“Remoted” – Sunday One

The first Sunday since being remoted was another miraculous day of sleeping until 7am and another relaxing day where time zipped by too quickly. Coffee with apple-blueberry crisp, emails, Facebook Scrabble and my FB newsfeed managed to consume the morning. “Normal” Sundays would include coffee, a dry granola bar eaten in the car on the way to dance class, and a stop at the Townsend Family Dollar on the way home to restock frozen pizza, dog food, and paper supplies.

Remote Sunday One included a brief encounter with the great outdoors for turd herding in the yard. Luckily, the inventory was light and the task done quickly. This is the time of year when the outdoors is not my friend because nature is trying to kill me. Just like the previous Sunday during the same chore, the allergies kicked in almost immediately with a nasal situation that was simultaneously stuffy and runny. A retreat was sounded after about 15 minutes and sanctuary from the great outdoors sought in the confines and safety of the indoors.

While the outdoors has dog poop and allergens, the indoors has challenges of a different nature. A recent increase (obsession?) in the frequency of transforming ingredients into meals means there is presently too much food. Before being remoted, I cooked a couple different meals on Sundays and ate them for lunch and supper (with embellishments and additions during the week) until it was gone, usually around Thursday. The new remoted reality has me in the kitchen at 5:30 cooking new meals primarily for entertainment. The novelty could eventually wear off, but right now, it’s enjoyable with a dash of stress.

The freezer is full -- no starving here!

Remote Saturday One, the already excessive food situation had been exacerbated. The mailbox contained a single piece of mail – a brochure from a nearby pizza and sub shop. To avoid thinking about foraging in the fridge and freezer for supper, a visit was made to their website. A 15% online order discount was granted for signing up for alerts, and a “No Contact” delivery of toasted ravioli with marinara and a large pizza with my favorite toppings (pineapple and black olives) was soon on the way. Now most of that pizza is in the form of individually foil wrapped triangles wedged into the already full freezer, and several remaining ravioli and sauce reside in the fridge.

In spite of the excess food already on hand, the four-years long Sunday food prep habit kicked in anyway. There was still zucchini and butternut squash in the produce bin from the last produce delivery and another Misfits Market box scheduled to deliver on Wednesday, so something needed to happen.

A frustrating search through the recipe files for Mummu’s zucchini bread recipe did not produce the piece of paper I would have sworn a blood oath was housed therein. An index check of two vegetarian and six general cookbooks was also unfruitful.

An internet search yielded hundreds of recipes for zucchini bread and muffins. Each result forced the unfortunate viewer to wade through lengthy narratives about every person in the family who ever made the recipe in the past six generations before finally arriving at the Holy Grail of the ingredients list, which nearly all used something I am out of. In addition to the family genealogies, there is the pilgrimage through the now obligatory step-by-step videos, invitations to subscribe for updates, and multiple advertising popups to navigate before arriving at the instructions.

Zucchini noodles and other stuff.

There was 30 minutes of online aggravation using both phone and laptop. Half of the time involved trying to return to the one recipe where every ingredient was on hand in my pantry. I had gotten sidetracked by a column of other recipes on the side and accidentally clicked off the page I wanted, and couldn’t find again. Defeat was accepted. Instead of baking a bread or muffins, one zucchini was transformed into “zoodles” using the spiralizer I forgot I had until finding the little recipe guide for it. They were sautéed with onion, carrot, mushrooms, spinach, and roasted beets in a butter and olive oil mix. Of course there is some left over, as that is how the cooking thing seems to work here. I definitely won’t starve any time soon.