truly devastating. I’ll experiment another day, when it isn’t something I’m counting on for dinner. “Practice bread”—there, I added it to the list of all the other things I was going to do while we were home all day, none of which I have yet done.
After dinner we will have the chocolate pudding pie Paul wanted for Easter. We remembered why we don’t usually make a pudding pie for Easter anymore, and it’s because NOBODY WANTS PUDDING PIE after eating candy all afternoon. So we will have it tonight. If we can stop eating Easter candy all this afternoon.
I have never heard of chocolate pudding pie but it sounds delicious! Having no Easter chocolate (none available in my small local shops, the other shops are all shut since 17 March and the little i’d bought before that was for my daughters) I am craving chocolate sooo badly… Will have to buy some regular chocolate tomorrow 😀
I am extremely focused on What To Bake Next. I seem to think nightly dessert is the key to establishing order and security.
Snickerdoodles? Chocolate crinkles?
I am catching up on your posts (daily! what a treat!), and am nodding sympathetically at the Fret Foods post. Groceries and what we have/don’t have in our pantry is definitely the main channel for my quarantine anxiety! I reserved a grocery pickup spot last week for tomorrow, so today is the last day the order can be modified. I keep going back and adding more and more to it, like this is the LAST TIME we will ever have access to groceries. Normally we spend around $100 for two people for a weekly grocery shop; we are up to $220 for this one. What if I want to bake something with butterscotch chips (not something I normally keep on hand) and we don’t have any?? Better get two bags. Like you said about the dinner bread, food just feels so critical right now to keeping morale up.
Was it from Target? Normally Target will drive me bonkers sending 14 different shipments from a single order (including only last week) so I’d be surprised if they crammed all that into one box!
I sent a work baby shower order (thank goodness she had a registry) and I think she got a box with 10 things! Then One box of diapers! Then Two More boxes of diapers! Then a Single Sleeper! Then One Crib Sheet! HONESTLY TARGET
It WAS Target! First I will say again that I don’t mind and am so grateful and etc….but THEN I will say that I actually went upstairs to bring down the bathroom scale so I could weigh the box that was SO HEAVY IT TORE ITSELF OPEN ALONG MULTIPLE SEAMS AS I CARRIED IT INSIDE. (Thirty-eight pounds! With the chips on the bottom, underneath a box of 16 Ensure Plus drinks!) Then over the next couple of days I got three more boxes, each with one item inside. Paul wondered if they are running out of midsize boxes. I wondered if there might be a bunch of different warehouses.
Oh ALSO, if you want soft stretchy pants, I highly recommend these: https://www.target.com/p/women-s-floral-print-beautifully-soft-pajama-pants-stars-above-black/-/A-78441190?preselect=77774960#lnk=sametab
I have them in three colors and I have worn basically nothing else since my baby was born, and they are indeed beautifully soft. And they even have pockets!
“I added it to the list of all the other things I was going to do while we were home all day, none of which I have yet done.” – also, me.
Tomorrow, I say to myself, I am going to physically create that list and mark at least one item off that list. Please feel free to keep me accountable!
Yes, I keep saying at least I’m going to make an inventory of my pantry and freezer, but do I? Do I heck. Maybe I’ll get my daughter to. Hmmmm.
My son, 18 and going a little stir-crazy, is taking a shower and about to leave the house for the first time in…a month? Maybe? He’s going to the nearby Lotte Plaza Korean food market to buy our regular groceries and also ingredients for bulgogi, and all sorts of other things he wants to learn to cook. Because we can’t go to the Korean BBQ place.
My husband made us all masks, and my son embroidered his to look like one of the characters from Batz Maru.
Potato chip crumbles on ice cream. Or maybe chocolate pie? Or used to make those potato chip cookies I keep thinking sound insanely delicious! So many options for trying sweet and savory combo. I think Target did you a favor.
I LOVE these. They’re fleece. So they may be warmer than you want. But their softness has held up through several washes (so soft) and they have pockets and work as pjs, lounger, outside clothes, whatever! They would cushion your chips well.
https://www.target.com/p/women-39-s-beautifully-soft-fleece-lounge-jogger-pants-stars-above-8482-charcoal-m/-/A-54580383
Also, I feel like you can bread chicken with crumbly potato chips. I haven’t done it, I just *feel* like it can be done
I have those VERY ONES (charcoal, even!) in my cart RIGHT NOW!
Those pockets look generous! I have some Old Navy joggers (I think they are discontinued) that have good pockets, but wide/long legs. I have some Hanes Joggers that are cuffed, but have stupid small pockets that aren’t safe for even my small phone. These look like a good combo of both!
I have a recipe for potato chip crusted salmon. Use it as topping for baked fish?
Speaking of devastating food losses, my amazing husband was doing science with our children today from a book called Dad Lab I got him for Christmas and decided that it was a good time to do the “stand on eggs” experiment. The children stood on my eggs. They Stood. On. My. Eggs. In the middle of a pandemic. When eggs are not always well-stocked in the store. And we just went through a full dozen for hard-boiling/dyeing and then eating in one single day. They “only” “lost” three, which my husband dutifully fried up for himself, as if eating three eggs he would not have otherwise eaten makes it all better, and I can’t … I don’t … I feel like I have one of the better husbands when it comes to certain division of labor issues and try not to complain (much), but good god almighty.
I read about some blogger’s cute tradition of putting family quotes on personalized coffee mugs, and if I got one to represent our times during this pandemic, it would probably have to read “Three Eggs Will Make an Entire Cake, You Ass.”
I feel like there’s an entire gender-studies thesis to be written about the fact that a book called Dad Lab contains instructions for wasting food.
I love you both.