What’s in Your Pantry and Fridge

Due to the situation we are faced right now, this is the best time to check What’s in Your Pantry and Fridge.

The way we live our lives for the next few weeks or months will be altered or disrupted temporarily. How long, nobody knows. One way or another, we (except for the immature) will learn something from this horrible experience.

It’s like a storm, we know it’s here just don’t know when it will hit us hard. There are uncertainties, we don’t know what tomorrow holds.

There are terms I am not mentioning, as a blogger there are policies I need to abide to. This post was ready more than week ago but had to rephrase the whole post. Anyway,

Some people took it seriously, some did not. It is sad to see and hear what is happening globally. It is something we never thought would happen in our lifetime.

Because of the uncertainties, grocery shopping is one that is tough to do right now. I haven’t been out for 2 weeks. There’s no food shortage, but shelves are empty.

Some of us, don’t want to run errands to protect our self and family members especially our elders.

As a food blogger, I have some supplies and tons of seasonings. I normally do my grocery shopping weekly for meat and produce. Years ago, when meat were on sale, I stocked up a few packages especially steak.

Now, when I buy meat I like to use it right away. I don’t like it sitting in my freezer for more than 2 weeks.

I try to limit my meat on the 4^th bin of my freezer or even if I wanted more, my freezer is packed with leftover ingredients from previous cooking. The 1^st two bins are frozen kale, fruits, eggnog, buttermilk, vegetables from my garden, beef and shrimp broth and much more.

My goal at the end of last year was to clear my freezer, either I make smoothie daily or just toss away most of it. But it is not in my nature to throw good food, I did some like frosting and other stuff that I forgot to label. Now I wished I kept those frosting so when I run out of bread, I can make muffins and slap the frosting. Oh well, to late now.

As much as possible, I want to stay indoors while this is going on. This is the best time to use up everything that’s in my pantry and fridge.

In the next few weeks, I will be posting recipes with some ingredients not in season. BE CREATIVE substitute it with something you have.

I have many recipes I haven’t posted yet, waiting for the right season or images I took were just OK and I'm not sure if I want it posted or not. Now, it will be posted with the limited supplies I have on hand.

When this crisis was happening in Asia, I was glued online and constantly watching news on TV. One thing I noticed was their grocery store shelves were empty.

Growing up, my parents always had canned goods for emergencies as the Philippines is always riddled with typhoons.

Due to what I was seeing in the news, I had an early head start. Two weeks before the grocery chaos started, I bought canned goods and meds for my allergy. I wished I doubled up on cough syrup.

It is not unusual for me to have sardines, canned salmon, canned tuna, corn beef, spam or dried fish. I have days when I get lazy cooking or just tired of any saucy dish. These are my quick go-to food especially sardines.

I don’t keep soda in my house but 2x a month I get a can of Coke in the vending machine at Walmart. This time though, I bought 2 cases of Coke so when craving strikes, I don’t have to go to the store as often as I would like to.

I did not buy any household essentials like tissue, wipes or bleach. One advantage of having a Costco and Sams Club membership, I get it in bulk so I have most of it and I was able to avoid the long lines.

So, What’s in Your Pantry and Fridge

This is the best time to be creative when it comes to cooking. There’s no food shortage but lately it's hard to come by.

Don’t panic, check first what’s in your pantry and fridge. I’m sure you will find something you’ve been procrastinating to make or use.

1. Take inventory of what’s in your freezer and fridge. Organize them and see what you can use first.

2. If you have stuff in your fridge that will go bad, use it first or freeze it. This is not the time to waste food. Things we took for granted a month ago are precious now.

3. Organize your pantry and organize all your canned goods by expiration date. Use them up before making a trip to the store.

Don’t go crazy stocking up when you have so much in your pantry and fridge. Save your money and don’t waste those hard earned goods.

4. Seasonings

This is the best time to use up all your seasonings. Like I said, I haven’t been out for 2 weeks so I really don’t know how my local grocers are stocking up. Plus, it is best to stay at home for now.

I was talking to my neighbor from a distant while he was picking lemons from their lemon tree. I asked him if he has been to the grocery store and he was telling me which store to go to where there’s hardly anyone.

They are morning people, I’m not so by the time I go, it’s probably all gone. I told him, I have no plans since I want to use up all my leftover ingredients from previous cooking.

Anyway, once I run out of garlic and onions, time to use my seasonings. This is a great time to experiment with all your seasonings sitting in your pantry waiting to expire.

5. If you have flour, go make bread, muffin, cakes etc. Flour can go bad, so use it.

6. Gather up all your opened pasta boxes and use them first.

What Can You Do At Home?

I’ll name a few but I’m sure there are many things you can do from home.

1. Cook - For more easy recipes, check out my RECIPE INDEX.

2. Declutter – do your spring cleaning.

3. Garden – If you noticed, I haven’t post much. I’ve been busy preping my garden since end of February and planted some vegetables.

I don’t spray chemicals in my backyard and because of all the rain we got lately, weeds are growing crazy. While pulling these weeds, I was hoping they were veggies.

My neighbor has a lemon tree and ¼ of it is hanging in my yard. This tree probably has 500 lemons, often falling in my yard. A few months ago, I trimmed some branches and end up with maybe a 100 lemon. I felt bad throwing it and after sitting for 2 weeks outside I decided to juiced it and poured it over weeds growing in my garden.

No, it didn’t kill the weeds. In fact, the weeds looked more healthier.

But anyway, I looked at this lemon now as precious. I can juice it and boost my immune system.

4. Adopt a pet – Please DON’T adopt a pet, only to surrender the poor thing after this crisis is over. They have feelings too. They will bring joy to your life with or without a crisis. So please, keep it if you go this path.

She was attacked by something (coyote, owl or eagle) with 3 big wounds on one side of her leg. The person who said will adopt her never offered to take her to the vet, so I did and she never went back in that parking lot again.

I took her to the Vet and the doctor tried to convinced me not to adopt a feral cat since there are many good cats in the shelter.

I've seen this cat interact with people. She's like a dog. I am glad I gave her that chance. She is a playful, intelligent, loving cat. Finally, she has a forever home. I've had her for 5 years now.

They loved her but none of them adopted her maybe because of the superstitious belief with black cats. I don't believe in superstitious beliefs. She brought joy and good luck to me!

5. Educate yourself – Luckily, we have the internet. This is the best time to learn something.

6. Do what you’ve been planning to do but never had time to do it – No, I’m not referring to travel or being out there.

7. If your New Years Resolution is to eat healthy or loose weight, this is also the best time to do it. I know it can get boring in isolation and we tend to pass the time eating. Take advantage of this time, eat sensibly and in moderation, after all, we need to save food to last for a while instead of being out there. Also, DON’T WASTE FOOD.

8. Watch the news!

We are all looking for normalcy but it will come if we all COOPERATE and USE COMMON SENSE. Follow the CDC Guidelines. Educate yourself, if you are not fully aware "YET" what is really happening.

We had a strong economy before this crisis. Maybe if we all abide with the guidelines and quickly solve this issue, MAYBE the economy can bounce back quickly (that's being optimistic).

I have mentioned above I was talking to my neighbor from a distant, I asked him he wants parsley, oregano and rosemary from my garden. He said, he'll stop by if I want and he'll pick it up. I said, NO, if you are not there (in the backyard), I'll hang it by your lemon tree.

This is not the time to PHYSICALLY SOCIALIZE. I don't want to contaminate my house from people coming from the outside or me going to their place. My allergy is so bad, I can't deal with spraying Lysol or disinfectant everywhere.

Even my mail doesn't go directly inside the house. I go to the mailbox wearing gloves, spraying the outside and inside of mailbox including mail with Lysol.

Placing mail in a box then plastic, then it goes directly in my backyard. I let it sit there for a while under the sun. Once I open it, only the important documents are brought inside my house.

I know it could be OVERKILL to some, but I would rather take these precautions than be sorry. Many have handled these mails before it got into my mailbox. Even before this epidemic, it takes me 3 weeks to pickup my mail, at least I don't have to do this routine daily.

Hopefully, we can learn something about life once this is all over. People are loosing their jobs, closing their business or dying unexpectedly, we need to stop whining about being isolated or not able to do what we want.  We need to make sacrifices sometimes.

Life is not always a smooth ride. Who would expect, we will be faced with this. It is how we deal with it and how we bounce back, is what counts.

This is NOT JUST ABOUT YOU, it is happening to all of us, so take it SERIOUSLY and BE RESPONSIBLE.

STAY HOME (if you can) AND BE SAFE.