Living the Pantry Lifestyle - Getting life back to normal

The above photo shows the Jewel Cookies I made for Valentine's Day.  I had promised my husband lemon bars but there was no way I felt like making them.  They aren't hard to make but it does take time.  Then I remembered I had lemon curd in the pantry and it would make a great filling for Jewel Cookies.  Since I fill the cookies before baking them, they don't look all that lovely so I let confectioner's sugar snow fall on them.  Gently.

Yesterday was the first time in two weeks I felt human again so this post will most likely be another rambling about things on my mind.  I wish I could say the virus has left the building but no... Hubby came down with it yesterday evening.  He lost our cell phone last week (it fell out of his pocket when getting his gloves on a cold day) and there was one place he hadn't looked, yet.  So he had gone to the home of the elderly farmer he helps out and looked around there.  Unfortunately, he didn't find it.

However, he had just arrived home when he got a funny look on his face and ran to the bathroom.  Poor guy!  It came on him as quickly as it did me.  He was suppose to take part in a military funeral this morning and had a busy day planned but instead had to cancel everything.  Currently he is on the sofa with Florentine stretched out on his legs.  She is loving it that he has to stay quiet.  At least someone is happy.

I defrosted a whole chicken (the last of my stash in the deep freeze but this is a good cause) so at the moment it is taking a hot bath with some onions, celery, carrots, whole garlic cloves, salt, and peppercorns.  Just what the doctor ordered if he or she was into natural medicine.  I'm hoping Hubby can keep soup down.

I must admit, watching Alaska: The Last Frontier and reading their cookbook has reinforced my love of cooking from scratch and when possible, making healthy alternatives to get well (like soup).  Of course, there are no alternatives to what I have to take for the autoimmune diseases but there are ways to help the immune system.  Thus, the reason I've added quite a few whole cloves of garlic and a whole onion with everything else to my chicken soup stock.

We first began to get into natural foods and such in the early years of our marriage in the 1970s, as a way of helping my husband's environmental illness symptoms.  I laugh now because back then the answer to everything was roughage!  Whole foods have come a long way since then as a lot of people realized true healthy eating is the way great grandmother cooked.

Having said that, I wished I had a few cans of Campbell's Chicken Noodle soup on the shelves when I was first sick.  When the kids were both still at home, I used to keep a Rubbermaid style container labeled something like "Colds and Flu" and everything I could store together for illnesses was in that container.  I always had Campbell's Chicken Noodle soup after reading an article that it is actually good for when you have the flu due to its' high salt content (go figure).

I thought of that when I was feeling so sick at first.  I actually craved potato chips.  That was all I could keep down the first day of the virus. Thankfully, the high carbs kept me from plunging into low blood sugar. A friend suggested it could be to the salt content and I thought back on my Campbell's soup days.  Most likely!

After going through this reminder, I am going to once again stock a cold and flu container on the pantry shelves.  Except for a bag of potato chips and some crackers, I was totally unprepared for not being able to cook and needing food and drink I could keep down for awhile.  I also need to fix some make ahead meals for the freezer.

My favorite cookbook that combines healthy recipes and advice is Karey Swan's Hearth & Home: Recipes for Life.  Long time homeschoolers will probably recognize it.  It is a simple book, fun to read as well as cook from.  It's an old fashioned kind of cookbook with no photos but that is okay.

So once again, excuse the rambling blog post.  It's what I can handle today now that I have a patient.  I have been working on the soup off and on while writing this and it is now time to finish it.

Items mentioned in this post:
Homestead Kitchen cookbook... here.
Hearth & Home: Recipes for Life cookbook... here.

Links I liked this week:
Stocking a Pantry Like a Pro... here.
Freezing Spinach and Other Greens... here.

Jewel Cookie recipe... here.

Disclosure:  Most links to Amazon.com are Associate Links.  I thank you.
Photo from: @coffeeteabooksandme on Instagram