Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson for July 16, 2022

And the “surprises” just keep on coming!

Having worked 10-12 hour nights for a few years and being just too tired to cook, I got into the habit of bulk buying on sale, prepping on the weekend, and freezing it. After that, it’s just a matter of deciding what looks good, throwing it onto a lined sheet pan, and popping it into the toaster oven for a tasty home cooked meal.

I recently had to look up some recipes that were cheap and easy to make online. That’s how I found and made the recipe for vinegar pie. It was surprisingly good.

Freezer burn ala carte

I had plenty of those back in 2020.

AKA “Grocery shopping is tomorrow surprise”

Does it have Kale in it? You know I can’t stand Kale!

We occasionally have “Eggos” for an evening meal. Anybody have a suggestion for wine pairing?

When I don’t feel like cooking, I order a bunch of stuff, Italian or Chinese; and have meals for a few days.

Janis need some help with cooking….

Can anyone offer her some Sage advice?

My wife has been watching a lot of those competitive cooking shows and it is really inspiring her…

She now critiques everything I cook for her.

It was Pandemic Surprise, cooking up whatever had been stock piled over lock downs. Now it is Inflation Surprise, what ever was on sale at a somewhat reasonable price.

I’ve recently found myself foraging in the refrigerator. It’s amazing how many leftovers I accumulate.

Put your list of ingredients into Google, or your favorite earch engine, add ‘recipes’ on the end, then see what you get. Choose from any of the recipes you think you can make. That is how I make dinner when my wife responds to the question of what she wants for dinner, "Something with stew meat, chicke, pork, or etc. Not all of the recipes have been hits for us, however, many have had repeats.

I still have a number of things like black bean spaghetti and other that-was-all-that-was-on-the-supermarket-shelves items from mid-2020

What’s at the back of your cupboard? mine has lima beans, beats and tuna helper.

Yuck! Naming is important. I’m reminded of Gene renaming his father’s squash casserole as something like “Arlo’s Gold” when he offered it at the cafe.

Most people call it cleaning out the freezer…

One of my personal favorites is “Kitchen Sinkatouri”!

So what did she make? I need some ideas.

My wife can do that and it’s always delicious.

Improvise.

We’ve made a few of those.

There’s always Door Dash

The Pandemic just keeps coming as people are going into the hospital now.

We went to the supermarket in early March 2020 as it was all starting here and found the supermarket shelves empty – maybe a total of 50 cans in the canned good aisle, no meat, freezer cases mostly bare… So we were working with what had been in the house and since we ate lunch out 7 days a week (Wendys) and either ate out or took in dinner 3 days a week – and don’t eat breakfast – we were rather limited and went to 1/2-2/3 “rations” – that was Hard to dealing with cooking for and what we felt like having did no so much matter. In mid May 2020 we tried ordering food from BJs and Walmart – neither one was a success so we went to the Walmart Neighborhood Market and filled 8 paper bags of food – of what was available – whether or not it was something we (I) would normally eat.

Since then have food shopped about 2 months at first, more recently every 3 weeks so we can buy less at a time. Eating lots of things we don’t particularly like – though back up to full portions for some time now.

Per the suggestion to look for recipes online – we have to deal with low carb, low fat, low many of kinds of vegetables/beans due to an assortment of medical conditions we both have – plus I am a picky eater. Many nights I am cooking 2 separate meals – one for me and one for him.

And I love it – I hate eating out.

In Australia “root around” has a somewhat different meaning. But I’m sure Arlo would be smiling