Food

Grocery Delivery…during a pandemic….my sanitizing protocol

Mr Clean

My homes Mr. Clean – going to retrieve an RX.

Up until the Covid-19 pandemic I had only used grocery delivery one time- and that was when Kevin and I became ill at the same time when we were at our home in Delaware. There was NO way either of us could get out and buy the clear soup, graham crackers, gingerale , and tummy meds we needed to combat the bug that ailed us.

At that time I automatically used what we now call social distancing – I asked the driver to drop off the groceries at the front door – and run! Well I may not have explained it exactly that way but I did explain the need to drop and leave.  The driver had no problem with that request!

In the midst of this pandemic we have begun to use the InstaCart grocery service again in hopes that this and the Hello Fresh we have delivered each week will keep us from needing to go out to the grocery store.   I like InstaCart thus far. The driver/shopper is very good at finding replacements for my items and checking with me if they are ok.  I can even add something on while they are still shopping.  As they shop you can see each item in the list being checked off in the app. Each time they have shopped for me they have been on-time or early with the delivery.

But what to do when you get the items delivered? How do I safely bring them all inside? Could the virus be lurking on my food?

Well I can’t take any chances  because my mother – who has underlying health conditions  -lives here with us. So I began to read up on suggestions on the safe handling of groceries and also carryout or delivered meals. I read many many suggestions and I decided I had to figure out which things made the most sense to me.  Everyone is going to have different needs and some may think what I do is too much or maybe not enough. But let me tell you it’s a job doing the protocol I have decided on.

Here it is-

First I had the delivery person(s) leave the groceries by my garage -the first time it was on the front porch -but the garage makes it easier for me to sanitize and offload items that go into our garage fridge.  I donned disposable gloves, took the Clorox wipes out with me to the garage. I then took out items in the bags that could go in the garage fridge and I wiped them with the wipes. Then placed in the fridge. Just to note – all produce went into the house to be cleaned in the sink with water. I tossed away the bags – which bums me out because we normally save many of them for other uses but not now.  I Clorox wiped the handles of the fridge.

Next I took in the bags of items that needed to go inside and I decided to have a designated landing area in the kitchen where the bags would go. I chose next to my fridge near the garbage drawer to make access to both easier. I unloaded the bags and all items were wiped with Clorox wipes -and put away. I then tossed away all the bags – Clorox wiped the floors, fridge handles and anywhere inside the fridge that I touched. I then tossed gloves away.

All produce was cleaned in the sink. I scrubbed the banana’s too – we will see how they turn out – lol. Then I washed my hands and then put away all the produce. Then wiped the counters with a Clorox wipe, and the fridge door handle again and inside the fridge, and the garbage handle and wiped the floors where the bags were (ok prob overkill), I wiped all doorknobs I touched between kitchen and the garage. Washed hands again.

Then I had five shots of vodka. No just kidding I had six…not really –  I did sit down with some ice water and lamented to my mom that it was at least a pert – time job just to put away groceries. If I had shopped for them too I  would have used even more precautions. I was tired! I just wanted chocolate.

I am sure many of you can relate to this new scenario. If this isn’t new to you then I bow to your sanitizing expertise.  In the new world  – after this pandemic is over – Ebbed? – I know I will take some of this new found sanitizing with me and continue being mindful of germs. I hope the stores allow shoppers to use their own bags again because I felt terrible tossing the bags in the trash. I did recycle some the first time we got delivery but then I thought maybe that wasn’t good for those workers that sort the recycle stuff. I guess I need to google about that. Google will have opinions en masse.

Then I read a whole thing about takeout/delivery food. What I have done is like with the groceries – had a landing area, removed food container from the bags. Tossed bags. Removed the food from the containers and put on clean plates and tossed containers. Then cleaned landing area and garbage drawer handle.  Washed my hands. Then ate my meal.  I also have been ordering hot food. I love sushi and salads but worry getting those in takeout. Might they harbor germs?

We have been getting boxes delivered too – and we are doing the landing spot and sanitizing those items as well. The boxes get broken down and put in the garage for disposal. As for the Hello Fresh- we put the boxes in the garage and then we put the meals which are bagged in the garage fridge. When we bring this in to cook we wash produce (as normal) and fix the meal and toss away the bag. Sanitize the area where we prepped. Wash hands and eat.  I have less worry about the HF because by the time it gets to us and we get to preparing it any virus has likely dies.

It is all so scary really.  I try to stop my mind being 24/7 virus. But it is so hard when so many things we have to do have the extra layer sanitizing.  Today I went out in the car to a drive-thru pharmacy. I wore disposable gloves. We brought masks in case we had to go into the store for some reason.

I wash my hands so much! I thought I was a hand washer before!  I know you all can relate. I might be doing too much or not enough…how am I to know. There are no guarantees we will not get this thing. I hope there is some promise to the medication protocols they have been mentioning and hopefully a vaccine as soon as they can have one.

In the meantime I will be Mrs. Clean and hubs Mr. Clean and my mom is already Grandma Clean which is why we have lots of hand sanitizer- before this pandemic she was a germaphobe and I don’t blame her, she does have underlying health issues.

I will say I soooo appreciate the grocery delivery service and the people who are doing the shopping. The tips are large on Instacart- you can change the suggested tip- but I think any shopper who will do this for strangers in a pandemic deserves the tip. God Bless them and all who are out the working and caring for others.

Much luck as you discover your sanitizing protocols!

Stay safe – ❤

 

 

FASTING ON VACAY?

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Burger from B&D Burger

I decided that Myrtle Beach is the pancake capital of the US.  We began to count the number of pancake houses,..thats how plentiful they are. Sadly we did not eat at any of these places on our visit. It’s not for the lack of love of the pancake- I love me some pancakes.  If they weren’t dog (Rudy – my golden is with us) friendly – then we weren’t going.

 

So oddly and without real reason other than Kevin was doing it- I decided to try intermittent fasting and began it the week before our two week Sweeney South East Tour 2020  (or SSET 2020).  It is so fun to try to fast 16 hours and squeeze meals into our eating window – fancy name- while traveling. Its like a challenge and not at all stupid and stressful! I even have an app to help me track the fasts.  I think it only had to remind me to eat once – my stomach wasn’t forgetting!

We have been lucky and have found some great places to eat that allowed dogs and I have broken my fasts with bagel sandwiches and coffee twice (Myrtle Beach) and  croissant sandwiches another morning (Mount Pleasant SC)and today we had pies in Saint Augustine, FL.  An Australian vibe restaurant that makes pies of all kinds and they are filled with meats and veggies and eggs – whatever you choose. They were really good. In Fort Lauderdale it was Panera and another just ok Coffee shop. Orlando an awesome small cafe.  I am getting too addicted to coffee again- I usually drink Chai tea – and the crashes I am getting late PM from the caffeine are not pretty!  When I get home I am back to my tea. 

I have really no idea why I am intermittent fasting! I think I was hoping it would spur some weight loss.  I have some stubborn pounds that won’t let go despite my increased activity level. I have not seen that result as yet. Maybe because I am not really watching calories on my trip. I do eat sensibly mostly but geez I am on vacay!

But I do know there are some other good things about fasting – I am a novice- but I do know there are some anti-cancer properties. I do feel maybe less tired in the day. Maybe a bit more energy (or that could be the coffee I reward myself with when I break the fast. At home usually drink Chai. )

So as we weave our way south and back up north I plan to keep to the fasting. Today it was only 14 hours but I am not really going to be a fasting nazi especially on vacation.  I know I am a nutter for trying to stick to that on a trip but Kevin is an inspiration.  But there are pancakes in my future on this trip if I find a place that is dog friendly. Rudy would gladly have some pancakes.

I think there are 1,021 pancake places in Myrtle Beach…I am lying – I lost count at like 40!

—-And it is official – MB is the pancake capital! I have been to 5 cities In SC, GA, and FL, since I began this post and NO city has the number of pancake houses as MB has!

I am not gonna lie I have been eating just fine during my eating window! Last night I had salmon and jasmine rice and Kevin had amazing fish and chips. Tonight in Savannah we ate at a burger place called B&D burgers that had a huge dog friendly patio and Rudy was the prince of the palace there.

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Rudy Patio Dining

Everyone wants to pet Rudy and he knows it! The food was awesome.  Fried green tomato and pimento cheese sliders for me along with a spinach salad where Rudy had the chicken! Burger for hubby.

I think when I get home I can get more serious about this fasting thing! Well what I eat during the fancy eating window!

Pinterest Recipe Review: chicken (pork) and broccoli stir fry

https://pin.it/kikwpu365nzqh3

Ok so I have this idea and clearly I haven’t thought it out clearly yet but this year I want to blog about different stuff. Just go outside what I normally write about. So I decided as part of that I was going to review Pinterest recipes. I’m surely not the only person who does this. But I just feel like trying it so I’m going to.

I need to be better about taking pictures of the food before we all dive into here at Glory View Farm. I have a Frittata recipe that I cooked but forgot to take pictures.

The fun thing is that I often make changes to recipes and sometime that’s a blunder. The frittata was one of those. Well people ate it but – maybe I’ll write about that one next! No pictures.

So maybe I’ll get better at this as I go along. But here goes.

I posted the recipe link above. I love Pinterest it has been my guide to many things in my life especially redesigning our home. Much of my inspiration comes for there.

So I pin and pin recipes. And I’ll warn you I am no chef. Not even a great cook I like to cook but don’t want to have to cook – does that even make sense?

So when I want to cook I plan out my meals and I use Pinterest a lot for ideas.

Case in point. I got a new stir fry pan for Christmas. Thank you Santa! And I wanted to try it out. So I picked out a chicken and broccoli stir fry from Pinterest. And I wrote the ingredients on a shopping list.

I want to also say that now the my boys are in college (home now on break) we shop more often but buy less stuff. So I try to plan 2-3 meals and shop for this while picking up other sundries like almond milk and bread as needed. It may be helping our bottom line grocery expenditure i am still in the process of figuring it out.

I mention this bc I was in a hurry to plan these meals that included the chicken broccoli stir fry and I had another chicken meal planned so last minute so I decided to make it pork instead of chicken because I don’t want an overload of chicken. I try to vary it’s up. I’ve Been eating less meat as well. I haven’t had the taste for it for some reason. So anyway I digress -we decided to change to pork so we picked up a pack of pork stew meat and that was that.

Stir fry is very easy. You cut up stuff and toss it in oil until it cooks up and you throw in some sauce. I love that something this simple yields such a good outcome.

We started by cooking the jasmati rice first as that takes longer to cook. Obviously you could serve this with many types of rice and I am also a big fan of rice noodles too.

My husband -Kevin- acts as my asst and cuts up the veggies and washes most of the dishes. Sometimes when I cook I create a huge mess. I use so many dishes. So I say yes to anyone who wants to help me clean up. Sadly bc Of arm nerve damage I really can’t always complete the full task of prepping, cooking and cleaning up. So it’s nice to have help.

In this recipe I learned to cook the veggies first in the oil. In the past I had done it backwards. I like this because the meat doesn’t have to be warmed back up the veggies do but that is faster.

So we began with some oil on medium high heat in my stir fry pan (it’s not an official wok so I won’t call it that! ) we tossed in the veggies. Oh I forgot to mention we added peppers to the broccoli just because we had some in the crisper. I think I should have done the broccoli first and then added the peppers halfway through the broccoli stir fry but I added them all together. Nothing got mushy but that was luck and me watching closely.

When the veggies were cooked we set the then aside in a bowl that I covered with a paper towel in hopes they wouldn’t get too cold. And then we added the meat into some more heated oil in the pan and throughly cooked it up. This is when you add the sauce. It asked to move the pork to the sides of the pan and put the sauce in the middle and let it thicken.

So about the sauce. I mixed that up in a bowl. The hoisin, soy, cornstarch and garlic-etc. We had twice as much meat and veggies so I did double the recipe- but in the end I feel I should have made more. I like my stir fry saucy. I added more hoisin onto my portion but it wasn’t as good as the sauce.

Going back to the pan and adding the sauce. Mine thickened fast. So I tossed the meat with it then added the veggies. Let it cook covered on low medium for a minute or two (until veggies coated and heated back up ) and it was ready to serve. Some rice and then the stir fry on top.

I really liked the outcome even with less sauce than I would have liked.

I did place soy sauce and hoisin and toasted sesame on the counter for people to add as the desired.

It was a hit with the family as well. The boys don’t tell me but if it’s almost gone I know.

I didn’t even take pictures of this until we had dug into it. But the recipe is attached here and there are plenty of photos in that.

I will get better at this or maybe I won’t! But I’ll try.

I give this recipe 👍👍👍👍 thumbs up. It could be a five if I had been better with the sauce. But it was a 👍👍👍👍👍 as far as the family food consumers were concerned.

Thanks for reading!

(Def my photos need to be better!)