ktmoomau

I had thawed a beef pot roast- and had a plan for the weekend, which got interrupted by us ordering out some- which is fine. But it means we now have a lot of leftovers in the fridge to eat. So last night I used up some carrots I had cut into spears for Hubby and he hadn't eaten, the last of my cooking wine, some mashed potatoes I had frozen and made beef bourgnone in the instant pot. It was very tasty. The next couple meals will be left overs of that and some other odds and ends. I bought a bunch of hot dogs/sausages but forgot about the buns, so using some of my yeast and flour supply to make hot dog buns that I can then use and freeze.

We have been drinking through our beer and wine reserves slowly. We were lucky and had some beers from: Vassen, Aslin, Commonwelath, Old Ox, as well as a few other locals. I polished off our Corona Lights with our tacos. I have been drinking our Mountfair red blends, a few Paradise Springs Whites, and some other bottles we had mixed in. The other night I had some Mount Vernon apple brandy on the rocks.

Last night our virtual family happy our ran late, so pizza was a Miss Buzio's from Monterey's. I think the pizza here has decent crust, and good toppings. It can hold up to a few toppings. They have their own delivery service, so order through their own website!

Also, Amazon now opens up more spots during the day for delivery, not sure exactly what times.

Add Stachowski Sausage to the list of places delivering in Alexandria. They are delivering to other places in MD and NOVA, as well. https://www.stachowskisausage.com/

I ate the leftover ham and pea pasta cold with pickled beets added to it, and that was very good. I also had plain greek yogurt with canned peaches in syrup (my friends can these and they are soo good). Trying to decide what lunch today is...

Chop shop Taco is doing contactless take out. You can tell they are taking being clean and sanitary very seriously when you go to pick up. They have 4-5 Specials they are running. 1)Family Meal Deal, which includes- posole, chorizo, chicken, all the taco sides, a $25 GC 2)Beer Can Chicken Dinner 3)$12 meal deal which helps first responder meals too 4)Burger and Beer Deal. Last night they also had spit roasted pork. They also have their regular menu. They have great take out boxes for tacos that keep them separated by taco, and are cardboard so you can throw it all in the microwave for a few seconds. (Their other take out containers, similarly easy to microwave) We don't live far away and our tacos stayed together (you could ask for a few extra tortillas so you could double up if needed. We also got rice and beans, guacamole, salsa and chips. Their meats and accompaniments are all really good. We had a spit roasted pork taco, smoked brisket taco, chicken, fish, chorizo. The brisket and pork were spicy, but spicy good! The chicken and fish were fine- good even, but the smoked and roasted meats just really shined last night. If I was running lower on food than I am I would have gotten the family meal deal. This has been by far and away the best take out we have had so far, highly, highly recommend.

Trying to make a resource here for people, but I can't likely cover it all, so please feel free to add. Not including restaurants unless they are also doing pantry items or clothing stores. Was trying to focus on smaller places Delivery- General Groceries: Instacart, Safeway, Giant, Whole Foods- spots open at 3:30 am I think, Postmates, Cheesetique Beer and Wine: Dept of Beer and Wine, Unwined, also Cheesetique, Planet Wine Household Goods: See General grocery Beauty Products: Fun Stuff: Pet: The Dog Store Pick Up- General Groceries: Harris Teeter Express Lane- orders are approximately one week out at this point. Target, NRG Provisions, Cheesetique, Alexandria Farmer's Market. Beer and Wine: Brut, Grape and Bean, ABC Stores you can call in an order and pick up, Wine Gallery 108 Specialty: Spice and Tea Exchange Household Goods: Mason and Greens, Lowes (although they won't let you online order a lot of goods), Green Street Gardens, Beauty Products: Bellacara, Stylists at North, Salon Dezen, Pet: Old Towne School for Dogs (call in order, curbside pick up), The Dog Park, Fun Stuff: Old Town Books, Hooray for Books, AR Workshop, Kids Create, Red Barn, Penny Post, The Clay Queen, Fibre Space

Today was turkey on lavash with mayo, provolone, lettuce and pickles.

Last night was bean and cheese pupusas, served with a side salad of lettuce, sunflower seeds, roasted sweet potato, pickled onion and radish, feta and green goddess dressing.

NRGprovisions is now up and running, the site has a LOT to offer, which is pretty cool. Just FYI. Lena's is doing 50% of lots of bottles of wine, and growlers. They also have some family meal deals.

Well during this whole thing, I haven't been counting my points- groceries, especially chicken and eggs, are too hard to source for that. BUT I will say having been doing WW, I scrutinize what I eat and drink a good bit more than what I would have during this whole thing. I had just started my free trial week of crossfit when this whole thing went down. Also, my thyroid plummeted, causing me to go back to about 2 pounds under my starting weight, and had to go get meds and blood tests. It is super frustrating to have my body get off track just a bit and gain back 5 pounds over a super short period of time. But it is what it is, not a lot I can do about that. BUT I am back on track. I have been trying to do at least a 30 minute workout everyday. Some days I go run 3 miles outside (it's a slow run, but don't you dare tell me I am jogging, it feels like a run to me). With the new meds, I have lost 1 pound, so now down 3 pounds since my initial post, but I also can see I am losing some inches that haven't shown up on the scale yet, and I definitely look a little bit more fit. And I am definitely healthier than I was. So it's positive despite the lackluster number. And correction of the thyroid meds should help me continue to go down and not up. The struggle is real. I am trying really hard not to snack or over eat during this time, which is easy to do, but honestly I have been pretty good. Luckily we have a lot of healthy-ish snacks around the house still.

Today was a lavash wrap with: hummus, refried black beans, feta, roasted sweet potato, quick pickled radish and onion, leftover mint chutney from my Indian food, lettuce, cucumber and a little hot sauce. Next time more potato, feta and a little more sauce of some sort. Snack: more malted milk balls than I want to admit.

We got Lost Dog for lunch the other day, today was leftover beef vegetable soup with some cheese and crackers. Monday was a farmer's lunch of ham, baby belle, apple, biscuit.

Tonight was chicken fajitas- which are my love and joy. Mmmmm.

Last night was beef bulgogi. I used this recipe here: https://seonkyounglongest.com/ground-beef-bulgogi/ Served with sliced cucumbers, kimchi, seaweed salad and rice. Hubby loved it and ate it for lunch again today.

Yesterday was TJ's frozen falafel, warmed up (meh), on lavash rolls ups with hummus, green goddess dressing lettuce, roasted sweet potatoes and some pickles. It needed more tang, and we have more to use so, I pickled some shallots, radish and carrot in the fridge for next time.

So, I will say having gone through this, I would be much happier to support smaller shops over grocery stores for certain things, BUT I hope they also learn that online ordering platforms, and being willing to run something out to someone's car also make it a lot easier for people to shop at more local places- It is a fine balance, I know. It took me a week to get a HT Express lane order, and I still don't know what I am even getting, as it is tomorrow. I was so happy to be able to pick up some veggies from a Farmer's Market, if I knew what they had on a regular basis, and could choose what I wanted in my box and come and pick it up, I would do that way more often than going to a grocery store. Take note of that City of Alexandria... you could likely even get grant money for a program like that... (One reason I have never done a CSA is that Hubby has a strong dislike for a number of foods, so for instance the sweet potatoes we got this week, that's gonna be all on me to eat...) The ease of being able to pull up, give them my name, and get the box was amazing, but it would be even more amazing if I could select what was going in based on what they had (this is more for the summer where there is a lot more in options). Or have items from multiple vendors. For me dairy is a bit more tricky because I am lactose intolerant. If I wasn't I would get most of my cheese, milk, yogurt from Cheesetique right now. Alas, I kind of have to go big industry to get lactose free margarines, milk, some cheese, etc. Also Hubby is kind of basic (love him, but it's true) and I can't afford to spend money on really fancy cheese for every cheese, so we do get some basics from bigger stores- block cheddar, parm, gruyere or gouda. I WISH WISH WISH some smaller markets had better online ordering platforms so I knew what they had in stock and could place an Order. I am talk to you- Let's Meat (I get it your butchers not social media people or web people, still, just a daily white board picture of what's in stock would be marvelous guys), or put together a small "box" of multiple items for take out that you designate as like a weekly or bi-weekly box. And you Streets Market, etc. I would love to support Streets over HT, but have no idea what they have in stock and am not in store shopping right now. And you Dept of Beer and Wine, if you regularly delivered, we would order from you even more often. So I get it that this isn't the time that businesses have the money to evolve, but sometimes necessity is the Mother of invention... And if anyone knows of other good small shops doing nice ordering systems for take out, we should have a topic on that, or restaurants that have also opened pantry supplies... Maybe we could sort the topics by areas?

My box didn't have beets But it did have apples and sprouts instead, and Hubby loves apples, so good deal, plus I have canned beets.

We got Lost Dog sandwiches for lunch. Ordered through their website. Delivery was super fast, although to be fair, they are less than a mile away from us. Things travelled very well, but as they do a ton of take out anyway, I feel like they are potentially better at doing it well? We both got subs- note, you can customize pretty much any sandwich once you put it in your cart. I also got chips, which was so exciting, I have eaten a potato chip in like 3 weeks maybe? I don't normally have potato chips at home, the only time I ever eat them is at work when I am really stressed out or if we go out somewhere.

Just note, right now, you have to order ahead on their website in box sizes, and then just pick up.

In times like these, I am really ok with this, they have geared up their software to accommodate more restaurants quickly, to make it possible for a lot of restaurants to convert over. They are hiring drivers, and making sure there is availability in these strange times. If they need to take some profit to make this work for places that can't ramp up to provide their own delivery, and get to more people and places then take out would allow. I'll bite, especially right now.

Last night was ham and pea pasta from here that, I adapted to be non-lactose and waste a little less: 16 ounces Pasta 1/4 cup LF butter one small onion, minced 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour 1/2 cup LF milk and non-fat greek yogurt mixed together 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste 2 cups chopped ham 1-ish cup peas I boiled water, blanched the peas, took them out of the water, reserve pease, cooked the pasta in that water, reserved 2 cups of the pasta water, to sub in for the 1 cup plus of chicken broth in the recipe (I thought that a bit wasteful). Rinsed the pasta to stop cooking while I made the sauce. Melted butter, sauteed the onion in the butter 1-2 minutes until soft. Add the flour and whisk until cooked and turned golden 1-4 minutes. I then added about 1 cup of the pasta water while whisking. I then added in the milk-yogurt mix mix slowly still whisking and then the parm. Added more pasta water to thin out, salt and pepper to taste. Added pasta, ham and pea. stir. Viola. Grate a little parm and crack a little pepper on top once dished out to make it look pretty.

This surely can't be the main post for the Alexandria Farmer's Market, but this is what the index says. I ordered a box from Spring Valley Farm, you could drive up and get your box put in your car. The small box had- leaf lettuce, spinach, apples, cucumbers, sweet potatoes, tomatoes (one ripe, one I might be made into fried tomatoes to be honest), Brussel's sprouts and ramps. Excited to have some fresh veggies without having to have the anxiety of going into a store, or worrying about what may or may not be in stock when I get my Express Lane order.

I am dealing with clients who can't physically separate, and who already wanted a divorce, and now having to be home with the spouse they are supposed to be separated with is causing really big problems, a few have been quarantined due to their spouses having exposure at work sites, and this is squeezing already tight finances so I am not sure what this means for their future. I am so grateful there hasn't been any physical violence in any of my cases, but my heart is just going out to my clients and their kids right now.