WIAW 185 – Still Unpacking!

Well, we’ve been settling in…

We aren’t fully unpacked, yet, but we’re getting closer to having only things that are destined for long term storage – so now we’re looking into getting them out of the house. That will both please the parents and make it easier to find the last of the Still Missing! (I did find both the kitchen scale and the hats after posting about them last week – victory!)

I’m still feeding the freezer. I now have (and have used) roux cubes and chicken broth, as well as my cooked onions – mirepoix is next, I think…  And we have both chili and meatloaf muffins for fallback meals. One thing about this move that has been different from others is that I cooked full meals throughout the unpacking stage, because the parents also need to eat. Rich and I seemed to live on crackers and cheese the last few days in NYC – but one reason we could was that I knew it was temporary… The parents can’t really do that.

No more restaurants this week, though. I still need to check out local stores, but that’s slowed down. (Spent an amazing amount of time in Costco the other day, looking at lightbulbs…  The things that can keep you busy!) I’m also obsessing about storage containers – I’m going to reorganize the pantry so that my gluten free crackers don’t get mixed in with the wheat.

And meanwhile – we eat.

I am in the South, I should follow the customs of the country, right? Well, all right, I confess, these are Quick Grits, which I have been told are an abomination – but I’m also not the only one buying them! And they’re a great breakfast! I cooked them with eggs and cheese, this time, just as I’ve cooked plain corn that way last year. (And yes – even quick, these are hominy grits, not just the coarsely milled corn I used to eat. It isn’t the same stuff, whatever the package says.)  And coffee…

At lunch I teased Rich that we were eating Fusion Leftovers. Lunches are going to be interesting, at least for a while, because the parents want to continue the lunches they like and are accustomed to, and frankly, they’re not enough food for the two of us.  They have a wonderful woman who has been coming a few days a week for several years to help them, so on her days she fixes the lunches she’s always made for them, and on some of the others Don puts out prepared food they bought, as he did before.  So we’re eating leftovers, and some canned soup (when I don’t have my act together) and odds and ends… and I need to do a better job of planning our lunch.

We had a little pot roast, and a little pasta sauce with meat, and a can of seasoned beans I wanted to try.  And even though they were all technically different flavorways, there was enough pulling them together that it worked amazingly well…  I heated it it all, and added some peas, then served the whole thing over corn tortillas.

Getting back into the routine includes remembering to take pictures!  By the time I thought of it last night, I’d finished everything on my plate, and everyone was just starting to poke at that last spoonful of chicken… (You know, no one can take the last bit… at least, not until everyone else has declined it firmly…  I think Don snagged it after the picture.) We had chicken in tarragon sauce (and I used the first roux cube in this house!) and Pan Roasted Brussels Sprouts, and Polenta. And everyone seemed to like it! We also had a glorious salad… I haven’t really tended to make dinner salads often, but they wouldn’t consider the meal complete without one, so now I make one every night. (Forgot the picture, though.)

So there we are. Even as I wrote this, Rich brought me a box of my cookbooks to unpack. All right, so my Larousse wasn’t the first one I needed, but it’s a start… (and will please the parents.)  But it also has the looseleaf notebook that was my mother’s and which I have continued to make notes in. That’s good to have.

I also of course now have some of Barbara’s cookbooks. They also thinned down when they moved here (and in fact a few that I brought are ones she gave me then!) so I’m going to look at them for ideas. And I have her little 3×5 file box of index cards with recipes. That is gold.

Come join Jenn’s What I Ate Wednesday Party at Laura’s!  (That girl has got to stop hurting herself…)