Quarantine Cooking: Week two of grocery shopping, frugal style

By Elizabeth Prata

We are currently under a social distancing mandate due to a virus called COVID-19, which has circled the world and caused a great deal of illness. My preferred grocery store, Kroger, has instituted a limited entry system, whereupon  store capacity is halved and those arriving after the quota is filled must remain outside until ushered in by an employee.

All that to say, I am grocery shopping only once per every 2 weeks so as to remain socially distant and not expose anyone to me or be exposed to anyone who might have COVID-19. I am in the middle of my 2-week shopping trips, so for this week 2 I had to do some knife-edge precision planning. See what I did there?

I had gotten two eggplants from the 99-cent markdown bin and they usually keep well so I'd saved them for this week. I had two boxes of Jiffy Cornbread Muffin Mix, and a can pf pumpkin. A jar of peanut butter. Red lentils and carrots. Quinoa and egg muffin mini bites. My spinach was on its last legs. Spaghetti squash. All these things keep, so that's why I'd saved them for week 2.

This morning I cooked a dozen pumpkin-cornbread muffins. I also made a small cornbread with the leftover mix that overflowed the 12-muffin tin I had. 18 cheese-quinoa-egg-spinach mini bites. Peanut butter cookies. Baked eggplant chips. The eggplant chips can be eaten on a sandwich with tomato slices, or with Parmesan cheese on them as a side, or added to a red lentil penne bake. The red lentil and carrot soup will be lunches.

In other frugal news, for the last 13 years I've enjoyed the Gas Company's seasonal heating program. They turn on the heat on mid-October, and turn it off in mid-April. I have an annual turn-on fee, but it is less money than it would be if I paid the minimum for the 6 months of summer. Because the weather is regular but not perfectly predictable, there is always a day or two in October and  a day or two in April that are cold in the morning.

I chose to live in a small apartment so that utility costs would be lower, and usually turning on the lights and the computer and maybe a crock pot slow cooking for a couple of hours heats the kitchen and living room up. In today's case, when it was predicted to be 39 degrees at dawn, I had scheduled all this cooking and baking because I knew that light bulbs and laptop would not be enough.

It took me two hours to prepare, bake, and clean up, and the oven was on. It heated the place up just fine and I did not have to drag out my space heater. I am toasty AND topped up with my prepped meals for the week!

I had bought a pineapple last Wednesday when I went shopping. I waited until the last minute before it turned brown, and I cut it up and put it in the fridge. That, along with the bag of mandarin oranges I've had in the fridge since last week, will be my fruit portions. For snacks I have peanuts, edamame nuts, and popcorn I can pop.

And that will hold me for the week! How are you managing with the quarantine restrictions,  grocery store limits, and the general at-home cooking and living?

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