Eating Our Way through Self-Isolation

Let’s face it… I don’t watch much TV and while I read a bit more these days, one of my big breaks in the day is whatever we’re (or I’m) going to eat for breakfast, a mid-day snack or for dinner.  While I’m eating less during the Covid-19 emergency, (Laurie is eating much less), I do look forward to whatever is on the table. 

The good news is that I’m not fussy in the sense that nothing has to be fancy or gourmet…just basic comfort food.  Happily, Laurie’s equally happy with basic cuisine as well!

The other day we got a phone call from our friend Larry. (aka Big Dude at https://bigdudesramblings.blogspot.com) He and Bev, his better half, have been hunkered down like we have.  Larry told us that Bev had put together some of her famous yeast rolls.  They wondered if we were going to be home so they could deliver a batch of her ready to bake rolls.  Absolutely!

So, Bev and Larry pulled into our driveway and backed up to our garage door.  They opened up the back hatch on their SUV and I retrieved the goodies!  They had another drop off to make after stopping at our place but we were able to chat (socially distanced) for a few moments.  Missing friends and family is one serious side effect of the pandemic…

Much to our delight Bev had also made some deviled eggs.  Yum!  They didn’t survive until it was time for a proper meal… Laurie makes good deviled eggs too but even though they are classic comfort food, they just hadn’t occurred to us.

So when it was time for dinner Laurie followed Bev’s instructions and baked those rolls.  They are great just with butter and I love them with nice jam too.

In this case we had some fried chicken on hand that we’d purchased from our local Food Lion.  So I cut it up…preserving all that fried goodness…and we sat down for dinner.

Laurie put together this little fried chicken sandwich on one of Bev's fresh yeast rolls.  Mayonnaise, chicken and lots of crust made a great little feast.  Add a  orange and that was dinner. (OK, I might have had a couple…or three rolls, two with chicken and one with jam!) But I did eat a orange too!

Moving on to some other meals…

We usually stick to basic food items…nothing fancy!  We had laid in a supply of different soups so on one occasion we enjoyed a couple of cans of Bar Harbor brand New England Clam Chowder!  I had mine with a couple of slices of buttered bread that I dipped into the soup…after adding Tabasco of course…

Nothing is more satisfying in times of stress than some form of dessert…something sweet.  These tasty chunky chocolate chip cookies were the Ingles brand…as all of the ready to bake Pillsbury cookies were out of stock.  

I’d been hankering for Tacos even before self-isolation began!  In one of our last shopping missions I finally remembered to buy the necessary ingredients…taco seasoning, sour cream, lettuce and a taco cheese mix along with some form of taco shell or tortilla to hold it all together.  We had plenty of hamburger on hand thanks to an earlier trip to Costco.

The first “taco” shown above was my experiment using green tomatillo salsa instead of the usual red taco sauce.  It was just OK.  Of course, when is a taco not a taco?  We both prefer soft flour tacos and why go small…so we bought these 8” flour tortillas.

We had decided to skip tomatoes on our tacos but Laurie’s version is a bit more true to form.  She added sour cream to hers and used the red sauce. (So did I on my subsequent creations) We kicked up the heat for our taco meat with some cayenne and we agreed that it was just about right!  Another soul-satisfying self-isolation meal done…with many more to go.

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit! 

Note: Give generously to your local food bank.  The need is enormous... Here in our area, our food bank of choice is the Second Harvest Food Bank of East Tennessee.  Website: https://secondharvestetn.org/.

Stay Safe and Take Care, Big Daddy Dave