Dinner Dispatch, part 2 - Real Life Delicious

Do you guys think you have covid-19 everyday like I do? Seriously, I wake up in the morning thinking, This sore throat is different than the one I had yesterday — the one caused by my seasonal allergies, which are always wicked bad this time of year. This sore throat is IT.

Besides these bouts of hypochondriac panic, I sometimes get this feeling that everyone else is “better at quarantining” than I am. It seems like every time I go on Facebook or Instagram, someone’s showing me a beautiful sunset or mountaintop that they just hiked to, or they’re on Day 18 of a meditation streak, or their kids are making actual strides with their distance learning, leading bible studies, and even having legit fun family game nights. This has not been my reality. We’ve had lots of anguish about how serious this really is, what activities are still okay (especially with two teenagers), and how will it ever end? We sleep in. I attempted an online yoga class and gave up when I hit the ceiling during tadasana. As for the distance learning, I saw an April Fool’s meme that said the governor was going to make all the kids repeat their grade in school, and my first thought was, Well that sounds about right.

I also have been struggling with ethical issues that make my head spin. Is it good or bad to order takeout food? (I.e. I’m helping a restaurant stay in business while possibly exposing its workers to the virus; what’s the right thing to do?) Is it okay to order things online? (Same dilemma, except clearly Amazon doesn’t need my money.) What about volunteering? I want to help healthcare workers and people who don’t have food, but I don’t want to make myself part of the problem by going out. Ugh, my brain hurts.

So far, we are healthy. I remind myself everyday to be thankful for that. And for my family and my home. The news is terrifying, so I pray for the people who are sick or homeless, and try not to complain too much about being bored. I am looking forward to Easter and all that it represents, even though we won’t be going to church or spending time with our relatives.

Like most everybody, I’m still cooking. Cooking provides a sense of normalcy, it’s comforting, and it’s one thing I can control. Here’s what we made during week 2 of sheltering in place.

Day 8 – On one of my last shopping trips, the store had buy-one-get-one free pork shoulder, which seemed like a good thing to have in the freezer during quarantine. I thawed one out and made carnitas in the slow cooker today. The recipe is super easy and pretty foolproof. I served the carnitas with the last of our corn tortillas and some roasted peppers and onions.

Slow Cooker Pork Carnitas
Ingredients
1 boneless pork roast (mine was about 3 lbs.)
1/2 onion, diced
1-2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tbs. salt
1 tsp. cumin
1 tsp. chili powder
1 tsp. oregano
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 tbs. hot sauce
Juice of 1 orange (or 2 cuties)
Juice of 2 limes
1/2 cup salsa
1/2 cup water (or beer if you can spare one)

Place the pork shoulder in the slow cooker. Add the onions and garlic. Sprinkle the meat with salt, cumin, chili powder, black pepper, oregano, cinnamon, and cayenne. Add juices, salsa, and water (or beer). Cover and cook on low for 8 hours. Take the meat out of the slow cooker and shred with two forks. Preheat broiler. Place the shredded meat on a rimmed baking sheet and pour a few spoonfuls of the sauce over the top. Broil for 5-10 minutes or until you get browned edges on the pork. It also works to heat the meat in a skillet with a little oil to crisp up the pork. Serve on warmed tortillas with fresh cilantro, avocado, and lime juice.

Day 9 – Today was Friday so we had (thawed frozen) salmon cooked on the grill. It almost felt normal. Also, I made granola from the last of the oats we had in the pantry (including tearing open a whole box worth of individual instant oatmeal packets that I think we had bought for camping last summer). If you’ve never made granola, it’s super easy and WAY better than anything you can buy. I posted my favorite granola recipe on this blog a while back, and I still love it. If you don’t have all the ingredients on hand, feel free to leave them out; it will still be good as long as you have some oil (coconut oil also works great), something a little bit sweet (syrup or honey), and some oats. You can even make the Paleo kind if you’re so inclined.

Day 10 – The best thing that happened this day was the carnitas salad I made with the leftovers from the other night. So if you do end up making carnitas, I highly suggest warming them up then dumping them on top of salad greens and tossing with a little olive oil and vinegar. Excellent lunch if I do say so myself. For dinner we had takeout from a local Chinese restaurant. As I mentioned above, I feel slightly conflicted about ordering takeout, but my daughter was begging and she’s been a champ through this whole thing. It was fine, and I like having the leftover rice in the fridge for all the excellent fried rice I’m making (mostly for lunch); fried rice is my favorite way to use up slightly past-their-prime veggies.

Day 11 – I finally tackled a home project that’s been nagging at me forever. I cleaned out our garage freezers (we have two, including a large chest freezer) and did a complete inventory of all the frozen food we have (yes, I even color coded it, thank you very much; dang, I should have posted this on Insta). Among the long-buried gems was a black cod fillet I’d bought from an importer at least a year ago, which I defrosted and marinated it in miso Nobu-style. Alas, the fish basically disintegrated when I put it under the broiler. Thankfully a friend had smoked ribs the night before and dropped some off, which we happily ate with the same salad I mentioned in the last post (nope, not sick of it yet).

Day 12 – Back on the red sauce theme. My husband made pheasant parm, and it was amazing. Like really, really good. Basically we used an easy chicken parm recipe and substituted pounded pheasant cutlets. If you don’t have pheasant, which you very probably don’t, I still recommend making this.

Day 13 – I decided I’d start cooking lessons with my 15-tear-old daughter, who has finally grown out of her pickiness and love of beige foods. I asked her to come up with something she wanted to learn to cook. She didn’t even need to think about it; she wanted to make Chipotle-style burrito bowls. So we looked up copycat recipes for Chipotle’s chicken, rice, and black beans. Everything turned out great, but this chicken was a definite keeper. I will be making it again very soon.

Day 14 – I love the tradition of a “Sunday roast” — a nice, slow-cooked dinner to end the weekend. For us it’s usually a roast chicken because I unabashedly love it, and I love having leftovers for salads or sandwiches during the week, plus homemade chicken stock. Well, since one day of the week is the same as all the rest, this week we had a Wednesday roast. I had a chicken that I’d frozen pre-coronavirus and thawed in the fridge. I probably don’t need to share my recipe for roast chicken, but just in case, here’s how I make it.

Roast Chicken
Ingredients
1 whole chicken, about 4 lbs.
1 lemon
1-2 celery stalks
Olive oil
Salt

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Rinse the chicken and pat dry. Cut the lemon and celery and stuff them inside the chicken cavity. Rub about 1-2 tbs. oil on the entire chicken and sprinkle with salt. Roast the chicken until a thermometer inserted in the upper leg reaches 165 degrees (about 50 mins.). Remove from oven and let rest for about 5-10 mins. before carving. Serve with a loaf of French bread and salad.

Okay there you have it, another edition of what’s for dinner during corona. Please comment below with some of your successes, failures, plans, and ideas — I’d love to hear about them! I hope you all are staying safe and healthy.

TOPIC: Family Dinner, Recipes, What's For Dinner

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