Well, another week gone by – I hope everyone is hanging in and not going completely crazy while staying at home for this long – for us it is since basically the start of March, though we were not told to do so by our Governor until later in the month. More recently we have been going out to run errands more and more – lately seemingly once a week, occasionally twice a week for something or other, with food being about once a month unless we are out for something else in, say, Walmart, where there is also food. Last week we went out to get a renewal of Diabetes supplies and since we go to Walmart,, also filled in a (very) few food items as long as we were in Walmart. Tomorrow we are going food shopping.
Shopping in general now has a new challenge here. March 1 a law went into effect in our state that stores (in most cases) can not distribute “one use” plastic bags. They can distribute papers bags and charge for same – in some counties/cities they are required to charge a 5 cents fee for the paper bags. So, almost immediately after this law went into effect the Corona Virus panic set it in. People of course did not know about or remember the law coming into affect (despite news on TV and in print talking about it) and showed up to panic food shop without bags – what a mess and confusion. When we went food shopping mid March I brought 3 of the old “one time use” shopping bags shoved in the back pockets of my jeans, and two of the large, zippered bags that had been for sale for one to buy and use instead. (One supermarket had offered a trade in the week before March 1 – bring in a one time use bag and get one of these zippered bags in exchange free, so husband and I had each done so.) In the middle of March (just after our shopping “spree” the law was on a halt – I had thought it was due to good sense, in a pandemic do we really want people bringing bags from home into stores – was my logic. But no, there had been a court case against the law – that it was illegal. The case was finally heard and the plaintiffs lost, so now we must bring bags when shopping for our items. In normal times this would be a pain to remember with trips back out to the car where we always have some of the “one time use” bags, but now it is a bigger problem as when we go food shopping we end up with 8 or 9 paper bags (which hold more) of food and remember to bring them with us. All of the articles about the law are so helpful about remembering to bring bags –
Put them in your purse – how large a purse does someone have to fit in 8 or 9 paper bags and what about people like me who do not use a purse.
Put them by the door – where? on my stove? And we have been known to forget things hung from the door knob so we don't forget them.
Keep them in your car – have to remember to bring them back out to the car and need them in all cars, and then of course with this idea and the prior one – once the bags are in the car – one has to remember to take them out of the car when one goes into the store.
Well, the shopping list is made and printed out – and we will be going tomorrow to the supermarket. We will see what will happen.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Understand, I get the idea of using less and appreciate it, but in general it is a problem and even more so right now, when items from one's home should not be coming into stores as they may be contaminated with Covid-19 and then are put where other people will have to put their bags to load their food orders into them.
Showing posts with label stay at home. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stay at home. Show all posts
Thursday, October 22, 2020
COVID-19 # 25 MUST BRING OWN BAGS SHOPPING NOW - HOW MANY WILL BRING BAGS WITH CORONA VIRUS ON THEM?
Friday, June 12, 2020
COVID 19 #13 - DEALING WITH LOTS OF FOOD TO STORE AND KEEP FRESH
Sorry – like everyone else – I lost track of the day of the week and did not post yesterday.
Okay – we are all getting tired of the pandemic. I hope that you and yours have either been lucky enough not to be affected or have survived any illness and are well again. I thought I would mention some things we have been doing to deal with a variety of things that arise. This week, one of my favorite subjects – Food!
I recently wrote about finally ordering food and going out to buy food - http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2020/05/covid-19-11-food-delivery-and-shopping.html
But what the heck does one do with all the extra food! We have a rather small house, with our kitchen and dining room also being rather small so of course our refrigerator and freezer are small – 18 sq ft fridge with top freezer – which we bought last summer - see -
http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2019/06/replace-refrigerator.html
http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-refrigerator-saga-contines.html
http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2019/07/refrigerator-at-last-and-on-to-next.html
We also have a dorm fridge sized freezer in our basement. Both are full to the point I could not keep track of what is in them. I cut scrap sheets of paper (all those papers that get printed out of the computer by mistake or run 4 pages when you thought they were one page or only need one page – I use the backs for scrap paper – good for the environment and cheap scrap paper as it would just be thrown out. into quarters across the width so I got 4 from a sheet of a paper and made lists. I have a list of the meats and entrees which are in the basement freezer and how many I have of each. I also have a list of same for the kitchen freezer. I have a list of the frozen vegetables, breads and such in the basement freezer. ( I pack things very well.) I don't have a matching list for upstairs – but I rebag frozen vegetables into quart zipbags – label each bag with which vegetable is in it and mark the end date (not that vegetables sit that long) and I stand them in alphabetical order in the door shelf of my freezer – empty bags (we have run out of some vegetables) are at the front of the bags. It is easy to see how much is in each, generally a new bag of vegetables fits into the quart zip bag – if not I am generally using some when I start a new bag from the store anyway – they are in an order so I can find them, hey are at my eye level to make it easier to figure out and since the bags zip closed, they stay fresher than open bags with bag ties on them. I know that we have a started bag of biscuits, and I know most of the other items in the freezer. I also have a plastic box that fits on about half of the top shelf in the freezer to hold odd shaped items – like freezer paper wrapped meats, open bags of things like fries and pancakes, meal sized amounts of stew meat in small zip bags, etc. the other half of the shelf is boxed and bagged items and the stack of ice cube trays with a bin for ice over them on a wire rack. We did not want to wast the limited space we have in the freezer with an ice maker as we tend to use ice only for cooking related chores – such as cooling down food quickly to put in the fridge.
We have a small closet in our kitchen which holds a variety of items including 3 shelves being used for can, bottle, jar and other storage. What husband bought would overwhelm the entire closet.
I have left most of the items which were in the closet in it. I covered my dining room table with thick towels and stood the cans, bottles and jars in rows sorted by what they are – all of the lentil soup cans together, all of the evaporated milk cans together, both of the soy sauce bottles together (somewhere around 3 years worth or more of same I estimate), etc. Having had ants and mice over the 31 years we have been in the house I do not have food items which are not in sealed cans, jars or bottles out on their own. Normally I will put unopened packaged items in two large boxes under the kitchen table. But this is now too much for that. Small packages such as individual packages of instant cereal, packages with 4 servings of instant mashed potatoes, and the like have been put into plastic boxes the size of a gallon of ice cream would come in. These boxes are also on the dining room table. The two boxes under the kitchen table are fuller than they have ever been. We also have larger plastic tubs in the house which we use for purposes unrelated to food. I gave up one of the tubs I used to store my bear village pieces in and husband gave up one of the tubs he uses to store finished items he has woven and they are filled with food items – such as bags of dry cereal (threw out the boxes), boxes of assorted dry pastas, cake mix boxes, mac and cheese mix boxes, and the like. They are also in our dining room – on the floor.
When one has this much food one has to deal with managing the food and keeping perishable food from going bad. Anything which could be frozen to keep it longer was frozen. I am keeping an eye on the end dates of other items. One problem is eggs. Husband was buying 3 dozen eggs from BJs on our first try at ordering food delivered. That is a lot of eggs for us – we don't eat breakfast so they are eaten for dinner some nights and used in things such as the cake mixes. To make it even worse, BJs did not have the packages of 3 boxes of a dozen eggs each – so he ordered 5 dozen eggs and these eggs came in restaurant style packaging – 2 open sided trays of 30 eggs each stacked on each other – and the expiration date was June 15. While I know that eggs do last longer than they are dated for (if unsure if an egg is still good – put it in a pot of cold water – if it floats it is not good), how long could they last. Then I remembered – eggs can be frozen if they are opened and the white and yellow mixed together and will keep much longer that way. So earlier this week we started freezing eggs. I put a small plastic sandwich bag in each of several (4-5) pudding sized plastic storage cups that can be frozen. I then break an egg or two into a one cup measuring cup (husband's idea to use the measuring cup) and mix it together with a fork. I then pour the egg(s) into a storage cup and repeat. I put the lids on the cups and put them in the freezer. By the next day the eggs are frozen. I take out each eggs – or pair of eggs and knot the bag closed (single egg) or put a bag tie around the bag to close it (two eggs). I then put them into half gallon zip bags – the single eggs in one and the double eggs in a different one - and label which is in the bag – and put them back in the freezer. I am down to 14 more eggs to freeze. Why two and singles? If we have eggs for dinner we have 2 each – so 2 in each bag is good for that. But in cooking sometimes I need one egg and cake mixes need 3 eggs, so freezing some eggs as singles allows for odd number of eggs to be used easily while taking up less little plastic bags by having two in a good number of them. And of course if all the 2 egg bags are used up – 2 singles makes a double. :-)
THOUGHT(S) OF THE WEEK -
Make sure that you keep track of expiration or other end dates on the food in your house – normally also but especially now. Freeze items that can be frozen before they go bad or use them if their life cannot be extended.
Also – just because areas are being reopened from stay at home orders – does not mean to run out and about willy nilly. The corona virus is still here and still dangerous. How terrible to get so ill and risk one's life to get a hair cut, go to the gym, shop for items which are not crucial or eat out in or outside a restaurant. The number of cases is rising rapidly in some states which either have reopened too much, too seen or its residents are going out before they should. Health and life – yours and others – are too important to rush the return to normalcy. Stay well! (I have too few followers now – I don't want to lose any.)
Okay – we are all getting tired of the pandemic. I hope that you and yours have either been lucky enough not to be affected or have survived any illness and are well again. I thought I would mention some things we have been doing to deal with a variety of things that arise. This week, one of my favorite subjects – Food!
I recently wrote about finally ordering food and going out to buy food - http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2020/05/covid-19-11-food-delivery-and-shopping.html
But what the heck does one do with all the extra food! We have a rather small house, with our kitchen and dining room also being rather small so of course our refrigerator and freezer are small – 18 sq ft fridge with top freezer – which we bought last summer - see -
http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2019/06/replace-refrigerator.html
http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-refrigerator-saga-contines.html
http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2019/07/refrigerator-at-last-and-on-to-next.html
We also have a dorm fridge sized freezer in our basement. Both are full to the point I could not keep track of what is in them. I cut scrap sheets of paper (all those papers that get printed out of the computer by mistake or run 4 pages when you thought they were one page or only need one page – I use the backs for scrap paper – good for the environment and cheap scrap paper as it would just be thrown out. into quarters across the width so I got 4 from a sheet of a paper and made lists. I have a list of the meats and entrees which are in the basement freezer and how many I have of each. I also have a list of same for the kitchen freezer. I have a list of the frozen vegetables, breads and such in the basement freezer. ( I pack things very well.) I don't have a matching list for upstairs – but I rebag frozen vegetables into quart zipbags – label each bag with which vegetable is in it and mark the end date (not that vegetables sit that long) and I stand them in alphabetical order in the door shelf of my freezer – empty bags (we have run out of some vegetables) are at the front of the bags. It is easy to see how much is in each, generally a new bag of vegetables fits into the quart zip bag – if not I am generally using some when I start a new bag from the store anyway – they are in an order so I can find them, hey are at my eye level to make it easier to figure out and since the bags zip closed, they stay fresher than open bags with bag ties on them. I know that we have a started bag of biscuits, and I know most of the other items in the freezer. I also have a plastic box that fits on about half of the top shelf in the freezer to hold odd shaped items – like freezer paper wrapped meats, open bags of things like fries and pancakes, meal sized amounts of stew meat in small zip bags, etc. the other half of the shelf is boxed and bagged items and the stack of ice cube trays with a bin for ice over them on a wire rack. We did not want to wast the limited space we have in the freezer with an ice maker as we tend to use ice only for cooking related chores – such as cooling down food quickly to put in the fridge.
We have a small closet in our kitchen which holds a variety of items including 3 shelves being used for can, bottle, jar and other storage. What husband bought would overwhelm the entire closet.
I have left most of the items which were in the closet in it. I covered my dining room table with thick towels and stood the cans, bottles and jars in rows sorted by what they are – all of the lentil soup cans together, all of the evaporated milk cans together, both of the soy sauce bottles together (somewhere around 3 years worth or more of same I estimate), etc. Having had ants and mice over the 31 years we have been in the house I do not have food items which are not in sealed cans, jars or bottles out on their own. Normally I will put unopened packaged items in two large boxes under the kitchen table. But this is now too much for that. Small packages such as individual packages of instant cereal, packages with 4 servings of instant mashed potatoes, and the like have been put into plastic boxes the size of a gallon of ice cream would come in. These boxes are also on the dining room table. The two boxes under the kitchen table are fuller than they have ever been. We also have larger plastic tubs in the house which we use for purposes unrelated to food. I gave up one of the tubs I used to store my bear village pieces in and husband gave up one of the tubs he uses to store finished items he has woven and they are filled with food items – such as bags of dry cereal (threw out the boxes), boxes of assorted dry pastas, cake mix boxes, mac and cheese mix boxes, and the like. They are also in our dining room – on the floor.
When one has this much food one has to deal with managing the food and keeping perishable food from going bad. Anything which could be frozen to keep it longer was frozen. I am keeping an eye on the end dates of other items. One problem is eggs. Husband was buying 3 dozen eggs from BJs on our first try at ordering food delivered. That is a lot of eggs for us – we don't eat breakfast so they are eaten for dinner some nights and used in things such as the cake mixes. To make it even worse, BJs did not have the packages of 3 boxes of a dozen eggs each – so he ordered 5 dozen eggs and these eggs came in restaurant style packaging – 2 open sided trays of 30 eggs each stacked on each other – and the expiration date was June 15. While I know that eggs do last longer than they are dated for (if unsure if an egg is still good – put it in a pot of cold water – if it floats it is not good), how long could they last. Then I remembered – eggs can be frozen if they are opened and the white and yellow mixed together and will keep much longer that way. So earlier this week we started freezing eggs. I put a small plastic sandwich bag in each of several (4-5) pudding sized plastic storage cups that can be frozen. I then break an egg or two into a one cup measuring cup (husband's idea to use the measuring cup) and mix it together with a fork. I then pour the egg(s) into a storage cup and repeat. I put the lids on the cups and put them in the freezer. By the next day the eggs are frozen. I take out each eggs – or pair of eggs and knot the bag closed (single egg) or put a bag tie around the bag to close it (two eggs). I then put them into half gallon zip bags – the single eggs in one and the double eggs in a different one - and label which is in the bag – and put them back in the freezer. I am down to 14 more eggs to freeze. Why two and singles? If we have eggs for dinner we have 2 each – so 2 in each bag is good for that. But in cooking sometimes I need one egg and cake mixes need 3 eggs, so freezing some eggs as singles allows for odd number of eggs to be used easily while taking up less little plastic bags by having two in a good number of them. And of course if all the 2 egg bags are used up – 2 singles makes a double. :-)
THOUGHT(S) OF THE WEEK -
Make sure that you keep track of expiration or other end dates on the food in your house – normally also but especially now. Freeze items that can be frozen before they go bad or use them if their life cannot be extended.
Also – just because areas are being reopened from stay at home orders – does not mean to run out and about willy nilly. The corona virus is still here and still dangerous. How terrible to get so ill and risk one's life to get a hair cut, go to the gym, shop for items which are not crucial or eat out in or outside a restaurant. The number of cases is rising rapidly in some states which either have reopened too much, too seen or its residents are going out before they should. Health and life – yours and others – are too important to rush the return to normalcy. Stay well! (I have too few followers now – I don't want to lose any.)
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