Hey, posterity.  We’re in the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, and we are currently under house arrest shelter-in-place (I’m just being glib; sheltering in place is the smart thing to do right now, and we’re glad to do it to help our whole community/nation/world).

That means minimizing trips to the grocery store, which is tough for me, as I’m used to being able to dash out multiple times a week for ingredients if I get inspired to cook something for which I didn’t plan during my last big grocery run.  Even weirder, we don’t have a kitchen, because we’re in the middle of a home renovation project.  We probably won’t have a kitchen for months.  Here’s what we do have:

• Microwave
• Electric griddle
• Toaster
• Coffee maker
• Instant Pot
• Crock Pot
• Bar sink (no washing dishes in the bathtub, thank goodness)
• Grill (currently not hooked up, because we need a natural gas to propane conversion kit)
• Panini maker

Here’s what we’ve eaten so far and what I have planned for the rest of the week.

First night home (Sunday):  Take-out Mexican

Monday: Chicken Caesar salads (chicken cooked in Instant Pot using Sauté setting); Instant Pot pasta (came out too starchy; will rinse in the future); apple slices

Tuesday:  Brats and hot dogs (brats steamed in the Instant Pot, then browned along with the dogs on the griddle) with side salad and chips

Wednesday:  Chicken thighs (bone in, skinless) with spice rub in Instant Pot; sweet potatoes in the Instant Pot; leftover pasta; apple slices.

Thursday:  Grocery pick-up day!  Thai-style pork & noodles.  This is going to be interesting because the noodles cook really fast.  I think I will pre-cook the noodles in the Instant Pot, although I will investigate as to whether there’s a soak method that could let me skip cooking them in boiling water altogether.  I plan to use the electric griddle as a makeshift wok.  It has high sides so I don’t think anything will splash out.

Update:  it was gross.  There’s no way to do this without boiling the noodles.

Friday:  Grilled cheese (griddle) and canned tomato soup (microwave).  I plan to still be tired after Thursday night’s dinner.  Some sort of fruit, depending on how complete our grocery order is Switched to vegetable beef soup (Instant Pot) with grapes and cornbread from the HyVee bakery (which tasted like birthday cake).

Saturday: Pork tenderloin (Denny got the grill set up, so we grilled it, plus grilled hotdogs for the kids), cabbage salad.  OR Instant Pot chili if I need something lower-maintenance.

Sunday:  Order pizza.

If I have the energy and remember to do it, I’ll post more menus so I can inspire myself.