Dishing Up Dinner During Social Distancing
Preparando Las Comidas Durante El Tiempo Mundial de Segregación Social
by
Mary Hunt Webb
Posted Tuesday, March 31, 2020
Are these cupcakes for a birthday party? No, but read on to find out more. [Photographer: Mary Hunt Webb.*]
During this time of mandated isolation and "social distancing" as a result of the Corona Virus (a.k.a. COVID-19), I have found myself digging around in what I already have in order to provide variety in our meals. One such discovery was an old recipe dating from our second year of marriage when my husband's job had taken us to Des Moines, Iowa. While we were there, our landlady, Karen, shared a recipe for a casserole that, among other things, called for shrimp. It was one of the recipes I made regularly until after our son was born and began to express his likes and dislikes. Shrimp was a dislike so I ceased making it on his account. However, while recently rooting around in a shoebox full of handwritten recipe cards and recipes clipped from old newspapers, I discovered with delight that I had not thrown out Karen's recipe but had saved it! When I prepared it and served it, my husband, sighed and said something like, "Ah! This takes me back to the early years of our marriage! Yum!"
Another find was a container of paper cupcake liners that I had obviously bought and used for a birthday celebration some time ago. The remaining festive liners had sat in the cupboard unloved and unwanted until I hauled them out recently and poured muffin batter into them. Since the muffins visible in the above photo are whole wheat, I did not frost them like cupcakes. Nevertheless, they are still good since I froze some of them so that we haven't finished eating them all at this writing.
Some canned goods that we had on hand have inspired some creative cooking. [Photographer: Mary Hunt Webb.*]
In the photo above, the red can of chili on the left on the second shelf is destined for a meal soon. To the can of chicken and rice soup on the top shelf on the right, I will add some leftover chicken from a previous meal, a little more rice, and a bit of fresh chopped onion, although dried minced onion would suffice. In addition to the water that the directions on the can calls for, I will add some leftover vegetable broth that I saved and froze after cooking some vegetables for a previous meal. After adding some seasonings for flavor, I will serve it with a salad so that I will expand a can of soup into a full meal.
Something else I saved was the juice from a can of pineapple and a can of pear halves. That blended juice became the base for a gelatin salad that called for unsweetened Knox gelatin rather than the presweetened packaged kind. That salad has long since disappeared from our refrigerator.
Necessity truly is the mother of invention and creativity. Cooking at home for all meals doesn't have to be boring, nutritionally unbalanced, or a cause for worry. I have found myself praying for nutritional inspiration several times lately and will undoubtedly continue to do so in the weeks ahead. That's because I believe the comforting words of Jesus in John 14:1, in which He says, "Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe in God, believe also in me." (KJV) I pray that those words comfort you as well. My prayers for inspiration have been repeatedly answered so that I have served the results of some of them with pasta sauce. I can't wait to see what God inspires me to serve next!
That pasta that has been sitting on the shelf for a while is going to see some action soon along with a can of tomatoes, a can of tomato paste, some herbs, and a little grated cheese! [Photographer: Aline Ponce. Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com]
BIBLE VERSE USED IN THIS POSTING
John 14:1 — [Jesus said,] "Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe in God, believe also in me." (KJV)
Juan 14:1 — [Jesús dijo,] "No se turbe vuestro corazón; creéis en Dios, creed también en mí." (Reina-Valera 1960)
At a time when canned goods as well as packaged ones are increasingly difficult to obtain, I'm glad I kept some vintage cookbooks, such as the one pictured here, that involve what my mother called "cooking from scratch". That involves the use of very few prepared foods to cook a dish. We will doubtless be doing more of that in the weeks to come. [Photographer: Mary Hunt Webb*.]
* Please do not use our original photos without our permission. These include photos by Mary Hunt Webb, Morris Webb, Jr., Morris Webb, Sr., and C.B. Hunt. Thank you.
