Days 29 & 30 of the 30-Day COVID-19 Cooking Challenge: That’s A Wrap

July 10 &11, 2020 are the dates we made the last two meals of the 30 Day COVID-19 Cooking Challenge. It has taken six weeks and a few days to find time to write these last two up. They are combined into one blog piece because there is a great likelihood that it could take another six weeks to write the last day of the challenge. Caregiving challenges are consuming.

For day 29 Kate made a whole chicken. It was offered as a special deal for Butcher Box members. She took advantage of it because Butcher Box did not have chicken breasts available for a while. During the spring of COVID-19 some meats were not always available; not like we are used to.

A whole chicken is not something we cook with regularity though if you remember for our fortieth anniversary Tom, with Kate’s help, made a whole chicken for us. He has always enjoyed the experience of cooking a whole chicken, having it for dinner, and then the leftovers. Me, not so much. Too much messy kind of work for not a lot of quantity. He usually says things like “you could make soup with the bones” insert me fainting. When a whole chicken comes into the house it is already cooked by a supermarket as in a rotisserie chicken. They are moist, the meat falls off the bone, it’s tasty with little effort.

Kudos to Kate on the orange blossom whole chicken. It was outstanding. She made a side of summer veggies and rice. Always with the rice, right? As carbs go it’s one of the better ones for a diabetic. At this point in the summer, Tom’s fasting glucose was continuing to climb. It was, and is, worrisome so a side of brown rice it was and continues to be most nights.

For the last meal of the challenge, I made turkey tacos with lettuce as the wrap instead of a fajita. I used a gluten-free taco mix. We had some shredded cheese, light sour cream, ground turkey, salsa, and, yes, some brown rice. It was a relaxed meal. It was a good way to wrap up the challenge.

The 30-day challenge was fun. It gave Kate and me a way to change up dinners. It took us out of our routine in an interesting way. We always had to keep in mind that the food had to work well for a diabetic and be gluten-free for me. Also, it was amazing for me to have someone take on the role of cook every other night. Cooking and clean-up are typically all on me. In fact, most everything is all on me as a caregiver to a person with ALS who also has diabetes. Most recently, we have added insulin shots to the daily routine. As I have shared throughout the cooking challenge diabetes with a side of ALS is a problem that is not going away. The pancreas is simply not able to keep up with the demands, therefore, insulin has been added to address rising glucose levels.

The pandemic is far from over. Kate is back home teaching her third graders virtually but doing so from her classroom. Why from her classroom? She has resources there she does not have at home including her colleagues. As much as we miss her Tom and I are focused on some projects that are impossible to do when there is a guest in the house. We get through this ALS life with projects because a project always gives you something to look forward to. Each day it gives you a tomorrow.