Feeding a Family in The Time of Coronavirus

My son and I both struggle with asthma which places us both in the "underlying health conditions " category of people that need to be extra careful not to get coronavirus.  So we are really staying away from people and public spaces.  At this point our entire country is being strongly encouraged to do the same.  My family is even staying away from grocery stores as much as possible.

Thanks to all the food storage we have been purchasing and using for a few years now, it is not hard for us to stay away from the grocery store.  For years now, I have been a regular customer of Thrive Life.  I've had a shipment of freeze dried meat, vegetables, fruits, grains, or legumes come automatically, every month.  It's high quality food that I have been using in my regular meal prep for years.  So now that I need to rely on it, it's no big deal.  My family hasn't even noticed the change.

For recipes that require meat or vegetables, I just substitute the freeze dried version and add a little more liquid.  All the meals we've made with our freeze dried food have been delicious.  No one here is suffering and they haven't even noticed.

I find some big advantages to using Thrive Life freeze dried foods.  Here's where I begin promoting them.  Not trying to hide that.  But my motivation is to help people.  I truly find these products helpful and I think you might too. I am technically a consultant with this company and if you want to, you can order things from my consultant website but that is not why I'm sharing this today. You can also talk to your friend who is a consultant or just go to www.thrivelife.com. If you want to get on monthly deliveries, which I recommend, go here.

Here are the things I love about Thrive Life foods

1. High quality, pesticide free.  Tasty and healthy.
2. No washing, peeling, defrosting, chopping or other prepping. 
3. Super-fast to cook with.  Last minute meal prep is the standard. And I don't need to devote hours to meal prep, just a few minutes.
4. Even if I can't get to the store, like now, I can cook with meat and vegetables.  We aren't limited to rice and beans.  (Although we're big fans of rice and beans here).
5. IMHO freeze dried foods and Instant Pots were made for each other.  The steam of the Instant Pot ensures that the food is fully rehydrated.  When I cook in the Instant Pot, every last corner of the food is fully hydrated.  My family is picky.  They wouldn't eat it, if it wasn't good.  The Instant Pot is a miracle all on it's own.  It cooks food so fast!  It makes food delicious!  Put freeze dried food in it and it goes even faster with equally tasty results.  It just couldn't be faster or easier to cook dinner. 

Here is a recipe I adapted with help from my Thrive Life consultant, Debbie Abbot.  I hope this gives you an idea of how to adapt some of your favorite recipes so you can use freeze dried foods with an Instant Pot to make amazing food with food storage.

Dairy-Free Instant Pot “Butter” Chicken
(using freeze dried ingredients)

You can substitute butter and cream for the coconut oil and coconut cream but this recipe really is so good as written. And coconut products are more food-storage friendly. This recipe serves 6-8 people. If your family is small, you could halve this recipe but the leftovers are really good. I say just make it all and get two or more meals out of it!

1. Combine in the IP

• 3 cups tomato dices (freeze-dried or canned)
• 3cups chicken (freeze-dried)
• ½ t ginger powder
• 2 t turmeric
• 1 t cayenne pepper
• 2 t smoked paprika
• 2 t salt
• 2 t garam masala seasoning
• 2 t cumin
• 4 ½ c water (or chicken broth)

2. Put in an Instant Pot Steamer insert like this one (I divide these ingredients between the two parts of the insert. You could also make the rice separately on the stove or in a rice cooker.)

• 4 c rice
• 6 c water or chicken broth
• 2 t salt (if using water)
• 2 T coconut oil (if using water)

3. Set the IP steamer insert in the IP on top of all the other ingredients. Close the IP valve and turn the IP on manual for 15 minutes (It would probably work in as little as 8 minutes but I’m not usually in THAT big a rush and to ensure the rice is totally cooked, I do 15 minutes.

When the IP is done cooking, open the valve for a quick release of the pressure. When the pressure has completely released, remove the IP lid, using an oven mit, lift out the IP steamer insert and check that rice is perfectly steamed. If you have forgotten to put the sealing ring in or something (who would do that?! oh wait, me 😝) and found that things weren’t done cooking, just fix the problem, put the insert back in, put the IP lid back on and set it on manual for another 5-10 minutes. Once the rice is done, the chicken will definitely be done. Take out the IP steamer insert. Stir in the following until all combined.

• 2 t garam masala seasoning
• ½ c freeze-dried cilantro or ¼ c typical dried cilantro
• 1 c coconut oil
• 1 c coconut cream
• Serve the chicken over the rice. Enjoy!

I hope that inspires you to try cooking with freeze-dried foods and maybe even adapt some of your favorite recipes.  Really, all you do is forget all the prep time and add liquid.

If you haven't already,  I highly recommend that you sign up for monthly deliveries from Thrive.  So worth it!  Because this food is useful all the time, not just in a time of crisis, it makes sense to me to buy it regularly.  And then, when there is a crisis, you have more than enough to see you through it and you know how to use it - it really isn't complicated.  I don't know about you but I'm getting the impression this pandemic is going to drag on for awhile and I suspect, even when it is past, we will see more disruptions to life as we knew it.   I think we are finding a new normal.

If you are interested in the business opportunity (which I hear is going quite well right now) talk to my consultant, Debbie Abbott.  

What I Don't Do

I discovered, in the last few years, that the secret to getting a lot done is in what you don’t do.  Whenever I find a new, inspiring friend who seems to accomplish amazing things and who I’d like to emulate in one way or another I try to learn what it is she doesn’t do and this helps me determine if/how I could also do some of things she does.

It’s a fact that we all have the same 24 hours a day to do things.  How we each spend that time varies wildly.  No one can do it all.  And there are times in life when the choices you made earlier mean you don’t have a lot of wiggle room now, like when you have a houseful of babies and toddlers, a really demanding job that you want to keep, or a time-consuming volunteer assignment.  Yes, some people can operate on less sleep, work faster, or multi-task but that really doesn’t explain how most of the “amazing ones” do what they do.  Their secret is in what they don’t do.

Please don’t think I’m trying to lump myself in with the “amazing ones” as I share my don’t list.  I just thought it might be helpful to know all the things I don’t do.  I’ve traded a lot of things in for more time and I’m generally happy with the choices I’ve made.  Also, I am NOT suggesting that my choices are “the best ones” or trying to convince anyone to make the same ones.  I’m thinking for myself and I want to inspire others to think and choose for themselves, which means we will likely choose different things.

1.  I’m not very social. 

Other than 3 nights a month for booklcubs/classes with my home school group, I don’t do much socially.  When my husband is not at work (nights and weekends) we spend time as a family.  On occasion we get together with another family but not that often.  Most evenings are divided between time together and time where we aren’t interacting but are in the same room doing our own things.  This is when I get a lot of reading done.

2.  I don’t do my hair or wear makeup, often.

My college roommates would really laugh at this.  Back in those days I would spend over an hour every morning on hair and makeup and then after school, wait for it, I would take a shower and do it all again so it would be “fresh” for my evening social activities.  Ridiculous, I know.

After brain surgery I had a shaved patch of hair on the back of my head and had to wear an eye-patch for a couple months, which totally defeated the purpose of doing hair or makeup so I didn’t.  I lost a lot of vanity and it became a habit and I found better ways to use that time in the morning.  I do makeup for church, dates with my husband, and anytime I want to look my best but I think my kids prefer me in a chair with a book than in the bathroom with hair and makeup done.  I don’t really care what random strangers think of my looks and I know my friends love me regardless.  My husband loves me either way but I know he appreciates my efforts for our dates.  Looking my best is one way I show respect for God, hence makeup for church.  My hair is finally growing in more normally and I desperately need a haircut but I don’t think I will go back to the days of blow-drying and flat ironing.

3.  My house is not that clean.

I hope this will not always be the case but I’m not willing to give a lot more time to it than I already do.  Ideally, one day, I will have enough storage for everything in the house to have a neat, accessible, place behind closed doors but today, I don’t. So I’ve purged and purged and purged but I still don’t have a good place for everything which means there is a bit of clutter about which makes cleaning a little more difficult.  And, I have very active baby/toddler twins that I must watch while they are awake. As my children get older, they will help with a lot of cleaning but that’s a few years off.  So I try to keep the kitchen and bathroom sanitary, not necessarily pretty, and the living room and bedrooms get picked up once a day and vacuumed 2-4 times a month.  Laundry gets done every week but not always folded and put away.

4.  My family doesn’t have a lot of clothes.

This is my secret for getting all the laundry done in a day.  When the twins were first born, we all had way too many clothes.  It became possible to do two loads of laundry every day in a week and still have piles of undone laundry lying around.  So, I purged.  I didn’t touch my husband’s wardrobe, that’s his affair, but I have noticed him purging on his own.  I got rid of everything we don’t wear.  Then I looked at what was left for the kids, I picked my 10 favorite outfits and got rid of the rest.  I didn't really need to do this with my wardrobe because it was already so small.  I never keep things I don't wear and only have a small wardrobe of things I like.  We only need enough clothes to get through the week, not two or three.  With the babies, I also had to get rid of a lot of blankets and burp cloths.   That eliminated A LOT of laundry. 

5.  I don’t do yard work. 

I’m not proud of this one and would like to change it, just haven’t made it a priority yet.  Our yard is pretty bad looking as all my nice friends could but wouldn’t say.  In the summer my husband mows the lawn.  I’ve weeded maybe twice in 3 years and pruned a rhododendron, very badly, once.  I did do a bit of gardening last summer and loved it.  I hope to spend time in the yard this spring/summer.  We have a play area with swings.  I need to get a second baby swing and then I can pop the twins in swings while I work in the yard. 

6.  I don’t go a lot of places.

As home schoolers, being at home is pretty important.  I don’t have to drive anyone to school, which is nice, and I’ve chosen not to enroll my kids in many classes or other activities so I don’t drive them many places.  I would like to get Isabel in swim lessons soon.  We go to our homeschool group once a month, a field trip once a month and to the park or a friend’s house twice a month.  We go to church every Sunday.  Other than that, me and the kids don’t go out during the day.  I have nearly all of my groceries and produce delivered.  If I really need something my husband will kindly pick it up on his way home from work.  Sometimes I make a solo errand run on a night or weekend for diapers, toiletries and other odds and ends.    I don’t take the kids to the library often.  Instead I use the library website to put books on hold and my husband picks them up every week.  We do most of our book and clothes shopping online.  Sometimes for fun on weekends we all go to the mall or bookstore together.  Yes, we are a sight. 

7.  I don’t facebook the way most people do. 

My husband recently convinced me to sign up for facebook.  I have it set up so that I never get any emails about anything from facebook and when I check my facebook page I skim over everything and only respond to messages from friends and a few comments here and there.  When I blog about something I want to share, I post a link on my wall.  I know facebook can take up a lot of time but I don’t spend much on it.  I prefer goodreads.com and blogs for connecting with distant friends and family.

I’m sure there is more that I don’t do but that’s the big stuff that comes to mind.  What’s on your “don’t do” list?

UPDATE:  I just remembered a very important one.

8.  I don't berate myself for what I don't do or don't do as well as someone else.
I've chosen the things I do and don't and even if it's not all perfect, what good will it do me to feel bad about it?  If I haven't chosen to do it, it's not as important as the things I am doing.  If I need to add something to my do list then I can work on that but not by dwelling on what a rotten person I am for not doing it.  I just don't believe in that kind of thinking.  I am not superwoman but I am capable.  If something really needs to get done, I can do it.  But first I'll have to decide what not to do, so I'll have time for the new something.  And what is the point of comparing myself to anyone else?  I don't do it.  If I want to be really good at something I'll have to put more time into it.  How my effort stacks up against someone else's similar effort is irrelevant.  I love to be inspired by what others are doing but I don't waste my time comparing myself to them.  I get good ideas and move on.

Bread Baking and Spinning Wheels

I just started reading, The Laurel’s Kitchen Bread Book:  A Guide to Whole-Grain BreadMaking.  Thanks Christina, for the recommendation. 

It looks like a great cookbook and I’m looking forward to trying out recipes but at the moment, all I can think about is the inspiring introduction titled, “Always a Choice.”

It tells the story of Ghandi’s efforts to free his people from British rule by teaching them to be self-reliant.  “He believed the people of India, the vast majority of whom lived in villages, would be in no position to take responsibility for governing themselves effectively until they were also able to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves.”  

Reading about the way the British overtook the Indian textile industry and thereby suppressed the Indian people reminded me strongly of our nation’s oppressive food system.  A very small number of corporations grow, raise, harvest, prepare, package, and sell the vast majority of our nation’s food.  Most of us have lost the ability to feed ourselves.  If we couldn’t get to a grocery store or restaurant, what would we eat?  I agree with Ghandi that our ability to feed, clothe, and shelter ourselves says something about our ability to govern ourselves.  I don’t think we’re doing a great job at any of those things.  But Ghandi offers hope.  He believed the revolution he hoped for would take years and it would happen as individuals got out their spinning wheels and learned to use them.

The Laurel’s Kitchen Bread Book urges readers to engage in our own self-reliance revolution by learning to bake our own bread.  I think it’s a great idea.

Here’s a link to a more eloquent article on the Story of Ghandi and the spinning wheel.