Around the World Cooking Challenge

Remember WorldEats, that challenge we were doing that we haven't posted about in nearly three years?

Progress slowed considerably in recent years thanks to the whole pregnancy and having an infant thing, but we didn't actually quit doing it. We just owe the blog a lot of posts about our adventures, old and new (besides all the trip recaps; who knows if we even have any memories of those trips left?).

That said, the one thing that did effectively pause our WorldEats exploration was the COVID-19 pandemic. Self-quarantine, plus trying to limit the amount of contact with the outside world, plus a bunch of restaurants temporarily closing for safety reasons (or in some cases, sadly permanently closing), plus most of the restaurants we would want to try for WorldEats being outside our delivery radius, means that we haven't done much over the past few months.

Love exploring our giant world through food!

I was stuck in a bit of a rut in the spring, and I was thinking about how much I missed our WorldEats exploration, especially how much I missed introducing new flavors and foods that we loved to baby B, and started wondering if maybe we should start another challenge (yes, I like challenges; they give me focus) for home cooking. As if the 52 week cooking challenge and WorldEats and the periodic World Cup challenges weren't enough, what if we did WorldEats but in a cooking challenge?

Say hello to our Around the World Cooking Challenge (AtWCC), which we kicked off this month (June 2020)!

The current plan is to go in alphabetical order just for some sort of structure, but I might break that if I find a cookbook in the (virtual) library that I can't wait to try and decide to cook (part of) the book. I'm also planning to mix the US states and major territories into that alphabetical order (we're part of the world too, even if we don't always act like it!). I've always felt that you gain a greater appreciation for other cultures through food, and the US is so regional that some areas might as well be separate countries, so it makes sense to add the different states and territories in here.

I had forgotten this was on the wall of Eataly! I had already decided to try to make bread for each of our exploration locations, and this map is going to come in handy on our journey!
I know this challenge has been done before, and I've found various blogs and Instagram accounts doing the same, but I'm excited to see how ours turns out! I anticipate some hurdles when it comes to figuring out egg replacements or my disinclination to cook red meat at home (don't really eat that much of it anyway, and interestingly we've become more and more plant-based as the pandemic rages on) or to deep fry at home (and we haven't tested our new air fryer yet), but hopefully we'll find some great things that work for our family and the challenge. I'm not planning on a strict time schedule (pinning it down to once a week is too much structure and pressure for me) or limiting myself to one recipe/meal per country, so we might never make it to Zimbabwe, but it'll be fun along the way! I'm really looking forward to researching all these new foods, dishes, and places, and I know we'll learn so much on this journey.

First up is Afghanistan (which as of the time of this writing, is already in progress). All posts will be labeled with AtWCC, we'll keep a status list in the sidebar, and maybe we'll also manage to finally catch up and write some of the dine-out WorldEats posts for the same countries as we continue on our journey. Hope you'll join us on our newest food adventure!

Week 10 - Fermented

When I hear fermented, my first thought is usually kimchi, but for the week 10 fermented challenge, kimchi was out since it would be too spicy for B. I didn't want to actually ferment anything myself, since I didn't want to unintentionally land us all in the hospital, so I decided I would use a recipe with a fermented product, but what? I considered pickles, but figuring out fermentation versus brining and which pickles were which was too much for my sleepy brain to figure out at the time, so pickles were also out. Tempeh was the next thing on the list, something I'd never cooked with before, and after finding a recipe for a marinated peanut tempeh on Minimalist Baker, I decided to go for it. Although the original recipe baked the peanut tempeh, I just used that as our starting point and made our very first peanut tempeh stir-fry!

The ingredients for our adapted recipe were:

for the marinade:
- 1.5 tbsp sesame oil ($0.45)
- 2 tbsp peanut butter (used pb2) ($0.50)
- 3 tbsp soy sauce ($0.60)
- juice of 1 lime ($0.29)
- 2 tbsp agave ($0.15)


everything else:
- 8 oz tempeh ($1.99)
- 3 zucchini, chopped ($2.29)
- 12 oz of white mushrooms, chopped ($2.25)
- 1 yellow onion, chopped ($0.50)
- 3 bell peppers, chopped ($3.99)
- 4 scallions, chopped ($0.65)
- 1 can of cut green beans ($0.69)
- freshly ground black pepper ($0.05)
- garlic powder ($0.05)

The total for dinner was about $14.45 (really surprised at just how consistently we're coming in at family meals for $15 with these challenges, making me think I should also price our non-challenge meals), which made enough for dinner for three plus a tiny portion that I ate for snack another day. We probably could have dropped the price a little bit with cheaper bell peppers (or less vegetables, like the second time we made this), but the quality of the peppers at Costco was amazing, so we splurged a little.

Since this was the first time I had ever worked with tempeh, I was a little intimidated! First, the package stated outright, "Occasionally dark areas on tempeh are a result of the natural culturing process and do not indicate spoilage." What if the entire thing has gray dots all over it? Also, if it says occasionally, are the dark spots supposed to be rare? Thanks to the internet, I learned that if it's slimy, if it's not firm, or if it smells terrible, you should be concerned, but otherwise the dark spots are just the spores as a result of the fermentation. Ours was very firm, had a best by date over three months away, smelled fine, and didn't seem slimy (just a little wet from the packaging), so I kept going.


Apparently, tempeh has a bitter taste, which I vaguely remember from trying it in a dish one time (don't remember what kind or where) and thinking it had a strange aftertaste. According to the recipe I was following, steaming or boiling the tempeh would get rid of that bitterness. I followed along, filling a pan with an inch of water, bringing it to a low boil, adding the tempeh, and boiling it for 6 minutes per side. The instructions then said to rinse it (not sure why, but I did it), pat it dry, and then cut it up. I intended to cut it into cubes, but it seemed easy enough to crumble so I just tore it up with my hands rather than creating more to wash with another knife and cutting board. Once it started crumbling, it just kept crumbling though, so instead of cubes, I really just had crumbled tempeh. That probably worked out better for B anyway, but it wasn't my intention at the time.


As I tore the tempeh apart with my hands, I added it to the bowl of marinade, and then stirred it up well. The recipe said to refrigerate for 2-24 hours, stirring occasionally, so that was what I did. It ended up being refrigerated for about 18-19 hours.


Outside of the preparation of the tempeh, the rest of the dish was a relatively straightforward stir-fry. Prep the vegetables, cook them with a little black pepper and garlic powder, add the tempeh with all of the marinade, and then let it cook covered until everything is soft (or not so soft if you want some bite to your vegetables, but we lean toward the softer side for B). We were originally going to eat this on its own without any grains, but we had a little bit of leftover rice from the moqueca, so we each ate this with a scoop of rice but otherwise on its own.


This was pretty good. It tasted really healthy with all the vegetables, and I really liked the marinade. None of us had very strong feelings on the tempeh itself, but I will say that that boiling method did take away any bitterness that might have been in the original product, so it did work. After the challenge meal, we weren't in love with tempeh, but definitely open to trying it again.

Considering all the meat shortages that have happened since then during the pandemic, we've been eating more and more plant-based foods and gave both tempeh and this sauce another try. This time though, I didn't crumble it and instead sliced the tempeh into chunks, which worked so much better. We had it in a stir-fry with a yellow pepper, green beans, and onions over rice, and it was a really tasty dinner. Although we've been gravitating more towards vegan meat substitutes lately, the tempeh was good as a nuttier, firmer, chewier alternative to tofu, so I could definitely see us using it (and this sauce) again!

Week 9 - Brazilian

I was excited when the week 9 challenge came up as Brazilian, because B had never had Brazilian food before! I wasn't sure what to make since one of my favorite Brazilian foods, pao de queijo, has eggs as a pretty central ingredient, but I was sure we could find something we would all love. I looked around for something that wouldn't be too meat-heavy, and came upon a recipe for a Bahia-style moqueca prawn stew on BBC Good Food. We'd been meaning to introduce B to shrimp for some time, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. It sounded delicious and simple to make, so it was an easy choice.

Previous Brazilian challenge meal from 2016

A few days after I made our recipe choice for the challenge, I looked back at what we did for the last Brazilian challenge. I remembered that it had involved fish and a soup or stew of some sort, and that we had not really been fans of how the fish turned out. As I read over the post, it occurred to me that the ingredients and the steps sounded very similar to the moqueca that we were going to make this time. Well, it sounded similar because it was. It was almost the same thing but with fish instead of shrimp (and some other ingredient variations like cumin and the amount of lime juice), but I didn't realize it when picking this one because the recipe last time had just been called Brazilian fish stew and not moqueca. I decided to make it anyway, since this time it would have shrimp, and it would also be a chance to do it better.

The ingredients for our adapted version were:

- 1 package of frozen raw shrimp (about 450g) ($9.99)
- juice of 2 limes, divided ($0.58)
- 6 cloves of garlic, finely chopped ($0.33)
- a few tbsp coconut oil ($0.50)
- 1 onion, chopped ($0.50)
- 4 scallions, chopped, whites and greens separated ($0.65)
- 2 bell peppers, chopped ($2.67)
- a couple tsp paprika ($0.10)
- 1 can diced tomatoes with juice ($0.89)
- 1 can (about 400 ml) coconut milk ($1.50)
- salt and freshly ground black pepper ($0.05)
- rice ($2)

[Note: The original recipe also included a couple tbsp of chopped cilantro, but the grocery store was out of cilantro and we were a little too busy to go hunting for it. It would have been a nice addition to brighten it up even more.]

The total came out to approximately $19.76, more than recent challenge meals, but that's to be expected when almost $10 of that cost is the shrimp by itself. It was enough for the three of us for dinner, plus a little left over for lunch for me and B (chicken nuggets went really well with it).


The steps for our version were:

1. Marinate shrimp: Place in a bowl with about 2 tbsp of lime juice and 1 tbsp of chopped garlic. Chill for about an hour.

2. Heat coconut oil. Add onion and the whites of the scallions, and saute until soft. Add peppers, scallion greens, the rest of the garlic, and the paprika, and cook until the peppers begin to soften. Season with some freshly ground black pepper.


3. Add the can of tomatoes with juice, coconut milk, and a little salt. Bring to boil, and then simmer on low for 10 minutes. [Note: I added another 1/2 cup of water along with the coconut milk because it didn't look like enough liquid for the shrimp. It didn't need it. It was more than enough so it ended up being more like soup than stew, but it was some delicious broth!]

4. Add shrimp with the marinade and the rest of the lime juice, and cook for about 3 minutes (or enough time for shrimp to turn white and opaque).

5. Garnish with chopped cilantro (if you have it, unlike us) and serve over rice.


We really liked this recipe, much more than when we made it last time. Cilantro would have made it even better, but it was vibrant, bright, and full of tropical flavors, especially lime, transporting our minds and tastebuds to someplace warmer in the middle of winter. (We made this back in February.) The prep took a little bit of time, but it was a pretty straightforward recipe and easy to make. All three of us liked it a lot, and it seemed like B's first time having shrimp was a success! Would definitely make this again.

Week 8 - Used to Dislike

The challenge for Week 8 was called "used to dislike." The first year I did the challenge in 2014, there was a challenge for an ingredient you hated as a kid. I chose lima beans and made two lima bean recipes (here and here), neither of which convinced me to jump on the lima bean train. I didn't really want to do that again, but I had a bit of trouble coming up with foods that I disliked at one point and loved now.

Eventually, I settled on cilantro and eggs. As a kid, I didn't love finding cilantro in dishes. I don't think I thought it tasted like soap, but just that it was strong and overpowering. One day, it was like a switch flipped, and I suddenly realized how amazing cilantro was and couldn't get enough of it. I also didn't love eggs when I was younger, other than omelettes. Didn't like the texture or taste hardboiled, found them boring scrambled (and whatever they were in those "scrambled egg" dining hall trays), and didn't like runny eggs at all. Omelettes were fine, filled with meats and veggies and cheese, but why would I choose those other types of eggs when there were so many more interesting things I could eat? Combining herbs and eggs led me straight to kuku sabzi, a Persian herb frittata usually eaten at the start of spring for the new year. (Note: We made this in February, and I'm just a little behind in posting...)

Kuku sabzi wasn't really a perfect answer to this challenge. First, frittatas are similar to omelettes, so not exactly something I would have disliked. Second, I couldn't actually make eggs due to B's allergy, and I didn't dislike chickpeas at any point (garbanzo flour would be the substitute for eggs). Was this really the best thing I could make? In the end, I decided to go with it for two main reasons. One, I'd never made it before, and the point of the cooking challenge generally was to expand my cooking horizons, and two, I may have disliked how strong some herbs were when I was younger, but maybe I could avoid that for B by continuing to introduce them to him at a young age. Looking around, I found a vegan version of kuku sabzi on Golubka Kitchen and decided to start there. It sounded delicious.


Before I go any further, a quick plea for help if anyone is reading this and has any ideas. This challenge, out of all the ones this year so far, took the longest to prepare. I didn't take any breaks or play games and just worked the entire time, but somehow it took 2.5 hours to prep everything and get it in the oven, with the majority of that time spent prepping three things - parsley, cilantro, and dill. How can I get faster at washing herbs, picking them off the stems, and chopping them up? What are we doing wrong? How could it possibly take so long? There has to be something we're missing, but internet sleuthing and YouTube haven't turned up anything yet. We just don't understand how it could have taken so long. Anyway, on with the challenge.


The ingredients for our adapted version of the vegan kuku sabzi were:

for the frittata:
- 2 cups chickpea flour ($1.50)
- salt ($0.02)
- turmeric powder ($0.15)
- freshly ground black pepper ($0.05)
- 3 tbsp grapeseed oil ($0.50)
- 2.5 cups water ($0)
- 1 onion, finely chopped ($0.79)
- 1 cup of leeks, chopped ($1)
- 2 garlic cloves, minced ($0.10)
- 1 bunch of cilantro, chopped ($0.99) *
- 1 bunch of parsley, chopped ($1.49) *
- 1 bunch of dill, chopped ($1.99) *
on the side:
- 1 box of grape tomatoes ($3.99)
- 1 container of garlic spread ($2.99)

* The recipe said 1.5 cups of each of these, chopped, and I really tried to do that. We had some giant bunches of cilantro, parsley, and dill that we bought from Wegmans, larger than what we would ever get at Trader Joe's. I felt sure that this would be way more than 1.5 cups, so much so that I only washed half the parsley initially, and then was shocked when it didn't even fill an entire cup. In the end, it probably came out to just under a cup of cilantro, just over a cup of parsley, and about 1.25 cups of dill.

All of that came out to $8.58 for the frittata and $15.56 for the total. It seems most of our challenge meals are coming out around $15 these days. It did last for two dinners though, so no complaints there and more economical than some of the other stuff we've made lately.

The steps for the recipe itself weren't difficult, but it just took a lot of time to make, with the bulk of that time being prep as mentioned earlier. The steps for our adapted version were:


- Prep the onion, leeks, garlic, and herbs.
- For the batter, combine the chickpea flour, salt, turmeric, black pepper. Whisk in the oil and water, and then let it sit while preparing the other stuff.
- Saute onion, leeks, and garlic until soft, and then add to the batter.
- Add the chopped herbs to the batter, and mix in well.
- Oil a pie pan (two in our case), and then pour the batter into the pan.
- Bake at 425 degrees for 30 minutes.
- Serve with garlic spread (looked for a yogurt dip or yogurt-based tzatziki, couldn't find what I wanted, but this worked so well) and chopped tomatoes.


The final product here tasted good, but we thought there wasn't as much flavor as there should have been considering there were all those herbs plus garlic plus leeks plus onions. If we made this again, we would add more garlic, more leeks, and green onions. Honestly though, there probably won't be a next time for this exact recipe unless we can figure out how to process the herbs faster. It took way too long to prepare something that should be so simple.


That said, the texture was good, and we all liked it, so we decided to reuse this as a framework for other "frittatas" that would be easier to prep. We've already done that once now with a combo of mushrooms, onions, and Mexican cheese, which was definitely easier to make, but also came out with far less flavor than we thought it would (and zero cheese taste). Something to work on for the future, I guess. Another bright spot from this kuku sabzi experiment, besides finding a way to make vegan frittatas, was that B ate plenty of it and at this point in time, doesn't seem to have an aversion to herbs and stronger flavors. He was so willing to try it, and that made me so happy!