It had been almost a week since the poop really hit the fan in this pandemic. The initial panic of last Friday has sort of settled down and the new realities of life at home are starting to set in for us. I’m going to talk about the dinners we have eaten for the past week in hopes that it will put your mind at ease that this can be done. I’m not a gourmet chef nor am I a nutritionist. These meals have been easy, quick, and cheap. I’m sure next week I will branch out more, but this week has been such a change to our life, I just wanted something fast and easy on the table.

Note that we have a smoker, but the pork shoulder and/or pork butt can be put in the crockpot to still cook a large portion of meat for the week. To make really, good pork shoulder in the crockpot, pour in a jar of fresh salsa (from the fresh foods area of the grocery store) or regular salsa and let it go on low for 8 hours. Another option would be to put the pork in the crock pot plain and then

Sunday – Pork Shoulder from the smoker, Ore-Ida Zesty Curly Fries, Bush’s baked beans.

Monday – Leftover Pork shoulder with ceasar salads. I had the romaine. When I say ceasar salad, I mean romaine with parmesan cheese, tomatoes, and a gluten free ceasar dressing.

Tuesday – Chicken Legs cooked in the oven with BBQ sauce and peas. 350 degrees for 45 minutes will get the chicken legs done. Don’t put the BBQ sauce on until the last 5-10 minutes of cooking or it might burn. The peas were frozen, so that was super easy.

Wednesday – Pork Quesadillas with avocado slices. Pork Quesadillas involve leftover smoked pork, cheese, black beans, and corn tortillas. As a tidbit, when making large numbers of quesadillas, use two pans. Also, put cheese on the top and bottom so that the tortillas “stick” to the ingredients.

I also made gluten free chocolate chip cookies on this day because I really needed some joy. I used the recipe on the back of the Bob’s Red Mill package and my kids even liked them!

Thursday – Gluten free pancakes, sausage, and scrambled eggs. Breakfast for dinner – why not? I used the Great Value pancake mix – it isn’t the best, but it did in a pinch.

Friday – Tacos. It’s normally pizza night at my house, but I want tacos.

Saturday – We are going to order in from a restaurant. I can only cook so much.

Sunday – I’m going to do some sort of Asian beef, thing. I’ll let you know next week what I did.

Again, not the sexiest or most interesting meal plans for the past week, but it will feed you.

I wanted to write more, but just cannot wrap my head around many things right now. There is new information about a mouse model for testing in celiac disease. Here and here. They’ve engineered a mouse with HLA-DQ8 in order to look at how the disease develops, how medicines may work, and a variety of other things. This is good, but 90% of those with celiac disease have HLA-DQ2. So, I’m not sure who much this is gonna help. Anyway, its a start.