The Pandemic Pantry: Cooking Covid-19 Style, Days 17 - 21

Here is part 2 of documenting my humble meals during this outbreak.  Generally, I tend to pick just one noteable meal or food item of the day to photograph.  I continue to stay at home in my small apartment.  I made it through the second half of March alright.  On April 1st, my workplace officially extended remote working arrangements to April 30th, but this was not a surprise.   Most of my food is based on nonperishables, and I will go to 23 days before getting fresh groceries; fingers crossed that my Save-on Foods delivery comes as scheduled on Tuesday as I'm excited about it.  I wonder if this will get me hooked on grocery delivery even after everything settles down.

Day 17: Tue Mar 31
H&H Thai Premium Mix dried fruit, pictured with Haribo Tangfastics.
I received a delivery of some pantry items from London Drugs, and I decided to try this dried fruit mix as I tend to miss fruit after a while, and dried fruit would hold me over until I get some fresh fruit.  I also have prunes.  I loved this mix.  There are big pineapple rings, and plump whole strawberries that seem more like a soft gummy candy than dried fruit.  The fruit was a better candy than the sour gummies in the photo.  I usually buy the imported Haribo Orangina gummies from London Drugs.  But I'll try to get this fruit mix again.  I'm not a big fan of the thick chunks of young coconut as they are bit on the hard side for me, but I ate them so they weren't that bad.

Day 18: Wed Apr 1
Congee with untraditional toppings - peanuts, cilantro, green onion, white pepper, tsukemono (Japanese pickles), bonito flakes, tortilla chips. chopped ground pork and mushroom patty.
This time I had peanuts, picked out of a nut mix, and pan roasted. Much better than my peanut butter substitute last time.

Nong shim black instant ramen with frozen mushroom wun tun and chive dumplings, frozen corn, carrots, tofu.  It seems like people really love this brand of Korean instant ramen, but I'll take plain Japanese Ichiban any day. Nong Shim does make an interesting milky soup, though. 

Day 19: Thu Apr 2
Pan-fried SPAM, sunny-side up eggs, frozen tater tots, canned baked beans, toast.
This was my first real adult taste of SPAM.  It's a food that people talk about these days a lot and I wanted to see what the fuss was all about.  People are fond of Hawaiian musubi, pan-fried SPAM on rice, with nori; subtle-Asian traits social media posts show it on soup noodles like ramen, or even some people are eating it uncooked, straight out of the can!  People talk about all the different flavours that are available in different places too.  I was hoping to like it, and I was careful about getting a really good sear on it, but I just didn't like this low sodium unflavoured SPAM.    I had two more meals from this can so see below for the progression.

A little music with dinner?  I tried switching to castanets from my desk bell for the daily 7 pm thank you cheer for essential services workers, especially health care professionals.  My cat runs under the bed when she starts to hear the cheers outside.  Yes, that's how loud it is; I really love how people are getting into it here in downtown Vancouver.  I was thinking that the bell sound was unpleasant for her.  I bought the castanets as a souvenir from Spain, but forgot that there is a particular way to play them.  So I guess I did learn a new instrument during this time, kind of.  For a new language, I'm going to work on my French on Duolingo, I think.

Day 20: Fri Apr 3
Canned spicy sweet dolmades in warm corn tortillas, mixed nuts, tortilla chips, and guava juice with soda water (unphotographed).
Earlier: shrimp noodles, frozen wun tun, tofu, carrots, hoisin and chili glazed SPAM in chicken broth (unphotographed).
I continued to experiment with the rest of the can of SPAM and managed to make it tasty with a sweet glaze (inspired by a suggestion that I could use teriyaki sauce to mimic the teriyaki-flavoured SPAM).  I pan-fried the thinner SPAM slices a long time so that it really compacted down and they had a dark crust all around and then added hoisin and chill sauce to glaze it in the pan  Success!  I treated the remainder of the spam the same way the next day.  Still don't think I'll be buying it again, not even for camping (I was hoping I would like it enough because it would be great for transporting without needing any refridgeration, and I could always fry it over the campfire, or maybe even cubes on a stick.  But I'm sticking with smokies in the cooler for now).  The dolmades and snacks was a lazy late dinner.  Also a new nonperishable item for me to purchase.  They were okay, but better wrapped in tortillas.  Maybe the plain ones would be better.  They have potential for camping, but the can was too big for one meal.  I'd rather bring smoked oysters.

Day 21: Sat Apr 4
Sunny-side up eggs, hoisin and chilli-glazed SPAM, rice with furikake and shredded nori.  Paired with pour-over coffee with sweetened condensed milk.  Again, having time to make rice in the morning for breakfast is wonderful.  I enjoyed this breakfast a lot.  Also enjoyed trying out my new double-walled mug that I received by delivery. I'm still having sweetened condensed milk in my coffee until I get my grocery delivery with milk.  Running out of milk is pretty typical for me, even in pre-pandemic times.  My old bag of shredded teriyaki-flavoured nori was sticking and clumping, so I used my new bag here on the rice, and blitzed up the old stuff to make small flakes to sprinkle.  I would like to buy some finely shredded nori, but this was all that I found the last time I looked. I can't believe I've spent three full weeks at home, and it's looking like at least three more weeks are to come.

Later, I had the last of my Indian restaurant delivery food - lamb rarra gosht and my UN of pickles (Japanese, my take on "Vietnamese", Californian, and a Greek olive).  Served with chai from a teabag with a couple of extra cardamom seeds, and ice tea.