Day 36 of 192

Hey everyone! I hope everyone is having an amazing day!

I had quite a busy day, I was able to get a lot of things done. I had lunch with my mama, cleaned the bathrooms, prepared dinner and put away the laundry.

I believe my other roommate was also decluttering, so she offered me these pants, but they didn’t fit me anyway. Which is okay, because I am already happy with the clothes I have right now.

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Grocery Shopping

Hi all!

So today was the first time I went grocery shopping by myself during this whole pandemic. I mean, I have gone grocery shopping on my own before. But going alone by yourself in the middle of pandemic, just feels a bit more scary.

I live within walking distance of a grocery store. What made it intense was trying to open those produce bags, without licking your fingers. But I ended up using my hand sanitizer as a added moisturizer.

My grocery store is fairly well with having arrows, and signs that let you know how where to stand, while remaining two feet apart.

It took some getting used to at first. Especially since I have only been at this grocery store a few times since I have relocated to a new house a few months ago.

It was okay. I wore my mask, I had my hand sanitizer in my clutch. I always was anxious leaving a purse in my buggy before covid-19, so I always carried my clutch since it’s an over body bag. It’s not too big, but it carries my cards, my sanitizer, a pen, and my keys.

The hardest part of it all, was packing everything in a bag, because the cashier can only have two customers bag their groceries at once. I hate making others wait, so nothing was packed strategically at all. Which made the walk back home, really difficult.

I’m trying my hardest to carry all six bags back home. I was struggling, and I thought I was going to be able to manage this, alas, I couldn’t. I had to keep putting these bags on the ground and take a breather after every few houses. I had realized that one of my bags had teared up, luckily I didn’t leave a trail of food in my tracks. My arms and hands were so sore from carrying all of this. I sent a text message to my roommate and hoping that he wasn’t busy. So he came and helped me carry everything back.

And when I came in, because all of those bags touched the ground, I just threw them in the garbage bin. I sometimes use them as garbage bags for the bathroom garbage bins.

All in all, things weren’t as scary as I thought. I just have to follow the rules and signs, and I’ll be okay.

Chicken Noodle Soup

My roommate, who is my boyfriend’s friend asked me to make us chicken noodle soup, because he loves when I make it. And who doesn’t love chicken noodle soup?! My ingredients make about 10 servings, so you can increase or decrease your ingredients.

Ingredients

3 chicken breasts (or more depending on how many people there are), although you can make this with any type of chicken (thighs, leftover rotisserie chicken)

2 onions

6 carrots

6 potatoes

4 stalks of celery

Garlic

Olive oil

Salt and pepper

1 tsp Oregano

Basil leaves

Bay leaves

1 tsp Parsley

Chicken bouillon cubes and water or chicken broth

Rotini pasta noodles

Ingredients are ready to go!

Directions

1. Peel the carrots and potatoes
2. Wash and cut them. I cut my potatoes in eighths, and my Grandma taught me to slice carrots on angle, so the sugars stay in tact.
3. Thoroughly rinse your celery, and begin chopping into small pieces.
4. Begin dicing the onions. My tip is after you remove the outer skin, I like to run it under cold water before slicing it. I feel like that prevents your eyes from watering.
5. After that I begin cutting my chicken, although others may have their own methods of slicing and cooking the chicken.
6. I begin heating up my crock pot. When heated, I add olive oil and wait a few minutes to add the chicken. Once the oil is hot enough, I place the chicken in my crock pot. I then season it with salt and pepper.
7. When it is no longer pink, I add the onions and garlic.
8. Once the onions and garlic become fragrant, I add the celery. Be sure to move everything around after you added a new ingredient.
9. I begin adding in all of my spices (except for the bay leaves).
10. I add the potatoes and carrots, and let that cook for a few minutes
11. Add in the water. I use six cubes of chicken bouillon, so I have to add 12 cups of water. Once the water is boiling, I add the cubes.
12. Once the cubes dissolved, I give everything a final stir, before I add a handful of bay leaves.
13. I program my crock pot on low for eight hours (or you can even set it on low for five hours, if you are pressed for time), or on high for four hours.
14. After it has cooked for its programmed time, I add about 2 cups of noodles. I do my final taste test, to ensure the broth is just perfect. Now is the perfect time to make any adjustments. If you added too much salt, you can add a few drops of lemon juice, or a couple of squeezes of a lemon in the soup. Or if you feel like there isn’t enough spices, feel free to add more. The acidity of the lemon removes the salty taste. Cook on high for 30 minutes.
15. After the 30 minutes are up, it is ready to go.
16. Discard the bay leaves.
17. Serve with some dinner rolls or crackers, if desired.

Cooking up the chicken, celery, onions and garlic.

Carrots, potatoes and spices are added! Picture before the broth is prepped.

The final product after our first serving.

My scrumptious bowl of soup!