With the world in shambles and people locked inside of their houses because of COVID-19, keeping your morale up is incredibly important as well as staying healthy. Your kitchen is probably a good place to start if you want something to do to spice things up. Cause let’s face it, you need something exciting to spice up being locked in your own home.
With this in mind, we’ve devised a couple of tips and even some recipes to help you not only survive the quarantine but also enjoy it.
Adjust your Meal Schedule – Not your Sleep Schedule
Being in quarantine is incredibly stressful and can lead to bad sleep schedules. A lot of us have fallen victim to the dreaded “stay up till 5 am wake up at 2 pm” disease, and that can lead to you delaying or skipping meals entirely!
Instead of promising to fix your sleep schedule only to fall once again because you want to watch one more episode, try adjusting your eating schedule instead! If you wake up at two, then turn your lunch into breakfast, your dinner into lunch, and then your 3 am fridge rummage into dinner! Maybe sneak in a midnight snack or two, and you are set.
Keep Meals New – Experiment!
Now, experimenting with your ingredients and recipes isn’t an elite exclusive. Anyone can experiment as long as you’re brave, creative, and will eat it regardless of whether the choice to experiment was good or not. You can swap certain vegetables, herbs, spices, and even making your buttermilk with a little bit of lemon or vinegar! The possibilities are endless.
Don’t let Quarantine Stop You From Celebrating
Quarantine who? Sure, celebrating during a global pandemic doesn’t sound very nice. Morale is down, and celebrating doesn’t seem worthwhile, but you should still do it!
Find a way to celebrate, may it be a birthday, a holiday, or even just a special night with the family. Don’t let living alone stop you from connecting and celebrating with friends either; the internet is a thing now, and everyone is one button away!
Comfort Foods are a Must
May it be a grilled cheese sandwich, chicken soup, or a delicious curry–there’s no better time to cook up delicious comfort food than now!
Creatively Cooking Perishables That Are About to Go Bad
When you’re bulk buying food to last for weeks, some of your fruits and vegetables are inevitably going to go bad. They’ve long past their prime, but they can still be turned into delicious meals!
Try putting in your wilted vegetables into a soup, a stew, or you can drop them in with eggs to make a frittata! You can even experiment with less fresh fruits, and the food you make with them would still taste great. You can essentially make anything from pies to fruit jams and even applesauce.
Freeze and Store Your Food Properly
Although cooking in batches and freezing them is sacrilegious for some people, it can actually be a perfect way of eating food when you don’t feel like cooking. You can cook soup and broth in large batches, cool them to room temperature, and freeze them to have a quick meal shortly!
You can even do this to sauces and freeze them in an ice tray. Oh, you want to have quick pasta? Grab two cubes of sauce, put it on top of your pasta, and then microwave it. Fast, easy, and delicious!
Dried Beans are your Best Friend
Dried beans are cheap and taste a lot better than canned beans when appropriately prepared. Just soak the beans the night before you cook them. Make bean soup or add them to any dish you want!