The next two weeks are going to be interesting as well as a challenge. Our car sold extremely quickly (we figured it would take a week or so, but it sold in a day), and now we are without transportation until the 22nd of the month and will be living off what we have in the house. The buyer was nice enough to take us over to our local Big Save to buy a few things before we handed over the keys, but we really didn’t have time to plan and hope we picked up enough to carry us through until we can get to a store again.
We bought lots of fruit and vegetable, a couple of packages of CookDo sauces, and a pad thai dinner kit, as well as a special treat to celebrate the sale of the car. We think we have enough on hand to carry us through until the 22nd, but while our meals will stay healthy they are going to get repetitive and there may be some weird combinations of things. The goal remains to use up everything we have on hand so that we can segue into sandwiches and other take-out meals our final week here, when we’ll have a car but no way left to prepare any meals other than heating things in a microwave (and we won’t have dishes to eat off of either other than paper plates and bowls and plastic cutlery).
We ate more carbs than usual last week or at least it seemed that way, but last week’s meals helped us get rid of several condiments and other items that were still in the fridge and the pantry. We finished up some barbecue sauce with the corn dogs; pickled ginger with the curry; soba noodles, soba tsuyu (dipping sauce), nori (seaweed), and katsuobushi (bonito flakes) for the zaru soba; and arborio rice in the risotto. We’re going to make an effort to use up more this coming week, but there are some thing we won’t be able to finish, including bottles of oyster sauce, hoisin sauce, and Worcestershire sauce from the fridge or red wine vinegar, sesame oil, and vanilla in the pantry. We keep trying though.
Sunday: Vegan corn dogs; coleslaw
Monday: Stouffer’s macaroni & cheese; roast vegetables
Tuesday: Vegetable curry; rice
Wednesday: Zaru soba; hayayakko; namasu
Thursday: Shrimp risotto; steamed green beans
Friday: Pad thai with shrimp
Saturday: Mini pizzas with roasted vegetables
We enjoyed chocolate filled crepes with a little whipped cream on top and the avocado chocolate ice cream for our desserts all week, with the exception of Japanese taiyaki ice cream treats, filled with green tea ice cream and sweet red beans, that we bought to celebrate the quick sale of the car.
We have four containers of tofu that have to be used up in the next two weeks, so it will appearing in two different meals this week. Otherwise we’re continuing to use up what we have in the freezer and fridge. Our mabo tofu will include an unusual ingredient this week: bean sprouts. We bought some to go into the pad thai, and I completely forgot to add them!
- Margherita pizza
- Breakfast for dinner (pancakes, sausages, & fruit)
- Tofu burgers
- Mabo tofu
- Bean, rice, & cheese burritos
- Mini pizzas
- Vegetable & barley soup
There was no hiking this past week and sadly won’t be any more for a couple more weeks. The first setback was my walking shoes giving out last weekend. They had been growing more and more uncomfortable but finally got so bad I said, “no more!” Next, the weather (rain and wind) conspired almost all of last week to keep us indoors, except for Wednesday when we took advantage of the sunshine to get our car ready for sale. That effort provided us with a LOT of exercise even if it wasn’t walking.
We’re grateful for the wonderful walking and hiking venues Kaua’i has provided for the past two years, helping us to lose weight and be in the best possible shape for our upcoming adventures.
Finally, with our car gone we are now stuck at our apartment for the next couple of weeks until it’s time to pick up our rental car. As necessity is the mother of invention, and we have no way to get anywhere except for calling Uber, we decided to try walking laps in our back yard for exercise, and try to do three sets a day of 30 laps. That has gone better than expected and provided good mileage and steps, so we will continue until we have a car again.
The Occasional Nomads 
Sounds all good to me!
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So far so good, although as we get closer to our departure it’s not going to be so easy.
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Those Japanese ice cream treats look yummy…and cute! 🤣 Even though I don’t drive every day, it is an odd feeling to not have a car at one’s disposal when you’re used to it. My car has a recall and it needs to be in the shop for a full day. No big deal…just used to having it there at the ready. Oh, and they couldn’t fit me in until July 12! Crazy.
Your menu planning skills are handy for a time like this…using up what’s left, etc. I’m sure I’d be eating take out. Haha.
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Those ice cream treats were DELICIOUS too! I wish they weren’t so expensive though. We had been looking at them at Walmart, but there were unaffordable there, but last Friday Big Save had them on sale when we stopped in so we went for it. In Japan, regular taiyaki is more of a cake filled with sweet red bean paste.
We have enough food to get through until the 22nd, when we pick up our rental car – take out starts then!
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I used to love to sauté tofu in a little soy, or teriyaki or whatever sauce I had on hand and combine with vegetables and rice. That is the extent of my rather basic cooking skills… lol. I do like tofu with sauces tho.
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That’s the wonderful thing about tofu – it takes on the flavor of whatever it’s cooked in. The other night I cooked tofu in a packet of CookDo sauce (mabo tofu) and then added in chopped bean sprouts and we both said it tasted better than any other time we’d had it – no meat necessary!
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