Chirped by Tina and Cass
One thing many of us are dabbling in during the Covid-19 lockdown is home cooking. Maybe we have to substitute a few ingredients, since we can’t run out willy-nilly to the grocery store every other day. Personally we’re getting much better at planning our meals ahead of time, so that our once-weekly (or less) shopping can go the distance between trips. We’re also getting good at searching for recipes online that use ingredients we already have on hand. For this month’s Cheep Trills, we decided to share some of our favorite recipes from our quarantined kitchens… Some are easy, some more elaborate, but all are tasty if you’re looking for a little inspiration for next week’s menu… Hope you enjoy!
From the Sea…
Tuna Kabobs (Cass)
This shish kabob marinade can be used for any kind of cubed meat/seafood you wish to “kabob”: chicken, beef, pork, shrimp, or our favorite – tuna steaks. Mix up the marinade, add your choice of protein, and let it sit for three to four hours in the fridge. An hour before you want to assemble the kabobs, cut up your vegetables and add them to the marinade, too. Let sit. We usually use a red onion, peppers, and mushrooms in ours. Skewer your marinated meat and vegetables and lay directly on the grill rack. We use the leftover marinade to baste the kabobs as they grill. Once they’ve cooked, we like to disassemble it all into a large bowl, so people can pick out the goodies they wish to eat. Continue reading
Whatever your preferred virtual meeting platform is, schedule a big family meetup on Easter Sunday! Where else do they all need to be this weekend, right? Zoom, WebEx, Skype, FaceTime… whatever works and can handle multiple families joining in. We’ve been having a great time doing Zoom and FaceTime happy hours with friends and family. Facetime is easy if everyone has an iPhone, but for the Android users, sign up for one of the other services. We successfully hosted 14 people on a book club Zoom meeting a couple of weeks ago, and it worked quite well! A lot of students have upgraded Zoom accounts that will allow unlimited meeting lengths, unlike the free version, that cuts you off at 40 minutes. 
Tina and her crafting groups have been researching and sewing homemade cloth masks for health care and other essential workers, as well as friends and family. There is some research that questions the utility of cloth masks. However, healthcare and safety specialists that they’ve talked to say that at the very least, the homemade masks:
February’s choices for both book clubs had mixed reviews from our members. Cass’s book club read 
If you’ve never ventured into the genre of post-apocalyptic fiction, 