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    • My Menu Plan – May 2020

      Posted at 10:52 pm by Rachel, on May 3, 2020

      Okay, I am giving monthly menu planning yet another try. Fingers crossed that no one gets sick this month and we can eat the whole thing!

      My Perdue Farms order was finally delivered a week or two ago, so it did take the full 5-6 weeks to arrive. Based on my one data point, I would say their current estimate of 2-3 weeks is probably accurate despite the upcoming meat shortage, although the package I ordered and several other products are not currently available. But talk about good timing! One of the reasons I ordered this meat in the first place was in anticipation of a meat shortage, and here we are. All of the meat we will be eating this month is already in my freezer – even the chicken from the cheesy farro, broccoli, and chicken that we had on Saturday was from a big batch of chicken breasts I baked a few weeks ago.

      Speaking of the meat shortage, you might notice that there isn’t a lot of meat in this menu plan. Not that that is atypical around here, personally I feel that the meat and three menu gets pretty boring pretty quickly. Of course no meat can get kind of boring too! So my categories this month are soup, pasta, vegetarian, eggs, pizza, and a meat night. My Monday and Tuesday nights switch between two categories because of some scheduling conflicts – just makin’ it work.

      May means Cinco de Mayo, and also… Cinco de Cuatro! Just in time too, because my kids have been asking if we can make chocolate covered bananas again.

      I made the menu printable again this month – if you want to print this menu plan, you can just click on the image below and it will open the full-sized image in a new tab. I scaled it to be 8.5×11, or the size of a standard piece of printer paper, so it is ready to print.

      may2020 menu

      Soups

      (Our 1-year-old eats what we eat, and she really likes soup. Feeding her with the spoon is hit or miss, because she likes to feed herself. Right now, one of my favorite ways to feed her soup is by dipping chunks of bread in the soup and letting her feed herself the soupy bread.)

      • Tuscan White Bean and Garlic Soup
      • Chicken Noodle Soup – requested by my kids
      • Creamy Tomato Soup from The Complete Slow Cooker – This is still my kids’ favorite soup
      • Slow Cooker French Onion Soup – This probably isn’t the best French onion soup recipe ever, but it is pretty easy
      • Cheesy Cauliflower and Potato Soup

      Pasta

      • Tortellini with pears and prosciutto (adapted from this recipe)
      • Eggplant parmesan with pasta from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone – I’ve never made this recipe for myself, but my favorite vegetarian friend – the one who recommended this book to me in the first place – made it for me a while ago so I thought I would give it a whirl.
      • Spaghetti aglio e olio
      • Pasta alfredo

      Vegetarian

      • BBQ Bean Burritos with Grilled Peach Salsa from Thug Kitchen / veggie tacos for my kids – I made this sometime last year and it was sooo good. Hands-down the most flavorful burritos I have made at home. They were pretty labor intensive, which is why I haven’t made them since, but Cinco de Mayo seems like the perfect occasion for a repeat. Unfortunately the burritos were pretty spicy, and my kids genuinely hate spicy foods right now, so I’ll cut up some veggies for them to make their own little vegetable tacos.
      • Yeasted waffles à la King Arthur Flour
      • Weeknight enchiladas (bean and cheese enchiladas) / veggie tacos for my kids – Again, these enchiladas are really not very spicy, but I have tried and failed many times to get my kids to eat them. I’m going to make them on the super-mild side (with Monterey jack cheese instead of pepper jack, for instance), and also plan on some simple veggie tacos for them.
      • Polenta with roasted vegetables and pesto

      Eggs

      We’ve been alternating scrambled eggs and eggs-in-a-basket lately; it’s been a nice change of pace!

      Pizza

      I’m back to making pizza – this is the crust recipe I typically use and this is the sauce.

      Meat

      • Cheesy farro with chicken and broccoli – like a deconstructed chicken-broccoli-rice casserole, but with farro
      • Whole chicken in the slow cooker – save some extra meat for chicken noodle soup
      • Potato kielbasa sheet pan – I’ve never made this recipe, but it looks simple, a.k.a. just my style
      • Easy orange chicken – Why yes, you *can* make that sauce ahead and stick it in the fridge for later in the day
      • Slow cooker honey soy drumettes – This recipe has been in my mental bookmarks for YEARS. Literally, at least five years. Of course, basically every time I think to make it I have a baby under a year old doing baby led weaning, and the one food they are really not supposed to eat before they turn one is honey (thanks, botulism!). Hopefully five years of anticipation do not leave me disappointed.

       

      Notes about side dishes –

      • I use “green veggies” and “salad/greens” pretty interchangeably, but my goal is to have a bunch of veggies at dinner every night, and especially a bunch of green veggies. I keep it vague on my menu plan and then usually look for the best looking, most reasonably priced stuff when I’m at the store.
      • Similarly, I have listed “bread” as a side dish several times, but depending on the night that might be homemade biscuits, an artisan loaf, buttermilk bread, cornbread, or even some Annie’s crescent rolls.

      Lunches

      • Adults – Some combination of leftovers, egg & cheese sandwiches, PB&J sandwiches, yogurt, cheese & crackers, fruit, raw veggies, hummus
      • Kids – PB&J sandwiches/crackers, mac & cheese, cheese & crackers, fruit, raw veggies

      Breakfasts

      Cereal, yogurt, smoothies, fruit, oatmeal

      Posted in Dinner, Menu Plans | 0 Comments | Tagged breakfast, chicken, Covid-19, Dinner, kid-friendly, lunch, Menu plan, pasta, pizza, slow cooker, soup, vegan, vegetarian
    • Menu Plan 4/5-4/18 and some Covid-19 updates

      Posted at 5:24 pm by Rachel, on April 4, 2020

      Anyone else feel like 2020 is just kicking you when you’re down? I thought so. We started our social distancing about a week or two before guidelines started to come out here in Hawaii because we had a stomach bug (somehow our second stomach bug of the year), so we have been away from other people and our activities for a good while now. Having three kids five and under certainly has its challenges, but I am especially grateful that we have our small hoard of little kids right now because they do the best job of playing with each other and generally keeping everyone’s spirits up.

      In some ways, things seem to be very much business-as-usual around here – we are still in a routine (thanks to the kids, who are home with me all the time anyway), and I am still menu planning and making a grocery list once a week. But now my husband has been doing the weekly shopping trip to minimize our exposure (he still has to go into work) and keep the kids out of the stores, and I’ve been trying to order more pantry staples online because some things are just out of stock around here and it minimizes the time he spends in the store. As with all other online shopping, finding places that will mail food to Hawaii was a challenge. In case you are looking too, this is what I have ordered so far:

      • Real maple syrup from Carman Brook Farm – I received my order 4 days later, in perfect condition, shipping prices are reasonable, and if you order 6+ items you will automatically receive a 10% discount.
      • Chicken and sausages from Perdue Farms – Not many places will ship meat to Hawaii, so I was pretty excited to see that Perdue would ship to me for FREE (I had to spend a certain amount to get free shipping, and it was worth it). Unfortunately they are experiencing delays, and while they are very upfront about this, I ordered on 16 March and my order hasn’t shipped yet. Mainlanders, you have a lot more options for meat and produce shipped to your doorstep!
      • Flour, yeast, and other baking supplies from King Arthur Flour – I was lucky and found everything I needed in stock. I really like that you can see which items are in stock, and I appreciate the current 2-per-item limit they have in place. While flour and yeast are out of stock, they still have a lot of mixes available, including some soup mixes! It took less than 2 days to ship and then arrived another 3-4 days later. If you are looking for flour, a family member told me she was able to order some through Baker’s Authority. Shipping to Hawaii is EXPENSIVE but it might be worth it if you live in the Lower 48.
      • Organic chicken and beef base from Better Than Bouillon – I haven’t seen the organic beef base around here and had been meaning to order some anyway. I started out at Thrive Market, because they have the best price on Better Than Bouillon that I’ve seen and I used to order from them. But after playing around on Thrive Market for probably an hour, I realized that they don’t ship to Hawaii. Womp womp. So I checked the BTB website every day until it was back in stock, and it was delivered to me 4 days later.
      • Dry goods including teas, farro, quinoa, and applesauce pouches from Amazon Subscribe & Save – I added a couple of things to my subscriptions this month, but a lot of this I was already set up to receive. Checking it again now I am actually surprised that the applesauce is coming (because a few days ago it was out of stock), but as of right now it looks like only my regular toilet paper and baby wipes delivery are going to be disrupted. I love Subscribe & Save, even when there isn’t a global pandemic it is worth looking into.

      Now onto the menu plan for the next two weeks!

      S 4/5 Polenta, pesto, & roasted vegetable bowls
      M 4/6 Maple mustard chicken, mashed sweet potatoes, green vegetable
      T 4/7 Pasta and meatballs (from the freezer), green vegetable
      W 4/8 Leftovers
      R 4/9 Eggs, vegetables
      F 4/10 Pizza, vegetables
      S 4/11 White bean and garlic soup, bread, green vegetable

      S 4/12 EASTER – Breakfast: Cinnamon rolls
                                             Dinner: Easter Dinner on 2 Sheet Pans
                                             Dessert: Lamb cake

      M 4/13 BLAT sandwiches, oven fries or carrots, green vegetable
      T 4/14 Beef tacos (homemade taco seasoning recipe)
      W 4/15 Leftovers
      R 4/16 Eggs, vegetables
      F 4/17 Pizza, vegetables
      S 4/18 French onion soup, bread, green vegetable

      Posted in Menu Plans | 1 Comment | Tagged beef, chicken, Covid-19, dessert, Easter, holiday, kid-friendly, Life in Hawaii, Menu plan, soup
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