That sounds good, Mike. Add some spinach or kale from your Aerogarden and you have a perfect meal!

I made Bailey's Chocolate Cream Pie from iambaker.net. It's sort of a mousse, sort of cheesecake, not really either. But it's no-bake and quick, easy to make.

I have about a 5 lb. weight gain after this winter due to the baking and to not being able to get out to walk. Yesterday and today, I was able to persuade the dog to go for a walk with me. She is noise adverse, so on weekdays with construction, or if someone is out shooting somewhere, she panics, and then it takes weeks to get her out again. Earlier in the morning on weekends work pretty well.

It is hard to get good salad ingredients locally at this time of year, so soups are my go-to when I am looking to trim a few pounds.

For dinner on Monday, and into the week, I used a recipe from an email from Tasting Table (Does that site even still exist?) for Butternut Squash, Farro, and Kale Soup, which was adapted from a recipe in an Oprah Winfrey cookbook. (I first made this soup in December 2017, so I probably posted a link to the recipe at that time.) I replaced the leeks with onion—in this case 1 Tbs. dried Penzey’s onion that I rehydrate in water—as my husband does not do well with the fresh onion. The original recipe uses about 2 cups butternut squash. I used a large one (my next to the last from the farmers’ market last autumn), and I probably had about 5 cups. I decided that I would also brown a package of ground turkey to give the soup more protein. At the end, after I add the kale, I put in 2 tsp. cider vinegar. I do not know why, but it balances the flavors. (I owe this tip to the barley, butternut squash, and kale pork loin recipe that I also like to cook.) The soup came out as almost a stew, but we did not mind. We each grated a bit of Parmesan into our serving bowls. The weather is a little chilly this evening, so it was the perfect meal, and we have enough for at least two additional nights.

BA, your stew sounds wonderful!

Mike, I was doing fine while I was working, even on furlough I took long walks every day. But the last two months when I couldn't do much of anything, I would snack more and it was either bread and butter or triscuits and cheese😀

I meant to add above that I was surprised how empty the produce shelves actually were. Of course, I had read about all the shortages, transportation and production issues, but it was still a surprise anyway.

The local store (only one in town) has occasionally good deals on some items. a 2 lb. bag of carrots was 99 cents. I had stopped buying large carrots after we moved here, as many tasted bitter, but when I started buying them during the pandemic, I found that the taste was the sweetness I expect. Avocados are hit and miss at that store; I have to choose them carefully. Sometimes the produce is overpriced: $3 for 8 oz. mushrooms. I wait to see if it goes down. Broccoli is very expensive there.

We go to Aldi's in the next town every three weeks or so. Their produce prices are better, and some of their produce superior. I also go by Kroger, which has excellent prices on organic kale and some other produce.

The local grocery has some good meat prices, as they cut their own meat. We wait for the specials, usually on chicken or nonfatty pork. We avoid their chicken breasts because of the whiting. We buy frozen seafood at Aldi's.

We have taken to spacing out the Walmart visits during the pandemic: too many people still managed to flaunt the mask rules.

I had a corned beef in the freezer for close to a year so I pulled it out a couple of days ago and made it today. So, for dinner I had a corned beef sandwich and broccoli.

The corned beef weighed 3.3 pounds in the package, after I cooked it and removed the fat cap I had 1 pound 6 ounces left.

Tonight we had hamburger steaks with fries and a green salad.