It’s a good thing that last week’s dinner plans were already kind of light on plans and heavy on shopping my freezer, because I came down with covid on Wednesday morning and that kind of borked everything.
This is the second time I’ve had covid (is that true?) and it was a rough bout: sore throat, fever, congestion. The worst part was the horrific headache I had for two days straight. I spent pretty much all of Wednesday and Thursday in bed, which is a luxury for which I am very grateful. Also, many thanks to my neighbor and my husband and my in laws for driving Carla around. Even though I felt better by Friday, I didn’t run errands or see anyone besides my immediate family all weekend. Tomorrow, I will have been fever free for five days, so I plan to resume normal activities and go to the grocery store. (Am I being overly cautious? Not cautious enough? No one knows.)
In the meantime, we’ve still needed to eat. And I am pretty proud that I have produced some fairly decent meals entirely from what I already had in my fridge. Yes, one night I ate a baked potato, but it was a very satisfying baked potato, and I had other options.
Here’s what we ended up eating last week: We went to a friend’s house for dinner on Monday, then out to dinner on Tuesday (yes, yikes, and also I haven’t heard that anyone else I was in contact with got sick, thank goodness). Wednesday night I ate nothing, my husband ate leftovers from Tuesday’s restaurant meal, and Carla ate salmon and peas that I prepared while wearing a mask and practicing good hand hygiene. Thursday I defrosted the beef birria, which we ate for dinner and then I ate for lunches. No idea what Carla ate; presumably something. Friday I defrosted some short rib ragu and we ate that with rotini and frozen garlic bread; well, Carla ate meatballs and spaghetti noodles. Saturday was the night of the baked potato; my husband had leftover pasta; Carla had leftover salmon. Then last night I made chili – I had an onion in the fridge, a jalapeno from my jalapeno plant, ground beef in the freezer, and beans and tomato sauce in the pantry; Carla had more meatballs and spaghetti noodles. Tonight I will make a stir fry with frozen chicken, the two (2) zucchini my zucchini plant has finally produced (!!!), and some old-ish but still fresh-ish veggies (broccoli, green pepper, onion) that remain in my fridge. I’d say that’s pretty good for not having been inside a grocery store since a week ago Saturday!
Maybe this isn’t as novel to most people as it is to me, but I love being able to assemble meals out of things I have on hand, rather than buying specific ingredients for specific recipes. And yet I do the former so infrequently that when I can build something reasonable by shopping my own reserves, I feel like a pioneer or something. Clearly, I am easily amused. Do you prefer to buy groceries to suit specific meals, or build meals out of the groceries you typically buy? What’s the most recent “creative” meal you’ve put together out of pantry ingredients?
Of course, now I have to consider the week ahead. I do still have some reserves in the freezer – mainly pork chops, which I tend to buy when on sale – but I have very little in the way of fruits or vegetables. Part of me wants to just buy a bunch of staples and see what happens, but the other part of me much prefers to have A Clear Plan going into the week.
Dinners for the Week of September 8-14
- Oven Baked Pork Chops with Green Beans Amandine: Let’s call some of those frozen pork chops into action this week, shall we? I’m in the mood for green beans, and we’ll probably do a sweet potato and/or baked potato on the side.
- Greek Salad with Grilled Chicken: I think you know I’m still in the mood for a Greek salad. It may be beginning to feel like fall around here, but I’m not ready to let go of summer yet.
- Lemony Roasted Mushroom Pasta: This is such a Me dish – so many of my favorite things (lemon! mushrooms! pasta!) all together. YUM. I wonder if my husband will even like it? Probably he will require some sort of protein on the side.
- Slow Cooker Honey Chipotle Chicken Tacos: It’s been a minute since I’ve made this, and it’s always good to have a slow cooker item on the meal plan… especially one that produces easy, delicious leftovers.
- Baked Halibut with Lemon and Dill: It has been forever since I’ve made any sort of fish besides salmon. If halibut looks good at the fish counter tomorrow, I’m making this. With asparagus on the side. YUM.
I wonder how life will intervene to disrupt this week’s plans?
Oh nooooo. I hope you’re feeling better soon.
Last night was risotto which is a HUGE fave for my kids and there were enough leftovers that’s what we’ll have tonight as well. I’m going to make a Caesar salad to go alongside the risotto and call it a night. I’m excited! I love leftovers. The rest of the week is currently unplanned. Oops.
Covid, yuck! I keep forgetting about it and then remembering that it’s still circulating–and quite strongly in some states/areas. I like throwing things together mostly, but I’m only preparing meals for one so it’s different. I had a baked potato a week or so ago and had forgotten how much I love them!
glad you feel better and sorry you had to make food while sick. I also like a plan but feel very proud of myself for magicking up dinner on the fly
I like to loosely plan at least 3-4 meals for the week and verify that I have those ingredients before I shop, but also keep certain things stocked and cook from the freezer/pantry sometimes
Oh no! I’m so sorry you were sick. But I’m glad you’re feeling better. Sometimes a baked potato just hits the spot. 💜
I’m glad you’re feeling better! Being sick is no fun.
I was visiting my aunt and uncle in Pennsylvania once when I was in high school. My aunt said she felt like eating something and she just opened up her cabinets and started getting all the ingredients for it. I was in AWE. She just had everything. I always wanted to be like her when I grew.
Sidenote: I am not like her at all. Our pantry is quite limited. We meal plan down to the last orange in our house. If I feel like making chocolate chip cookies and that wasn’t on the meal plan for the week, I’ll have to make an additional stop at the grocery store because I’ll need eggs and butter.
I’m sorry you had Covid. That’s a real bummer.
I always feel proud of myself when I can come up with a reasonable meal on a day when we really needed to go to the grocery store but we’re too busy to go.
Getting sick is the PITS! You are amazing that you were still able to feed your family! I’m glad you’re feeling better. ❤️
Blergh, Covid, I’m so glad you’re better!
I kind of buy the same things week after week, but I could pull together something if I couldn’t make it to the grocery store, especially in garden season. I just like fresh veg and that would be the hardest thing to pull off. But that said I could pretty easily create some kind of wrap or bowl or pasta dish with what’s in my freezer and fridge. I do buy groceries based on what I’m going to make, but those don’t vary too wildly week after week.
Gah go away COVID!!!
I LOVE it when I can make something with what I have on hand, and I’m pretty shameless about modifying recipes for exactly that reason. It’s just so much fun to be able to pull it off.
My repeat pantry meal is a bowl of roasted potatoes, chicken sausage, and broccoli. All that I have to do is to make a batch of roasted potatoes for the freezer, and then it’s just 20 minutes to air fry chicken sausage and Costco frozen broccoli and I’ve got a delicious/healthy dinner on the table.
PS I want to make that mushroom pasta ASAP
Germs suck.
We had Japanese beef curry for dinner last night which my neighbor started us on by demanding that I wait in her driveway for a minute and then she came back outside with a container of food and handed it to me and said “for your lunch.” And then she started bringing it on our summer picnics and her children told her she was weird to bring curry on picnics and I told them to shut up, I want curry. Anyway, it’s beef stew base ingredients (and she makes it with beef stew chunks and potatoes and carrots and onions) but then she puts these little cubes of beef curry on top of them instead of seasoning them with stew seasoning and cooks it in the crock pot (I use my instant pot). I will text you the picture of the curry box and hopefully you can find it in one of your local stores. And she serves it over rice which is delicious. Four out of five of us eat it which is really high numbers for our house.
I can never cook by shopping my pantry and fridge and freezer unless it is one of our meals that is basically non perishable. I’ve learned that if I buy random produce without an end goal, it rots in the fridge or on the counter and no one ever eats it. So I shop every Sunday for our weekly meal plan and not for unplanned groceries.
I’m sorry you got covid, but glad you’re on your feet again. Sounds like you were pretty wiped out.
I am a planner. I have to be or I would be paralyzed with indecision at dinner time. I am not good at making decisions quickly.
Yes, Covid will definitely derail all your plans! Just be glad you didn’t get pink eye, like I did when I had Covid over the summer.
We’ll be making our dinner tonight from whatever we can find in the pantry and freezer, because I didn’t do my usual big shop over the weekend. Tomorrow I’m going to Trader Joe’s so I’m trying to hold out till then. Dinner tonight will be interesteing!
I hope you’re feeling all better and than nothing wrecks your plans for this week!
Ugh to the c*vid striking, but glad you’re on the mend! And BRAVO for pulling together such delicious sounding meals in the process! 😀
We like to have a rough idea of meals for the week – especially if there’s something particular we want to try/are craving – but we also try to keep some staples on hand for those nights when it’s like “……………….” haha 🙂 Sweet potato season is swiftly approaching, and that’s a delicious quickish fix around here!
Boo hiss to covid. I am glad to hear you are recovering.
Thank you for the pork chop recipe. I just bought pork chops and have to cook them tomorrow. I actually have all the ingredients for once.
You asked if we *prefer* to buy the ingredients or make something out of ingredients already in the house. For me it’s not a matter of preference. I detest going to the grocery store so I will often do the “whatever is in the house” recipe out of necessity.
I’m sorry to hear you had Covid! I hope everyone else escapes it. I have heard the current strain is nasty! I need to get my booster soon – hopefully RFK jr hasn’t made that impossible. I am tagged for a bunch of things that should make me eligible.
I am on my way back from a conference and can’t wait to eat some basic foods made in my kitchen. I hate conference food!! The only thing on the menu for us is ground turkey tacos. The rest will be ham sandwich.
So sorry you’ve been sick! My husband has…something (he was on a plane earlier this week), and now I have…something too. He says it feels like the last time he had covid. (I, to my knowledge, have not had covid.) The (first and) last time he test positive for covid ON OUR BABY’S DUE DATE so thankfully the timing is marginally better now if that is indeed the something we have. (Baby thankfully stayed put another 8(!!) days and is now 2.5.) You are inspiring me to try to pull myself and my food staples together rather than relying on Uber Eats for a few days and destroying my budget in the process.
I’m not sure if my comment got lost or if I forgot to comment – I know I read this. Well, I hope you’re fully recovered – it’s so WEIRD getting Covid now. It’s impossible not to feel like you’re overreacting or underreacting. My husband has had it (diagnosed anyway) twice and I’ve only had it once. Angus had it early before vaccinations, which freaked us all out but he seems to have suffered no lasting effects, and Eve has never had it diagnosed, but she was really sick once which might have been it.
I have a lemon spinach pasta loosely in mind for this week and — that’s it, frig.