Tomorrow is shopping day. It’s been over two weeks and we are down to nothing. We could probably scrape by for another day or two if we had to, but pickings are slim. I never used to worry about shopping day, or even think about it really. If I forgot something on the list, no big deal, just grab it the next time I’m out or the following week when I go shopping again. Now it’s different. Trying to only go shopping every two weeks or less makes things tough.

There’s this added stress of being sure not to forget anything. There’s the added stress of getting to the store and realizing half the stuff you need isn’t available anyway. There’s the stress of going to multiple stores just to get enough food to feed your family of four for two weeks, especially with the limitations many stores are putting in place.

We run out of the fresh stuff right away, of course. And that’s fine. We can limp along on frozen veggies and fruit. Not as delicious and probably not as nutritious, but totally doable. Still, for someone like me who lives a nearly vegan lifestyle for most of the day, not having that fresh stuff starts to really wear on me. Like right now, even though I just had a bite of Lily’s Dark Chocolate, oh my god so good, I’m still craving raspberries.

Why raspberries?

I have no idea. They aren’t my favorite. I rarely buy them because they tend to go bad immediately whereas the other berries seem to last at least a week. But the lack of fresh stuff has me getting these crazy cravings.

The other day we had zucchini that was about a day from needing to be chicken feed instead of people feed, so I made these “brownies” with them…epic. So freaking good. It got my kids and husband eating veggies and it was amazing. So definitely making those again. But the thing that’s weird is that no one else craves the veggies and fruit like I do.

In the mornings I have a breakfast of veggies fried up in avocado oil with some garlic, salt, and pepper. Then I put kimchi or salsa on top. So delicious. But I’ve been told it’s not breakfast. Why not? Because it doesn’t have eggs. Pfft. It’s totally a scramble or a skillet or whatever you want to call it, sans eggs. And it’s delicious. And I crave it.

Luckily even without fresh stuff I can usually get away with canned beans and artichokes, frozen spinach and broccoli, and then I throw in either frozen corn or peas or whatever. It’s a super easy thing to cook, I can eat a ton of it, and it has been keeping me full through to early afternoon when I can usually get away with a snack of nuts or something to tide me over til dinner.

Because in addition to only going grocery shopping every two weeks or less I’m also trying to only eat two meals a day. If I get a late start on breakfast or a huge breakfast, it usually works. It lets our food go a bit further and if I do the late breakfast thing then it’s good for my body as a kind of mini-fast.

What changes have you had to make to your eating with this whole pandemic?

~~~That’s one hour~~~