Stay-at-home Food & Activities

It is hard to believe we are in the week #11 of stay at home here. Over 10 weeks of home-schooling, 77 days of not going out for sightseeing or dinner and over 230 meals made at home later, here we are!! 

The cycle of the prepping, cooking and cleaning is endless! Managing work and home-school has been a bit of an adventure with kids sneaking on and off into work meetings and parents walking into school zoom :) but on the whole we are settling into the new rhythm well and might I say, even enjoying it a bit. It has been stressful to see the news; but personally also enjoying no daily commutes, no drop-off and pickups and just less juggling social commitments with everything else.

With so many meals at home, our kitchen has been churning non-stop! I learnt to make a few things from scratch not being able to just go out and buy prepped ingredients - like this dosa and idle batter for example. We always bought dosa/idle batter, but now with the abundance of hours at home, I realized it's actually pretty easy to make batter at home. Home-made dosas and idlis have been making a rotation every-other week at our home and they are always a hit.
Dosa & Idli w/ Home-made Batter
Home-made pizza dough and bread
We are also making bread and pizza dough at home. To be honest, given a choice I would still buy store bought bread - because while my plain white bread is coming out great, the whole wheat one still needs improvements and I love the store bought whole wheat. On the other hand, home-made pizza dough has been a solid hit! Given a choice, I don't think I'll ever go back to store bought pizza dough anymore.

To nibble on, we have been baking lots of baked goodies like chocolate chip oatmeal cookies, oatmeal raisin cookies, blueberry mini-muffins, simple chocolate cakes and banana oatmeal bread. The daughter definitely takes the lead in this department :)
Baked Goodies!
Thai Basil green curry w/ tofu
While lunches have been simple - left-overs from previous dinner or wild rice bowls, veggie wraps or veggie burgers -- we attempt different rotations in dinner to avoid the dinner fatigue. Our recent favorites have been pav bhaji, Thai basil curry with tofu, udon noodles and lots of different pastas!

Very berry pancakes
Another family favorite has been this very berry pan-cakes. Made with chopped raspberries and blueberries in the batter and a strawberry-orange sauce, it has been a huge hit with everyone and something we will keep making for a few more weeks until berries become scarce with summer.
Stay at home time has also been filled with lots of reading time for everyone in the family! With less outdoor distractions, I am happily finding little time here and there to make a dent in my to-read list.

Most notable read was The Tenth Muse, which is a story of an Asian-American woman mathematician at a time when it wasn't common for women to be professors or pursuing careers in mathematics. It is a story of the challenging Math problems she solves, strength, courage in her profession she exhibits as well as her journey to finding her lineage along the way and finding who she really is. Overall a highly recommended read!

On the thought provoking side, I also enjoyed reading Range: Why generalists triumph in a specialized world, Red At the Bone as well as Night Diaries. And on light side, lots of good page-turner mysteries and Tudor English stories like the Couple Next Door, Gone Girl, The Other Queen and Katherine Howard.

On the kids reading front, my daughter's school shared a subscription of Epic! Reading e-reading platform with her, which has been a life-saver engaging her with countless books and hours at end!

My daughter and I are also crafting a lot - we recently took up sketching, which does not need a lot of supplies; and next we are taking up embroidery.

However the most fun activity we are sharing together is learning Spanish on a free Duolingo app. I have always wanted to learn a new language, so with more time at home we took up Spanish. Today is our 30th day of learning. We only spend about 15 minutes a day after dinner but we are making good progress and most importantly, having a lot of fun speaking Spanish to each other!

I am looking forward to summer ahead - enjoying the warmer weather and perhaps a chance to get out a bit more!

Comments

Nupur said…
You guys are packing your days with fun and learning! This is all so relatable, except we are dealing with an often-cranky toddler. We have been going on walks on local trails, which has been a lifesaver in many ways. What a great idea to learn a language together!