Eat Sane During Corona Virus | Dinner Plus Drinks #12

Hey everyone, no music yet because we have had a really long debate about this episode. Um, obviously coronavirus covet 19 is happening. It's taking over a lot of the news cycle. It's taken over a lot of our lives and we decided instead of doing our normal podcast to do an episode about how you can keep yourself fed sanely during the situation.

Yeah. Whether however you feel about this, it's happening. Um, things are going to shut down. We're being told not to travel, so we want to be able to come and help tell you what you can do to keep everyone fed and entertained and doing the best you can in a situation that we are given. And we don't really have much of a choice about. Um , we're being encouraged to socially distance, which is an interesting term. So we're here to help out.

This podcast is being recorded six feet away. Um, so don't worry about us, but we are here to give you some panic free tips on how you can make great food still, how you can keep your kids entertained, how you can keep your loved ones fad if they're socially distancing. So we hope you like this podcast episode. We're going to play the music now and get it

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all right , so for this podcast we have four main tips about keeping yourself sanely fad. Um, I think we're using an a , I think we're using the phrase sanely fed.

Yeah. Seeing we're really encouraging us sanity here for everybody as this is an uncharted time.

There's a lot of things that can make you go over the top, freak out panic. But no matter how you feel about this, there's no need to panic.

No, I think that we're, we're going to make it here, but let's all be kind to one another. I think, you know, we spent all this time on social media and see all the things right. And , um, I think everyone is probably getting some kind of level of fear instilled in them by ways of the media. But let's just all be kind of gentle with one another here. So I think that would go a really long way. Sounds easy. Right?

It sounds easy, but it's hard. Yeah . We've seen a lot of people come into the store. We set out some guidelines of what we're doing to make sure everybody's healthy during this thing. And we started getting a lot of questions. So we are releasing this episode early. Um, and we're trying to get a lot of new people listen to this because we think it's important. Yeah. We think it's important. So we have, we're gonna change up the format a little bit. We're still going to do a lot of the things you love, but we have four main tips we're going to share , um, how you can feed your kids when they're at home because a lot of schools are canceling. Yup . And this isn't just for, you know, if Corona virus happens.

Yeah. And , and guys remember this isn't just for Lake Geneva either. So we've got people outside of where we are located, who schools may have already closed, where ours have not. So we're here to help all of you

take these tips for summer, Christmas break, whatever. Um, we're gonna talk about freezer meals, which are a great way if you have someone in your life that doesn't want to get out , um, you can hook them up with freezer meals, leftovers, things like that. Um, we're also gonna give you some tips on freezer storage and stocking up a freezer. We have, it's Friday. When we're recording this, we're probably gonna try and release it , um, Saturday morning. So we have a lot of people getting a lot of frozen meats , screams , tips on that.

And like year-round . I like to do that anyway. Keep my freezer sack . So these are great tips for that.

And then finally, we know , um , a lot of people, you look at the NBA canceling , major league baseball canceling , um , everything's canceled

NHL. I mean, yeah ,

so there's a lot of people that are losing income because of this. So some tips where you can still eat healthy, you can still eat quality stuff , um, but on a budget. So we're going to share those tips of four different tips for this episode that we're going to get you on. And again,

sanely fat , make it through that . Yeah .

So, but we are going to have a few fun things. So we hope you listen. We hope you enjoy this whole episode. So , um , the first thing we're gonna talk about Bridget , I know you and I have talked about this and you and I are not gonna die from this.

Yeah. It's unlikely. Um, you know, he might, we might get the flu. Um, let's, I said, you know what, maybe I'll quarantine myself here. Have a little chill time, but in all reality, no. Like it's not , um, necessarily I'm not a doctor. Listen, I don't know. I'm going off of what I'm reading from multiple sources, right? So I please don't,

yeah , this is not a political thing and this is not health advice. This is just, this is just us chatting about what matters . You're here with us and we want to be real with, you know , I've got kids, I've got a husband who is involved with child care . So this is a discussion that happens every hour in our household. And what happens when there's no school? Yup . There's no childcare in terms of daycare or things like that because the CDC says if school's close social daycare, right? So if you're home with your kids, and I understand this isn't just like because of this, this is during summer break, this is during Christmas break, all of these things, how do you keep your kids fed and keep them saying keep yourself sane. And uh, we actually do this a lot and one of my favorite ideas and how to, I think you should take the meal and turn it into an activity. I agree. Everything's an activity, like all of your things.

Um, so you can just some really fun recipe ideas. We're gonna have a great blog post code with this episode, dear plus drinks.com. Um, so we're gonna have all these ideas here, but you can do

lot of fun things like mini pizzas with your kids. You can do a taco bar, you can get on pancakes shaped like animals . Okay . How are you making a pancake shape like an animal. So you take one big pancake, right? Of course. And that's the hat . And then you get your whipped cream. Oh, of course. We'll smile and focus to Hershey kisses. Okay. Those are the eyes. And then you know whatever you want for the, no , some years.

Some years. Okay . Two little pancakes. Right . And then two strips of bacon or handlers . And you have Ohlala the mu . So you're coming over and making it from elk. Olaf is this romance then is the reindeers . Okay. Nick, what Nick is going to do while he is at home, his watch frozen. Refreshing start over. Nick. I watched it when my oldest child in my life, Gracie . Oh, understood .

It was like three. It was too young to take her to the movie theater, but she was the first kid of all of our group. And so we're like, we want to go see frozen, but if

so we're going to take this kid. There's one kid, she was great. So yes. Oh off . Okay. So I'm all about making it an activity because you know if you've been listening for a while, you know I have an Elliot at home and Elliott just turned four. So he is full of energy. He loves to chop things, cut things, which like we're not big fans of giving him sharp knives because he is wise beyond his years. But far as a bit young for a sharp knife. I would agree. So a friend of mine has a kid who's a year younger and who also love to help in the kitchen and she introduced me to these awesome kids . Safe knives. So they're nylon and yeah, I just bought them on Amazon. I've seen like the ceramic ones, these are nylon. So you know the brand I have is called told LA and co but there's a ton of them and we'll link to the ones that I have because they are tested. I have tried to cut my finger with them to test it. I took it for the team. Guess what? My finger did not fall off. I'll take it for the team . Tyler wasn't home when I got home. Mom's got to try and cut her finger off. So youth has knives, we have a stool that's like Elliot special kitchen stool. Um , so he always comes up and you know, he's helping chop and then you obviously use your common sense and don't let your kid like go buy the splashing grease or oil. Um, but he could stay busy cutting something for much longer than one of us. And honestly also he helps unload the dishwasher. Oh , that's , yeah . So they think these things are fun and their chores that have to get done when you're stuck at home anyway . So keep them involved, make it an activity, keep them busy.

The other fun way it's making activity. Simona is very little. She's five months soon shortly. But she loves Milana and I know a lot of friends Milana . I mean it's a pretty good movie. I'm impressed a lot of friends like to do. Um, I know when I was in Spanish class we went and ate Spanish or Mexican or Guatemalan or whatever foods. Sure. When we're in Spanish class, a lot of friends like to do something like, let's make a coconut test. Because of marijuana . And I think that's a great way where you can involve your kids and make an activity, do something fun where you're feeding yourself. But like, Hey, let's pretend where Milana , that's gotta take up like two hours.

I mean, you could get dressed up, you could cook for Sven, the reindeer as we referred before. I don't know what kind of a writer . He's not all laugh . So yeah, I love that too. So like play the movie in the background and especially good if you have two children, you can entertain one with the movie, one with the cooking. So these are all really great ideas to get kids like help cook. You all get fed and you have a lot of fun while you're doing it.

So that's our first Corona virus cooking tip. Um, if you're worried about your kids, do a fun recipe. Do a taco bar, a pizza bar , something where they can very easily help or involve them in the process. Make something that they care about that they can, you know, put back to someone they love, is Fen the reindeer, Olaf , the snowman.

Just maybe don't take our advice on frozen. We need to rewatch

whatever coconuts from Alana, let's say pineapples from Awana coconuts

first . And guys, since we're talking a lot about our kids and having a lot of fun, if your kids are old enough to understand kind of what's going on, make sure they know that they're going to be okay. I read this also somewhere in Elliot . Doesn't quite understand but , but we reminded him like, yeah, we're telling you to wash your hands all the time, but like you should do that anyway and you're going to be fine. Cause they can pick up on things if you're acting scared. So make a smiley face pancake and they'll forget all about it. Um, so the next tip we want to talk about is if you have a loved one or a neighbor or someone you know that's in quarantine or um , you have to quarantine yourself,

not wanting to get outside. Maybe they have asthma and they're 55 and they're like, Hey , you know, it's just not worth the risk and beyond

a virus. Like if you have a new mother in your life, this is a great tip. We're going to share all about freezer meals and leftovers. And so

it's like new mother in your life, like your wife,

anyone. So I had my mom and a very good friend of mine when I had Elliot on maternity leave, they brought me freezer meals so I didn't have to cook. So best gift. So it's great even if you like to cook like your , maybe not necessarily have all of your stuff together when you have a newborn. So yeah, freezer meals were awesome. My mom stocked my freezer right away and then my best friend Hillary , she waited a month. She's like, I know you don't have room in your freezer right now. So in one month Ella come over and bring you all these meals, which was awesome.

I am a weirdo and I couldn't wait to get home from the hospital and cook , cook like it was the thing that I, we were in the hospital for a week after Simona and the thing I waited for the most was I want to get home and fuck for most people a freezer meals. So if you have someone in quarantine , freezer meals, tell us about the freezer meals.

So I could go on and on because there's plenty of freezer meals you can make. But like I'm going to start with Mexican food. Okay. You, if you're anything like me, Mexican food is like what the same eight ingredients and you just mix them together in different ways. Yeah. Don't look at me like that. That's exactly what it is.

No, I'm not looking at , I'm like looking at , I'm someone that looks at this and I'm like, yeah, you're right. It's all good.

So like , um, enchiladas are great. Um, you can turn any of these things, make some ground beef ahead of time and freeze it in small quantities so then you can take that out, season it and have tacos really quickly. You can also use that ground beef for other meals, which we'll talk about a little bit later. But , um, I like to cook. I think we've talked about this multiple times. Chicken in bulk and you just pour some chicken and don't pour the chicken, set the chicken, no sick . Send the chicken in a crockpot , pour some salsa and you'll have this like great little subtle Mexican flavor chicken that you can freeze the chicken. Use it all week in different kind of meals. So, okay, you don't want Mexican food. That's fine. I don't know who you are, but that's fine. Make the plain chicken. Use it throughout the week. I've talked about that a million times, putting it on a salad, whatever. Cause anybody don't like Mexican food. I don't know man. If you don't let us know, we would love to hear from you. She was the most interesting person on earth. Yes , yes we are. Um, next thing, Chile and suits really. So Chili's a classic, like everyone has their favorite chili recipe. You can freeze any of them. So, and you can make a big batch. That's a great one. Same with if you have a favorite soup recipe. So like make a couple of those, put them in the freezer, you can throw them out when you , you know , need to have a nice little meal when you want to feel comforted at night. Then I have a blanket for that. You have a blank? I have food, I use food. Okay. She have a weighted blanket. Have you ever tried that? Um , okay. Tyler has one and I'm actually really kind of scared to use it. I'll be honest, I don't like feeling constrained, like held down. Yeah . So it feels like panic to me and I think it's supposed to do the half of it. So I have not tried it. I like the way I've lifted it at my house. Like, no, call me. I'm also a hugger, so you know. Oh yeah, I'm not really, a virus is bad for me. So yeah. Nick, Nick and I are not hugging. We're staying away. Um , the next thing is pretty Wisconsin, right? A casserole. So you can make like a thousand casseroles. We could make a tat one. I wasn't gonna talk about that necessarily, but we should. I was thinking more along the lines of some kind of noodle noodle, some kind of noodles . So I'm trying to keep this open ended here because you've probably got noodles in your pantry. Make it into a casserole. Throw some chicken, take a soup, which I'm sure you have in a can. And your in your pantry. Mix it all together, make it into a casserole that's delicious and Hardy and you can put it in those removable pans. Um, no cleanup. And then you don't have , like if you're giving this to someone as a gift, it's great. You don't have to return . Yeah , they don't feel like they have to wash it. And so those are great stock up on those. You know, my favorite casserole. Very simple. What? Sour cream. Okay. All good things start with cream . Super Sconsin. Yup . Shredded cheddar. [inaudible] beef tips. Okay. Cream of mushroom K egg noodles. Oh, stroganoff casseroles . Stroganoff alright , so there you go. Nick gives you a recipe that's only five ingredients, so lovely

mix all it . Here's my recipe, mix it all, mix all that stuff in the freezer, put it in the freezer, bake it three 50 for like 50 minutes. Boom. I mean, but that's the point with casseroles is like kind of use what you have pepper flakes. I like red pepper, but like if it's for kids, maybe not put it on afterwards or tell your kids grow up, deal with it. Yeah, this is a great time to do that. Um, alright , so I mentioned the ground beef a little bit. If you prep a whole bunch of ground beef ahead of time and freeze it in small quantities, you can take it out and use it for all kinds of things. So spaghetti, that's easy, right? We all again have some kind of noodles and we can put some meat and sauce together. You can make some sloppy Joe's with your ground beef. Always good option . Yup . So again, a comforting, lovely meal. It's warm. It's great. Um, so, and then of course tacos, like we mentioned earlier, we're going to taco show tacos, Mexican food, anyone. We are forgetting my most favorite meal of the day breakfast. So we still have to eat breakfast. Okay. I don't eat breakfast. Okay. While it's the most important meal of the day, Nick. So unless somebody brings me donuts, I love breakfast and donuts. Donut taste off someday . Uh , I will gladly do a donut taste off any day. All right . Okay. So I'm muffins are great for this. Yeah, absolutely. Make muffins batch, make a muffin and freeze it. Um , there's all kinds of great recipes for like protein muffins. If you're worried about being healthy or like , um, little snack balls that you can make time. Like now don't worry about hell , you know , all the butter. I, so a couple things I made for a friend when she had had her first kid was I made muffins and I made egg cups. So these were things that were easy to take out of the freezer and you put them in the oven or microwave, whatever you prefer to warm them up. And they're like, you can do it with one hand. And when I say egg cup, think of like a muffin tin and you put in your cool recipes. Yeah, those are great. And that's protein. That's healthy. And then same with muffins. You can also use them as a morning snack. So I made those for her. It's what she said she went through the fastest cause she could grab it with one hand household detests eggs. No you are insane. One of the things that brought my wife and I together, your hatred for eggs. My lovely Darlene Sarah . We hate eggs. Well I love eggs and eat them a million times. I love those muffin tin ones cause it's like I tried doing like premade um , sausage cup things for Sarah . They didn't quite turn out right. Yeah. Uh , I'm going to keep tweaking that cause like it's great to have those ready to go. Jackfish things that you can just put in thing and whatever. Yeah. I eggs obviously cheap, wonderful source of protein and when I'm talk about affordable sources of protein and food you can have later but I just can't do it man. I mean I know I would try and convince you but I just feel like it's a lost cause. So this is a great way to get veggies into. So you throw, chop up whatever veggies you have, throw them in those muffin cups. I love them. I'll eat them every day on a less serious, you know, we all need some kind of drinks. Okay. I had a friend, yeah. Uh, at school drop off today when all the best conversations happen . Oh yeah. I ran into my friend Laura shout out like , all right , I'm going to come out and pick up some fish later. So I also need you guys to put together a case of wine because the truth says you don't need to go to church right now, but still it's still lent . You still can't eat meat. So Laura is being great and godly. Thank you Laura. Hashtag blessed she's like, we might be stuck inside for a while and I need to buy a case of wine. And so you're right Laura. So do I. So Nick, what are we putting in this case? A wine . All right , so I want to have an open ended conversation with you, a little bit about, do we think your case of wine should ultimately be 12 of the same bottles? Like should you pick, Oh, are you someone that wants 12 of like, Oh, this is my death row bottle or do you want 12 things for different occasions while can I go in the middle there and like there's no middle two or three of my faves, but then I want to try new things. It's going to get a little boring here. So if I was to stock up on drinks and we have a case which is 12 yeah , thank you. Yes. You know, just saying not for those of you that are not clear on everybody is this is 12 bottles of wine, borderline alcoholic that buys their wine a case at a time. So it's 12 bottles. I would do probably four that are sparkling. Oh four yeah. That's more than I thought because it's the most versatile of all the wines. Oh, I'll say do it with your muffins. Okay . Your egg cups with your orange juice in the morning. Think about this. We are , we're not advocating that you drink all day when you're stuck home with your kids. I mean our blast, but Bridget , shut up. Yes sir . We are advocating this . I mean that's fine. Um, you know, you might want to have a little with your orange juice in the morning. My tip for stoppering sparkling wine after you've opened it takes some aluminum foil. Okay. Kind of start pulling up but not really shoved some doubt cause uh , they have the mushroom carts , right? Yeah . Shove the middle part of the aluminum foil down. Okay . The uh , open bottle and then the top part of it, mushroom around it and that fits perfectly. Yeah. I'll keep the carbonation for about a day or two. Oh, I love that tip. I always feel like, ah , well it's open. I have to drink the whole bottle now also. Okay, well now I don't have to. So then you can have the restaurant , your dinner. Always very versatile with anyone, whether you want cava , Prosecco , American sparkling line. I would say four bottles of that. Okay. I would get two bottles of a very crisp, clean white K , like something just like a, you know, a nice Vino Vaird from Portugal or some peanut Gratiot or maybe like us Safi on bond from France. Oh , I'm blank . I love crisp, clean somebody when you're like, I want a little bit of wine, but I just want it to be crisp, clean of like refreshing.

Yes, exactly. So that takes care of six bottles. Other six are going to be rad . Great . That's my jam. You're probably doing some sort of stew chili at some point. Yep . I'm a big red blend. Okay . Something that has Seraw Zinfandel ganache move. Add something from the Roan . I would do a French roam blend. Oh, something like a giggle where it's um, really nice. Good everyday drinking wine . It's got a little bit of body, a little bit of fruit, a little bit of spice to it. And that can be, you know, you want a glass or you want it to go with your chili or your, did we talk about Mexican ?

Did we mention taco ? Did we mention that? Go with that. Oh, okay. Well then we might need more than one bottle of this. So I would go three bottles, three bottles. Okay. We want multi-use. Yeah. Okay. Fine uses. So we have three bottles left, three bottles left . Okay. Do you have any pictures? Next three. Oh, well you've spoken my language of all my favorite wines so far. So we don't have any Cabernet. Well you're right, you're right. But we do have a big body blend, B big body blend. Um, so what would we do with the cabs ? What do we eat with our cab? Well, I mean that's a state thing, you know, so I'd say like splurge on a cab. Just one camp . Yeah . Cause like maybe your , um, and for people who might not love cabs as much as me, I know there's people out there that like Pinot noir, Sarah ,

very good peanut wire . Um, no. Pick some like fancy Napa cab. Kay . Maybe do a mountain fruit cap, something from like Atlas peak or a Mount Veeder or something like that. Or it has a little bit more fruit to it. So if you don't want to have it with a steak, still got enough fruit to it that it works. Then we'd do a Pinot noir. So you have a light red. And then this is going to be our wild card right now.

Wildcard . I can't imagine where you're going to go with this.

I'm going to go with a Portuguese red .

Oh, I thought you were going to be like, I'm going to say a bottle of beer. No, that's okay, man. Thought you were going to get real crazy on whatever. It's a case of wine on a case of wine. Okay.

No, go with Portuguese reds . They're really fun. They're very affordable. You can get something that's great with steak, but also barbecue also delicious. So, yeah. All right . So we have three sparkling for sparkling, two crisp lights , three Seraba lens , one cab, one Pinot noir, and one Portuguese red.

Yeah, that all guys, we'll put this up . We'll write it down for you. Um , also though , save one of those bottles of champagne. So when, when we've all worked together and gotten through this, you're going to celebrate with that. That's my pro tip. Oh, that's a good idea. Yeah. Okay. Thanks. That sounds so surprised. I come up with those every once in awhile.

Okay. Um, did you, the first French fries

weren't made in France. Oh no, I didn't check . They were boiled in Greece. Oh boy. You guys the dad joke. Now dad, rotavirus can't kill the dad jokes.

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okay guys, we're back with some product recommendations and you're going to have a kids home if you're like us. Yeah. We got some , uh , recommendations on what you can do to keep your kids entertained regardless of their age. One of the favorite games I've played with , um, Simona's not playing very many games other than like, not yet. Right. You know, let's sing a song and laugh at it. It's a good game. It's a good game. Um, but I find this with my friend's kids, it's called the floor is lava. Oh yes. We've all played this game, but like has color things and tasks. Um, I'm gonna put a link up to it, but it keeps kids active while they're indoors. It's fun as an adult it's even like, Oh, is kind of like a board game you can buy. Yeah. It's kind of like twister. Oh, we used to just like don't get on the floor. Well, yeah. Oh no. Old school. It was just like a real game. This is like, Oh nation of like twister and cards against humanity a little bit. Oh it sounds great. Cause there's some like kind of challenges and stuff. Oh you'd like, there's different colored pieces and you want stuff . Yeah . So it's a really fun game. Works, you know, if your kids are five, six to, you know, if they're cool high schoolers, I'd even say like, you know, cool high schoolers could have fun with it. Right. Cool. Only cool and so, or if you're an adult and you're four bottles into your case that was supposed to last you three weeks, then have fun playing the floor . Good luck for you. So that's my recommendation. The floor is laughing . Okay. Be careful everyone. The floor is Islamic on the floor. My product rec recommendation is the simplest thing. Balloons. Okay. We sell balloons around our house from Elliot's birthday because they're just going to last until they all die off. Yeah. So balloons are the best because again, as people know, if you've been listening, I have a nine month old and a four year old and both of them love the balloons. So how many games do you have? The house that like babies and toddlers love you. Don't invite me over to play at the balloons. I'm so sorry. Next time. But so Lucy will just like chase after them crawling quickly. Right ? Or try and eat them. But don't worry everyone, we make sure she doesn't eat them, but she loves them. If you've seen, there's a video going around somewhere on the internet where you tie balloons to like babies that are in mobile, they're laying on their back and you tie a balloon to their arms and legs and they like flail and they think it's awesome. Do it. It is so funny. So if we can find that video again, we'll post it. Um, but Elliot and I play a game. He has a creative name for it that I cannot remember, but it just basically we don't let the balloon touch the ground, so he, we each get one hit no matter where that balloon goes. You have to follow it. It's not that creative use . I don't think so. I'm not sure we'll ask tonight that smart . But I mean, honestly, it's really kind of and entertains him

forever with just a plain red balloon. I think it's from the dollar store. So balloons go get it .

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back after that genius product. Recommendation of balloons. Genius. Next level genius. Um , we have two more tips for how to keep yourself and others sanely fed during this whole coronavirus coven 19 to be more correct. And so do we've seen at country meets and you're probably thinking of is am I going to run a food? Um, so freezer stocking.

Yeah. What can we do? What like what kind of products? I guess I'm never shirts . I love stocking my freezer on a regular basis, so I don't really ever know how, like when do things go bad? How long can I store them? So

the important thing to remember about freezer stocking is your food's not necessarily going to go bad in terms of it'll always be safe . Sure. Okay . It'll always be safety, but the quality will go down. So beef, honestly, you have like a year before you start losing quality. Yep . Um , pork you have about six months. Okay . Chicken can be a little shorter, maybe four to six months, but you do have time and hopefully this whole thing will be done well before any of those deadlines. Yeah, three weeks, four weeks, whatever it is. Um, but so you should be fine. So if you want to come stock up at some place, whether it's like Shima country meets your local butcher shop someplace that has frozen meat, if you want to come out shop once and have some good quality protein for the rest of this thing, you can do that. Okay. Um, some general tips, I was just going to ask about storing. Are you going to tell us about that? Yeah, definitely. Keep your freezer below zero degrees. It seems like a very arbitrary number. Yeah . Zero Fahrenheit. Not Celsius, but if you can keep it below zero, which most freezers are set at, Oh look , it's probably at zero. Maybe turn it down a little bit. Okay . It helps. It really, it's a weird like arbitrary line, but like the numbers are like, yeah, keep it below zero. Um , and then the other really interesting thing that's maybe counterintuitive is if you keep your freezer pack tightly, if you keep it full, everything stays frozen better and the quality seems higher, like insulated . So like, cause the one when we think of things is like, well if there's air flow around it, it'll keep it frozen. But actually it's the contact with other stuff that keeps it frozen better. Yeah . So keep your freezer , um, you know, pack tightly and that'll help it stay , um , frozen. Now it's very convenient to have your fees freezer full of stuff because you don't have to go shopping, but it's inconvenient because D for Austin, do you always run into this? Cause I don't plan ahead so enough. There's, there's three methods we recommend to defrost the food. Um, and we're going to go from safest and slowest to fastest, most convenient. But like, Hey, keep these things in mind. Okay . Um, refrigerator, it's going to be the safest method, right? Yep . It takes, just take something from the freezer and put it in the refrigerator. Um, it takes us the longest time, maybe two, three days. If you're doing a roast but it's very gentle, you're not going to have any bacteria growth. Nothing that's harmful. Um, it's basically idiot proof. Right? You're not going to screw it up just if it starts leaking cook at that day. Right. Yeah . I've always read like put it on the lowest shelf in the fridge. Definitely do that. That's very smart. Yeah. So that's method one. What I usually do because I'm not great at thinking ahead, but I'm grossed out by microwaves cause I do cold water thawing . So take, put your meat in a plastic bag. Um, get a big enough pot that it can sit in , put it in the pot and fill it with cold water. Uh , it'll do frost pretty fast. I've done this but it's been a while . So if you do fish, it'll take about 30 minutes. Um , if you do a big roast, it'll take maybe four hours, five hours, change the water every 30 minutes or so. Cause you want that water to be cold. You do want it to be, you know, if you start hitting 50 degrees on the water temperature, which it's in a 70 degree room, that can happen fairly fast. So change the water every 30 minutes, but that's a fast way to do it . Still very safe. The last method that is recommended is because leaving it out on the counter is not recommended. Um, but the last method is microwave hit that defrost cycle. Yeah . I don't love it because it starts cooking the food a little bit. So you're gonna get weird textures. It's not gonna taste good. Um , if you have to do it fast, yeah it works. But if you do the microwave thing, don't microwave to frost it and then let it sit in the refrigerator. Right. You're going to get sick. Cook it right away. Yup . Cook it right away. What about cooking from frozen? You could definitely do that. Um, you know, some things do really well. Um, we have brought patties that are very thin and frozen and those cook great from frozen because they're thin. The high heat cooks them . Um, a roast. It is not going to cook well from frozen cause it's very thick. So the thinner things are, you can do them better from frozen. Okay.

Yeah. I ended up like cheating and cooking things from frozen because I've forgotten to do any of the defrosting things and like I know it's not the best it can be. So these are good tips. Um, so the next, the thing that like honestly is making me, I keep thinking about is as if if school is closed around here or as schools are closed in other parts of the country , um, stadiums, like you see all of these arenas closing Mark Cuban shout out to him is offering to like put together a fund. There was a player to one of the , um, God, I wish I could remember his name, but an NBA player that's donating money to arena staff who is unable to work. So there's, I mean there's far too many people to be able to, you know, have all of us donate any kind of money for this, but there is a way to still like make sure everyone can have a delicious meal by eating affordable cuts of meat, which tell us about,

so if you're in a , um, and again, this goes year-round . I'm someone that doesn't believe Ian's just a transaction, right? It's not just like calories in, calories out. I think it should be something enjoyable. I think it should be a great experience. Yup . Um, so if you're on a budget, you want to watch your dollars and cents. Um, I have two big tips for you. One, pick affordable cuts of meat. I know the cheapest thing is always going to be ramen, but if you eat ramen for three weeks straight, lot of sodium , you're gonna want to eat some meat, meat's delicious. And then also make sure you're picking things that you can get multiple meals out of. Sure. Um, so let's talk about affordable cuts first. Ground beef is just such a great, affordable, versatile thing. You can do skillets with it. We do this all the time with beans, rice, you know, call it hamburger helper, whatever you want to do. I love hamburger helper. It's so great, but grew up on it . Do a little bit of ground beef. Can go a long way with a starch like beans or rice. Um , usually like it. Tacos, I mean did we talk about tacos? You can make taco spaghetti sauce, all the basic things that it's nutritious friendly . You get the protein you need, you get a lot of um , iron, other minerals and also the caloric intake you need. Um, and it's yummy. Little bit of salt, a little bit of pepper. You can do all sorts of different flavors. Um , so ground beef first affordable cut if you want to do beef. Yup . Yeah, you can do Stu stews , very affordable couplets, things like that. But ground beef salad going to be your best bet. If you want to do beef and that's easy. If you're like not comfortable in the kitchen or you just don't like have a backlog of recipes, whatever. Ground beef, everyone can make something with ground . I love pork. It goes under the radar a lot in terms of being affordable cut of meat. People think of chicken but oftentimes Park's a lot more affordable and yeah, that's surprising actually. It is. It's like you don't, you know , um, my biggest pick , if you want an affordable kind of park that's really yummy pork shoulders, you can do a fresh ham. Um, but it's harder to find a little leaners . So pork shoulders are great in the slow cooker cause I shred really easily. So you can do tacos. Have you talked about tacos? But with pork, so good , you can do barbecue pork . Uh, you know, you can do sloppy Joe's , but pork basically, there's a lot of things you can put a little cream in there and make it like an Italian shredded pork thing, whatever, flavor pork , um , pork shoulders. And like if you , you know, maybe you're still working your spouses at home , um, you know, it's a quick thing that is very easy that they can watch during the day. You can say, Hey, let me finish dinner, take care of it. Which is a nice thing, I think. Um, yeah, no, I mean I'm all about being thoughtful. Then the other thing is pork chops are actually really honestly cheaper than check-in. I just, this is blowing my mind cause I always think chicken. But when you look at the prices, it's almost always pork chops are cheaper. Yeah . Um, I should say a better value, more cost effective, but pork chops. Again, you can do a lemon pepper, pork chop, you can do a barbecue pork chop, you can do an Italian pork chop, you can just use a straight, you know, Montrell steak, pork chop, you can grill them, you can bake them with Campbell's creamy mushroom soup. There's a gazillion things you can do with a pork chop . Anything you could do to a chicken breast you could do to a pork chop, it's probably going to be better. It's more flavorful and more affordable. Um, so that's my last pork affordable car that you should really think about. The new chicken. Yeah . Um, I'm a big pork guys. Fair enough. And then , uh , my final affordable cut chicken breasts have gotten expensive comparatively speaking , uh, in my time in this industry. Um, it's really weird. There's a lot of economic forces, but whole chickens are still very affordable and yeah, you can get a lot of things on the whole chicken, especially if you feel comfortable betraying it, which is not that hard. Um, scary for some people though. It's, yeah. Uh , we are, yeah , no daunting . We always recommend spatchcocking and it's actually easier to um, put your at after you spatchcock cause everything's like not flat . That makes sense. Yup . We'll put a link to that. Um, but whole chickens are very affordable and that brings me to my next point. The great thing about whole birds is you can get multiple meals out of them, whether it's a chicken or a Turkey. Turkeys are so affordable, especially from frozen. Um, you will get so many meals, especially if you're home with your kids, you're not able to go to work. Um, if you're a busy person that's working and has kids, you don't have time to do all the meals. But if you're at home, you can make the Turkey during the day. You get a hot dinner out of it, you get leftovers for sandwiches. Take that carcass and make soup out of it. I was just going to say that. And you can make a casserole. The other leftovers that's for at least at least four meals .

Funny, cause again, I don't think to eat Turkey any other time of year until recently. And like I'm constantly trying to find more meals for my kids. Thanksgiving is the only time it comes across my mind, but it's so affordable and so delicious and full of protein. And my kids love it.

Turkey is delicious. You can do the same thing with chicken and if you're doing a pork shoulder, you're gonna have so much pork could a whole huge one. You'll be able to do a lot of things. It's great. So think of affordable cuts and think of affordable cuts that can make multiple meals. Um, maybe you do your ground beef as tacos for the first thing and then maybe you mix it in with some rice and some fresh frozen frozen vegetables that you make fresh and you have a little Asian certify the next day. Yeah . So something like that. That would be my recommendation on how you're eating. A really great quality of stuff. You're getting all the nutrition you need, you're feeling fulfilled from your food, but still.

So keeping some normalcy, having delicious meals. Yeah. And there's like w we hope we've given you like some really useful tips about here. We're , we're talking

food heavy here, but this is because food is such a big part of our lives. And like, yeah, keeping a routine and normal. I went on a fishing trip after I graduated high school and we didn't catch any fish. We plan on catching my fish and I was going to be what we ate. And we ate ramen for a week straight. Oh man. And uh , we also watched deliverance before we left , but we really thought we were going crazy and I went to the grocery store, I got like peanut butter and jelly and we had like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and that little bit of normalcy and home. Yup . I think it's important to totally shut down and just eat ramen, although delicious one day a month. Um , but we have been talking about a whole bunch of weird news and there's a lot of stuff going on that we're like is unique. We want to talk about some news that's gonna make you smiles, you know, joker smile. Like, you know where I got the smile. This is for real smiles and these are real news stories. Mine makes me smile because I'm a nineties kid. Okay. I was born in the 80s, but I really grew up in the 90s. Right. So babysitter's club, any you scrubs. Is this news okay. No scrubs, no scrubs. My older sister used to watch babysitter's club a lot and so like I very much looked up to her, so I love it on account of her and we need to give Brittany a shout on this one. We do shout out, boom . She is still someone to look up to. She's fighting the good fight she has . She lives in Seattle, so she's given us a heads up on all the things that they make it to the Midwest. So to Brittany. Thanks boo . Um, so bullets , her nickname. Sorry everybody. Um, babysitters club. Everybody is coming to Netflix. I know they're going to have a series on Netflix, so if you don't have kids and you can just sit around and watch Netflix all day. Bless you. I'm jealous. Maybe it's kids in or, that's exactly what I was going to say. It's time to raise your kids the way us nineties kids were raised on babysitters club. I think I read like two or three of the books. Um, you know, gender roles were a little bit more set in stone in the 90s. So I read the Hardy boys. Oh yes. So I read all the Hardy boys books . Shout out to the public library. Yes . Well you know , keep it up. I guess I'll raise Elliot on babysitter's club, but smash those gender norms songs . That sounds like you're great . Yeah . So I'm super pumped. I was just going to say, Nick's going to ask me when it's releasing and I'll Google it while he tells you all about his very exciting news. Right . So also a 90 skid kinda thing. Um, there's a new doctor Seuss book coming out and I am extraordinarily excited about this. There's a new book. Yes. Oh my God. So theater guy sold dr Seuss. He's been dead since 1991. Um, can you, sorry, you know , living under a rock, but , um , this new book , uh, going to be called dr Seuss, his horse museum. It's coming out based on notes and sketches that were found in his house when they cleaned it out. Oh , this is awesome. The publishers have worked an illustrator named

Andrew joiner and they're making the book a lot of kind of modern art influences in it. Um , Alexander polar Picasso , people like that. It looks really awesome. I'm going to buy it. Um, we already have a number of Seuss books to read to Simona cause they're awesome. Great messages, lovely illustrations. I'm very, very close to my house, but it's releasing in September. Okay . Um , so not great for, you know, coronavirus thanks for teasing us though . Isn't that great use , isn't it like give you something to look forward to? You live for dr Seuss, his new book, dramatic of dead since 1991 but like Tupac. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Oh man . the 90s. Yep . All right, well you guys are just going to have to stay tuned because I'm too distracted to Google when the babysitter coming out. All right , let's talk about what's going to kid corner. Let's do it. If you're just tuning in, this is how we end. Uh , basically every episode we end with some stories about our kids and that's a phone. I'm going to hang that up. Um , Oh look , this is a slightly coronavirus kid corner . Um, I don't support panic shopping but I don't know how much toilet paper anybody needs. We need hand sanitizer here. We're getting a hard time finding some sometimes because somebody is buying all of it. Um , so I don't support that. However, when it comes to my dear Darlene daughter and her formula, which always have the easiest time, fine need anyway, I was like, I , I have one thing open left. We should, we would buy two anyway cause one for home, one for daycares . We should probably make sure we have this. And so we went to the store and it was a beautiful day. It was like 50 degrees. I was like, I to keep her in her car seat. So I took the baby carrier out, put her on my chest man. And 20 minutes later Nixon the store, no , it takes like two minutes. She's really good. She likes it. And so we're walking around and we got the formula. Don't worry, we only bought four. There were six left. We bought four. It was , you know, cause I gave Nick a hard time for hoarding the formula. We did not hoard it. We're not cluttered, but the purpose of the story is to say she got, she really likes seeing the world, right? She's five months and wants to see the world. You've never seen her so excited. She was like doing the like one 80 look around everywhere. Oh wow. Isn't that exciting? And five different people at target as everybody's like panic buying TP and sanitizer and water's like, Oh look at cheese . She's so cute. I was like, that's right. Bring a baby out, man spreads the joy spreads the, we stayed socially isolated from people. We were a solid five feet kind of. Okay. But everybody thinks she's cute. She had a great time. And you got your formula. I was so proud. I put a picture on Facebook. It's currently 110 likes. Whoa. I know . Not that you're tracking. Not that I'm tracking it, but that's my kid corner. I was just like so excited, happy, proud to be shopping with my daughter.

It is fun. And I , you know, this was not going to be my kid corner but I did bring Lucy shopping the other day and so fun. Yeah. People just like stop.

And did you go to the Lego area and show her like all the way that goes that her mom won't let you buy it ? Maybe if you say there for her that we could buy did not. They're all star Wars Legos by the way.

Weird. Maybe you did this with your daughter. I didn't do it with mine.

It only costs $250 for the death star, but a lot would look so cool and we could play with it right there.

Would eat all the pieces. Well I, my darling Elliot , um , is obsessed with hand sanitizer. So this was like well before covert 19. Okay. So he's just, you know, forward-thinking here with his love. So we have like jugs of hands sessions are at our house. Cause also like when you have a newborn you have to hand sanitizer. Sure. We don't give out your address. Right . Sorry everybody. Sorry I don't have, I've not been hoarding jog . It just takes a long time to go through a giant bottle of hand sanitizer at a regular household. So , um , Elliot loves to like race to the bathroom and try and fool us that he's like washing , not washing his hands. He's like, well I'll just use hand sanitizer. No Elliot , that's not how this goes. So we make them go back in the bathroom and wash his hands with soap and obviously we are all over this right now. He comes out of the bathroom now he does it on his own, bless his soul. He's learned. So he'll wash his hands with soap and water. I hear him doing it. Um, then he comes out, put mom, can I have hand sanitizer? And he always wants sanitizer still. So it's adorable. It's lovely. Everyone, if you see my children in public know that he is doused in hand sanitizer because he loves it. Okay. Go give him a hug. Go give him a hug. He's all good. So , um, before we're done here, I there's something I want to share so I'm just gonna have a moment here and I'm going to read it verbatim. Thank you. So I hope you guys appreciate this. I don't want to mess it up so I'm going to read it exactly as was written. Um, if any of you are local and listening, you probably know Christian Jensen, he's from the area, a friend of mine on Facebook , um, and you know his in real life. Um, so he posted something really lovely that I just think we all need to hear. So here it goes. Fear has taken hold of us at this time. Everywhere you turn, people are locking doors in buying pallets of toilet paper. The internet is flooded with fear. I challenge all of you to post a picture of what you love the most in life right now. What is keeping you grounded and reminding you that the world will keep spinning, refocus your heart. That perhaps is the gift of the crazy time we are in right now. The most important thing we can control right now is our heart and our mind. Be careful to guard it. Be careful when you let it in. Keep number one. So it was awesome. He posted a picture with of his kid and wife and it was lovely. And then a whole bunch of people started doing the same. So like then we won't get all scared or more scared on your Facebook feed. So that's my soapbox for now. Thank you for listening to it.

So this episode is a little longer than our normal ones, but I think it's important. I hope you had a good time.

Yeah. You learn something maybe or just maybe had a chance to laugh.

You , uh , got some taco ideas.

Jimmy mentioned it about tacos and guys, try not to panic. Let's be kind to one another and be thoughtful about your neighbors.

This is something that is serious. Um, we don't want to, we might not get sick, but we also don't wanna get our neighbor's sick. So let's take care of each other. Like Christian said. Um, let's be kind. Let's refocus our hearts and stop that world from spinning. So if you liked this episode, subscribe. We have a lot of fun and it's usually not this serious. We have some fun things coming up. Uh, we wanted to make sure we addressed this because it's serious. It's what's happening. It's what we're talking about. If, you know, the premise of this podcast is it's things you talk about over dinner.

Yeah . And this is what we're talking about just so we're not going to pretend it's not happening,

but hopefully next week we're going to have a little bit more normalcy and all of our normal things . So please subscribe. Um, keep listening. If you're new to this. Thank you for everybody's already listened. If you think this is something, something that a friend would find useful, share it however it makes sense for you to share email , um, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest.

We're going to put up the blog post with all the resources on purpose. Purposefully tell them, and don't forget, we have Facebook and Instagram pages, dinner plus drinks podcast where we post fun little things. Um, you know, again, this one is, has a lot of information, so we'll be posting snippets of information and sneak peeks into our upcoming fun episodes. Checked it out. Thank you guys for listening. Stay safe. Love one another. Wash your hands wash. bye bye.

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