The stages of the pandemic have been a little bit like the stages of grief. Denial, anger, sadness, acceptance…I’m not sure of the exact order.
And I feel like cooking during the pandemic has had stages, too: boxed brownies, cocktails, vegetarian, takeout, seasonal fruit, meal planning.
If you’re like me, every week you feel a little different motivation. Sometimes you’re motivated to cook and bake and make some comfort food. Some weeks, you just want to reset your eating and reach for greens and lean proteins. And then sometimes, you just can’t fathom cooking anything yourself, and you’re all over your favorite takeout app.
I think this cycle is normal, or you should hold on to whatever part of it feels normal to you. All we can do these days is ride the waves and find comforting patterns wherever we can.
Here are some of the things that have been “comforting patterns” around food for us recently:
- Peach smoothies for breakfast – I’ve been really into these since I bought some late-season peaches that were texturally awful. I chopped them up, froze them and have been blending with frozen banana, yogurt, oat milk and a little vanilla extract for a perfectly creamy and healthy breakfast. I need to put my exact recipe on the blog soon!
- Back into baking – August was a whirlwind of a month where I wasn’t able to cook much, so I’ve been coming into September swinging with my baking. I whipped up some Banana Loaf with some old nanners, made my favorite/BA’s best brown butter chocolate chip cookies at my husband’s request and made a batch of Break & Bake Trail Mix Cookies for my freezer and my stomach. I hope you are finding some goodness in baking these days. It’s nice to have some normalcy there and have extra to share.
- More seafood in the meal plan – We’ve been trying to work seafood back into our weekly meal plan, and thanks to my grocery store’s freezer section, we’ve been able to do that. We just made this honey garlic shrimp last week, and the packets of sockeye salmon I’ve been getting have made it super easy to defrost salmon for garlic butter salmon or pan-fried salmon on weeknights. These shrimp tacos are also clutch for frozen shrimp!
- Grill all the things – Although we’re just dipping our tow into fall here in NC, it’s still great grilling weather. We’ve been taking advantage by grilling lots of things, from marinated chicken to farmers market veggies to sweet potatoes. Everything comes out tasting fiery (in a good way) and like the last bit of summer.
I hope it’s been interesting or inspiring to peruse what we’ve been eating, and I hope that you can find moments of comfort in your cooking and meal prep this week.