How to Feed Your Family During Quarantine

Oh mannnn my longtime friends and immediate family are laughing HARD right now, because a year ago, I could not make a quesadilla. Ask Anders’ nanny— she was the only reason he got anything other than breakfast sausages and frozen peas (still two of my staples, thankyouverymuch). But here I am, writing about how to successfully grocery shop and feed a family during quarantine without going to the store on a daily (or even weekly) basis.

And let me tell you why.

Nine months ago, we moved to Alaska. Want to know many restaurants our town has? Seven. Maybe. I don’t actually know, but I’d be genuinely surprised if it is in the double digits. No Chipotle, no Italian pasta haven, no sports bar— none of the basics. Is Burger Queen, our resident burger shack, amazing? Yes, it is. But I’m here to tell you that one can only eat so many burgers or crepes from the local crepe place before you realize that suppressing your deep need for Indian food or chicken alfredo is damaging your soul. And the only option around these parts is to cook it. Gulp.

Thus, in the name of heavy pasta and our bank account, my family began cooking in every single night about eight months ago. When Corona took over the world and everyone was forced to eat at home every night, absolutely nothing changed for us. Well, except shopping once every two weeks, because my morning ritual used to be Safeway Starbucks and buying whatever’s for dinner.

Still, we’ve adjusted pretty seamlessly (quite literally without Seamless or any other food service). Never, not once, have I said “I’m tired of figuring out what’s for dinner tonight” during quarantine. You, too, can be free from that burden! It can be well with your soul! Let me lead you to the promise land flowing with milk and honey, or with cheese and noodles if your prefer. (I prefer.)

WARNING! ALERT ALERT! Compromises will be made. Bougie-foodie-ness must leave the building. Especially during this global pandemic, we must form habits of trading in the ideal for the good-enough. Homemade everything all the time is just not practical if you want to keep your sanity, mmk? So hop on off that high horse and join me on the journey to easy street, aka the path that saves lives because #pandemic.

SECOND WARNING! ALERT ALERT! If you want to get a special treat, there’s an opportunity for you to sign up for said treat at the bottom of this post.

RULE NUMBER ONE: Choose 10 meals to rotate.

Growing up, you remember eating your mom’s special goulash or your dad’s fried chicken right? Your parents didn’t make something new every night! No! God no! Our parents of the 80s knew better. What’re you having for dinner tonight, little Timmy? You’re having salmon and broccoli. Like you do every Tuesday. And you’ll be grateful for it.

GUYS. Ten meals. You don’t need to be a gourmet chef who comes up with a new concoction to delight the tastebuds of your little darlings. Trust me, everyone will be fine if they have to eat enchiladas AGAIN. One day, they’ll look back at their childhood and those enchiladas will represent Home. Make your menu and then press repeat.

RULE NUMBER TWO: Take necessary shortcuts.

Your grandmother doesn’t need to know that you use sauce out of a jar. OMG some of you just shuddered. But hear me out. Which is worse? The stress of lamenting over what’s for dinner, or browning ground beef in 7 minutes flat, pouring some sauce on top, and serving with noodles? Spaghetti WAAM BAAM THANK YOU MA’AM. It’s called balance— the salt, fat, acid, heat— except the salt is your attitude and the heat is your stress. Guys come onnnn. Pick your battles in the kitchen! We make homemade alfredo sauce for our chicken alfredo bake, but spaghetti night is a 1 on the easy scale. You can have delicious fresh and complex 10s— yes— but you must have 1s. It is the only way to survive on nights your kid poops his pants in the yard and your husband decides he absolutely must fix the floorboard in the study right this second.

RULE NUMBER THREE: Cook what you like.

Don’t cook what you think you should cook or what that skinny blogger does because maybe then you’ll look as good as her in that romper. Stop. I mean, don’t be dumb— eat some veggies for crying outloud— but if you’re miserable eating at home, it’s probably because you’re not actually making food you like to eat. Literally anything you want to make has a recipe on the internet. Use it.

RULE NUMBER FOUR: Eat to live, don’t live to eat.

Number three is about enjoying your food, so obviously I’m not exactly a health guru who claims green smoothies are the way the truth and the light. However, if you are caught up in needing to eat EXACTLY what you feel like by the time 5 p.m. rolls around and it’s time to whip up some food, then you’ve started to let food rule you instead of the other way around. We know what we’re having for dinner at least 24 hours in advance, and guess what, little Timmy? YOU GET WHAT YOU GET. Particularly in a global pandemic, your craving for lasagna can wait. You took the pork loin out of the freezer last night, so buck up and be grateful for Wilbur’s sacrifice.

RULE NUMBER FIVE: Be intentional at the grocery store.

This one is a real doozy during quarantine. I aim to go to the grocery store only every two weeks (or three, but I don’t want to overwhelm you) for the sake of my community and family, which means planning ahead of time— both in writing my list, and in setting aside the time it actually takes to turn that list into bags. Shopping for two weeks worth of food takes longer than shopping for one week or one night (shocking!), so put on your workout shoes that you haven’t touched in eight weeks and make sure your husband knows what time the baby goes down for her nap. You’re on a critical mission. There is no room for error or distraction. Have a checklist ready in your phone with whatever ingredients you need for EACH of the 12ish meals (because leftovers will round out the remaining 2-4 days), and make those grocery aisles your beetch. I promise you that you’ll waste a helluva lot less food and money if you do it this way instead of buying a whole bunch of stuff at random and hoping it all adds up to 14 edible meals.

RULE NUMBER SIX: Stop caring what other people think.

Oh, so you think it’s weird that I buy 7 half gallons of milk at a time, judgy lady who thinks I’m hoarding milk? How do you even hoard milk? It’s perishable, for goodness sake! Clearly mouths in my house are drinking it! Anyway, prepare to get looks. It’s okay. They probably shop every other day or don’t have additional mouths or order pizza every night. You and your milk are your business. Get what you need for your two weeks and let the insecurities go. They only wish they could eat your delicious chicken and rice casserole. Poor them.

RULE NUMBER SEVEN: Pivot.

I didn’t find out that our grocery store now limits meat purchases until I was in the checkout line. Welp, looks like our chicken curry and chicken casserole get to share a package! A little less chicken and a little more rice isn’t going to kill us. But you know what will? COVID. (Probably not, but if you’re not taking this whole thing seriously then we have bigger fish to fry than the one on your family meal menu.) I’m down with staying more socially distant by sacrificing my chicken-to-rice ratio. Guys, it’s not going to be perfect during this crisis. Are we so spoiled that we fall off the wagon completely just because the recipe calls for a pound of chicken and we can only use 8 ounces? You’ll be alright. There, there.

Oh! And this goes for produce, as well. So many people claim that they MUST go to the store once a week for fresh fruits and veggies. I call baloney! (Bologna, if you must.) Eat your zucchini, tomatoes, and raspberries in week one. Then in week two, eat your carrots, brussel sprouts, apples, and oranges. We have fresh produce every day. And frozen veggies aren’t the enemy either, by the way. In many cases, frozen veggies have proven to have SUPERIOR nutrients to fresh veggies since they’re frozen at the height of their nutritious value. Just saying.

RULE NUMBER EIGHT: Accept the routine.

Listen, you will be in the kitchen every night. That is the actual, physical consequence of eating at home every night. Coming from someone who spent 31 years equating the kitchen with a torture chamber, LET ME BE THE ONE TO TELL YOU that you can not only figure it out, but become pals with your stovetop. Now, I’m not a crazy person— I do not have anything on our family menu that requires me to stand in the kitchen longer than 45 minutes (usually less than 30) because baby needs the boob and I’m always cooking while simultaneously preventing my toddler from killing himself. This is why I’m a big fan of bakes— toss together, throw her in the oven, and keep the children alive while she bakes for an hour. (In-kitchen time is different from total time.) The point is that you simply have to make it a habit and not fight it. You’re an adult. You can do this. Screaming kids and all. And on nights you really can’t do it? Helloooooo jarred spaghetti.

RULE NUMBER NINE: Don’t overplan the plan.

Listen, you do not need to have a calendar with a specific meal written beneath each date. This gives you some wiggle room if you know the next day will be a nightmare at work, or if you really can’t imagine eating a burger any time soon. Just have a list nearby (I have all the meals I shopped for written on a little whiteboard on the fridge), then cross them out as you go so you know what you have left. Options dwindle as the days go on, but all-in-all, you still get to choose from 12 different menu items! So don’t be too, too strict!

Summary: Make a menu, shop accordingly, take whatever meat is for the next night out of the freezer each evening, and accept this new way of life. Then the painful decisions are over and instead you’ll be saving yourself a lot of headaches and a whole lot of cash.

And a quick note on lunch: Unless you’re a family with 4+ grown people, odds are you have leftovers most of the time. If there’s not enough to become a second dinner for the whole fam, use those as your lunch. On days there aren’t any lunch leftovers, choose 3 staples and throw in maybe 1 interesting option. Every single day, I eat either a quesadilla, oatmeal, or a turkey sandwich. This week I made a big batch of orzo salad to shake things up. Anders eats breakfast sausage, fruit, and a mini-waffle basically every day. (Aaron makes homemade waffle sliders every other Saturday morning, so we freeze big batches of them.) Occasionally we swap the sausage for a scrambled egg or the waffle for a mini-quesadilla (street taco tortillas are the perfect toddler quesadilla), but he doesn’t get a huge variety. And I do not feel bad for him.

Alright guys, there you have it. Like anything in life, the only way to eat at home is just to DO IT. There’s no magic button or secret sauce. You literally just have to pull up your big kid pants and take off the irrational crop top and commit to the whole look. Big picture. If you’d like some of our family meal recipes to get your cooking juices fired up, sign up for my email list by 5/24/2020 and I’ll be sending out our 10 go-tos as inspo!

Bon appetit!