Week 30 - Cartoon

The "inspiration" weeks of the cooking challenge are often difficult for me, trying to figure out dishes inspired by books or music or things of that nature. When the Week 30 challenge was announced as cartoon, I had no idea what I was going to make. Not many concrete ideas were coming to mind other than Simpsons donuts (which I didn't want to make), but I did think about food-related cartoons like Food Wars, a show I stopped watching early on but A has watched most of. After talking through different ideas, my original plan was to make the sumire karaage roll from Food Wars, but that would have required going to an Asian grocery store, breaking open and figuring out how to use the air fryer, and learning some other new techniques. Eventually I decided that that was more than I could realistically handle right now, so I switched and decided to make a burger from Bob's Burgers, a show I've only seen every so often but have enjoyed reading about the burgers from.

Lucky for me, back in 2018, Blue Apron partnered with Bob's Burgers and put out three recipes inspired by the show, including one for a cheeseburger with caramelized shallots, aka The Absentee Shallot Burger. (Kind of timely for 2020...) Since we weren't getting the ingredients in a Blue Apron box, and since we were going to pair the burger with pre-made tots instead of making their side dish of roasted potatoes with fontina cheese, it took a little more planning to separate out all the steps in their instructions and figure out what actually related to the burger. After doing all that, I made a bunch more modifications and additions (more than I usually do), and came up with a burger plan that, at least on paper, sounded good.

The ingredients for our modified Absentee Shallot Burger were:

- 1 pint of grape tomatoes, chopped ($2.99)
- olive oil ($0.30)
- white wine vinegar ($0.07)
- 5 shallots, finely chopped ($0.54)
- 1-1/3 lb ground turkey ($4)
- a couple tsp of chopped parsley ($0.49)
- about 1 tsp honey ($0.08)
- about 2 tsp dijon mustard ($0.14)
- 1 flax egg ($0.08)
- a couple tsp of panko ($0.10)
- salt and freshly ground black pepper ($0.03)
- garlic powder ($0.05)
- about 2 tbsp goat cheese ($2, although perhaps I should count the whole $3.99 since we forgot to finish it in time)
- 1 small spoonful of garlic spread ($0.30)
- burger buns ($1.50)

The cost for the burgers was about $12.67, and the tots we ate it with were probably another dollar or so. According to various sites, the price of a Blue Apron meal comes out to about $8-9 per person (not sure when that was calculated), so if that's the case, we still came out ahead, and we probably used more of each ingredient than they'd send.

The steps for making our version of the Absentee Shallot Burger were:

1. Prep - wash and chop tomatoes, wash and chop parsley leaves, peel and finely chop shallots.

2. Make tomato relish. Combine chopped tomatoes in a bowl with about 1 tbsp of olive oil, about 1 tbsp of white wine vinegar, salt, and pepper. Season to taste and set aside.

3. In a large skillet, add some olive oil and cook the shallots until softened. Remove from heat.

4. In a large mixing bowl, combine the ground turkey, cooked shallots, parsley, honey, dijon mustard, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and flax egg. Mix until all the ingredients are well-combined. If too wet, add some panko.

5. Form the meat mixture into burgers. Heat olive oil in the large skillet, and cook the burgers until browned on each side and the internal temperature is at least 165 degrees F.

6. While burgers are cooking, make the goat cheese spread by combining the goat cheese, garlic spread, and a splash of olive oil and white wine vinegar until smooth.

7. Once burgers are done cooking, remove from heat and place burgers on paper towels.

8. Assemble burgers by spreading the goat cheese spread on a burger bun, topping it with the burger, and then adding the tomato relish on top.

Our thoughts on the burger:

- I changed the burger mix a lot from the original, which was just ground beef, shallots, salt and pepper. I added a flax egg first because I wasn't sure what was binding the whole thing together, and then added more seasonings - parsley and garlic powder - for more flavor. The Blue Apron recipe included ingredients and steps for a honey mustard, but it was supposed to be drizzled on the potatoes instead. Since it seemed like a complementary flavor, I decided to just put it in the burgers.

- Our meat mixture was so much wetter than any turkey burger I'd made before, even after adding some last minute panko, so I couldn't actually form them into burgers and just ended up dropping handfuls into the oiled pan. They stayed together really well though, so I guess it worked even if they weren't well-shaped burgers.

- We used whole wheat burger buns, and the ones we used really took away from the flavors of the rest of the recipe. All the components tasted good, but together, everything tasted a little subdued. I didn't have time, and the oil had blackened quite a bit in the existing skillet, so I didn't toast the buns, but I don't think it would have made a difference in this assessment for me. Eating the burger, goat cheese spread, and tomatoes without the bread tasted so much better than with the burger bun. I actually think putting those three components into a large lettuce leaf (protein style!) would be really good. A thought the buns we used were a little too dense and that they had too much of their own flavor, so it didn't really bring out the flavors of what I actually made. He thought a squishy white hamburger bun would have been better than these.

- Despite the five shallots turning into nearly a cup of chopped shallots, I didn't taste any shallots at all in the turkey burger. It could have been because I added more seasonings, but I think the goat cheese spread would have covered any shallot flavor even if I hadn't. We almost forgot the shallots were even in there, which wouldn't be a big deal if it weren't called the Absentee Shallot Burger.

I love turkey burgers, and I thought this one turned out well, even if I would have preferred it sans bread. I would make it again and just eat it on its own (healthier that way anyway). A wasn't a huge fan of the bun either. He said that he should have tried the components separately without it, so he can't give an accurate judgment of the burger because of that, but that the goat cheese-garlic spread was tasty. Lastly, B, unlike me, wasn't a huge fan of the turkey burger (hasn't been a huge fan of meat generally these days, or meat-tasting things like Impossible Burger, with the exception of BBQ), but he would probably give an enthusiastic thumbs-up to the tomato relish, his favorite part. In the end, planning out this recipe was a lot more fun than I thought it would be, and even if we don't ever make it again, I'm really glad I did it.

Lemony Arugula Basil Salad Kit

Trader Joe's came out with a very summery-sounding salad this year, the lemony arugula basil salad kit, and we've picked up a bag on each of our two most recent trips. The salad combines arugula, carrots (looked like shaved carrots of many colors, if you're familiar with their produce), chopped almonds, and shaved parmesan with a basil lemon vinaigrette. According to the nutrition facts, it makes about 4 cups of salad, and the entire package is 430 calories for $3.99.

We really liked this salad kit. Unlike some others we got recently where all the greens were wilting or the lettuce had turned red, the arugula and carrots here were fresh and crunchy, probably because those vegetables themselves are heartier and more durable than some others. The vinaigrette was light and delicious, and it was a good match for the very peppery arugula. (Main flavors/ingredients of the very tasty vinaigrette were sunflower oil, basil, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, garlic, honey, lemon, shallots, dijon mustard, orange, coriander, and a bunch of different types of pepper.) The addition of parmesan cheese also made the salad so much better, and we're not sure we would have liked it quite as much without it.

That said, there were some not-so-great things or things that we thought could have been improved on. The parmesan cheese was good, but we wished there were more! Also, the way that arugula bunches up sometimes when you mix it made it a little more difficult to make sure everything was spread around evenly, and it would have probably been easier if the carrots were grated instead of shaved. The worst though was probably the first time we got the salad kit, when one of the roasted almond pieces I had was hard like wood, and I felt like my teeth cracked after I bit down on it. Very unpleasant, and I was thankful that this wasn't my last piece of almond/last bite of salad, or that would have been a really disappointing end to the meal. So, if you get it, just be careful of the almonds!

Buy again? Yes, we would and we have. Not sure if this is seasonal, but we'll keep getting it as long as they keep selling it!

Week 29 - Emulsification

The Week 29 challenge was announced as emulsification, and although I'd heard the word before, I have to admit that I didn't actually know what it meant in terms of cooking. A quick search for "emulsification recipes" led me to a Fine Cooking article on making emulsion sauces, from which I learned that emulsion sauces included mayonnaise, hollandaise, and vinaigrette, sauces combining two elements that don't really mix with one another, like fat and water, by using a substance like mustard or eggs. Apparently those substances, called emulsifiers, are "made up of big, bulky protein molecules," and that's what helps the sauce hold. I need to learn more about the science of cooking, because it's truly fascinating.

Anyway, once I read the intro there and learned that vinaigrette would qualify for the emulsification challenge, I went looking for a recipe for vinaigrette, which I found on Cookie + Kate. I stuck fairly close to the recipe there, both in terms of ingredients and steps, and it worked out wonderfully. (As a side note, the reason I mentioned that I read the intro only on Fine Cooking is because, as I read it now after the fact, they mention all these tips for keeping an emulsion sauce together, none of which I actually did, like an order of ingredients or adding oil slowly. Luckily, it still worked!)

Ignore the cashew butter... Not part of this, just a crowded counter

The ingredients for our vinaigrette were:

- 1/2 cup olive oil ($0.80)

- 3 tbsp white wine vinegar ($0.21)

- about 1 tbsp dijon mustard ($0.21)

- about 1 tbsp honey ($0.23)

- one spoonful of minced garlic ($0.10)

- a few grinds of salt and black pepper ($0.03)

Coming in at about $1.58, the vinaigrette itself wasn't more expensive than buying salad dressing at the store, and at home, you have the benefit of knowing exactly what's in it and being able to customize it yourself. It made more dressing than we needed for a pretty big salad, so it goes a long way, especially if you dress your salads lighter than we do (we love dressing).

The steps for the recipe I followed were simple. Mix all the ingredients in a bowl, and stir it up well with a fork. When I first started stirring, all the ingredients were still really separated, and I had a sinking feeling that I had no idea what I was doing and that it wasn't going to work. But with some time spent vigorously stirring with a fork, the sauce just came together. It was like magic (except actually science). I was amazed that it actually worked, but so happy!

The recipe also gave suggestions for what to do once you tasted the vinaigrette and needed to make adjustments. It tasted a little acidic to me when trying it, so the recommendation was to add more olive oil or honey. I added a little bit of both, and it turned out just right on a second taste.

Usually we'd mix the onions in with the rest of the salad, but it was B's first time having raw red onions and we didn't know if he'd like them. Turned out he loves them as much as we do!

The vinaigrette became the dressing for a salad of grape tomatoes, chickpeas, red onions, and feta cheese, and it was delicious. Light, delicate, but also so flavorful. We ate it alongside Gardein chipotle black bean burgers, and it was a great vegetarian dinner. We liked this vinaigrette so much that I've made it again and even added it to our cookbook!

Captain Daniel Packer Inne

After a relaxing afternoon in the sun and sand at the beach in New London, we decided to take a short drive up to Mystic for dinner. If you're not familiar with Mystic, Connecticut, they're known for their re-created seaport village and maritime museum with buildings that date back centuries. We didn't have time to visit and sightsee on our weekend getaway, and I hadn't been to the seaport for at least a decade before our trip, but I've always had fond memories of Mystic.

We chose the Captain Daniel Packer Inne for dinner, a historic building on the Mystic River that had been built in the 1750s and which had served as a resting place for travelers between New York and Boston. We may not have had time for a full historical exploration at the seaport, but at least we could get a little taste of history by stopping by the inn.

It was crowded when we arrived, and we, of course, had not made reservations because we hadn't actually pre-planned anything for our last minute getaway. That just meant beers at the bar while we waited! What kind of beers did we get? A's Untappd app says he got the Mystic Bridge IPA, but beyond that, we have no real memories about the beer.

We were so hungry once we finally got our table. They brought out some complimentary bread alongside roasted garlic butter, and it was delicious. It wasn't just butter with some roasted garlic mixed into it though. It was better - an entire head of roasted garlic in melted butter - so not only did you get butter for your bread, but you could spread on soft garlic as well. Great start to the meal.

After indulging in our garlicky bread, we shared the portobello mushroom appetizer, which we ordered in part because the menu labeled it as "a Packer Inne original." Whether that means it was on the menu from colonial times or it was the chef's original creation, it was unclear, but the menu described it as a "large portobello cap rubbed with garlic and herb butter, then topped with Alouette cheese and seasoned breadcrumbs, baked golden brown and served with an intensely flavored chive-infused olive oil and balsamic reduction." I put the entire description here verbatim because we don't actually remember anything about the specific flavors five years later except that it was tasty and we liked it. (Really wish we took some notes about this trip...) At least now you'll have some idea what it might have tasted like.

For our entrees, we split two different sandwiches. One was the hot lobster roll, fresh lobster with a sherry butter sauce on a grilled roll. The two main types of lobster rolls are Maine and Connecticut-style, and this one was your classic Connecticut-style lobster roll, warm with butter. It was so rich and buttery, but what else would you expect when you combine lobster and that much butter? The fries on the side were also really good.

The second was the grilled crab and cheese, described on the menu as "fresh seasoned lump crab meat, red onion, fresh avocado, and gruyere cheese grilled on a ciabatta roll with tomato coulis dipping sauce." Unlike the lobster roll which came with regular fries, this one came with sweet potato fries. Between the two, we remember this sandwich being our favorite, but they were both good.

After dinner, we headed back to our hotel and called it a night. Weekend getaways are always so short, and it was time to pack to head home the next day. We wouldn't be headed straight home though. We had plans to take the scenic route home (at least for part of it), to drive down the Connecticut coast sampling even more food and taking some more relaxing walks, so there will be a few more posts in this weekend getaway series!

Week 28 - Soul Food

I never would have predicted that the Week 28 challenge, soul food, would have been one of my hardest to complete. The challenge was announced during the height of the protests for Black Lives Matter, and since it was important to me that the source of my soul food recipes for the challenge be from Black chefs, I chose to take a few volumes out of the library to look for something to make. I started with the wonderful book by Dora Charles, but I didn't think I could finish reading the book in its entirety to choose something by the time the challenge rolled around, so I put it aside for another time (probably whenever we choose to do the Georgia part of the AtWCC).

We haven't made it very far in our Savannah road trip posts, but this was a side of stewed tomatoes and okra we got on our trip

Next, I picked up Sweet Home Cafe Cookbook: A Celebration of African American Cooking, the book put out by the National Museum of African American History and Culture. I learned so much from that book that reading it almost felt like a visit to a museum with curated exhibits about food. It was so hard to choose recipes from the book to make since so many things sounded good, but in the end, I decided to make some hot water corn bread with stewed tomatoes and okra, and maybe also some stewed black eyed peas.

Who knew frozen okra was so hard to obtain? I had it in our carts on both Whole Foods and Amazon Fresh, and over the course of a week, they went from available (but other stuff we needed wasn't at the time, so we waited) to completely gone. They didn't return by the time we ordered the groceries (and are still out of stock as of the time of this writing), and Trader Joe's has never carried okra (that I know of), so I had to change plans.

I had heard people rave about the mac and cheese at the museum's cafe (what the book was based on), so I decided to make that instead. To balance out the meal, I wanted to make some vegetables too, but considering there was no okra (or black eyed peas) to order online, I had to search elsewhere. If we couldn't make okra, green beans were my next vegetable of choice, and a search for "soul food green beans" led me to a recipe for exactly that from Divas Can Cook. Perfect plan B.

The night before I was going to make our soul food meal, I was writing out my cooking plan, and realized that the mac and cheese required not only 1 cup of whole milk but 3 cups of half-and-half. I had been planning to make a substitute for half-and-half using milk and butter, but that would have required nearly 4 cups of milk total, and that milk should really be for B, not dinner. (I also wasn't sure we even had 4 cups of milk left in the carton.) Not only that, but it required mustard, and the only mustard we had was one that we're not sure if B can tolerate, so there went plan B.

I looked through Sweet Home Cafe some more to find something else I could make with what I had at home, and I found myself right back where I started among the corn bread and johnnycakes. Finally, our meal was set - johnnycakes (aka hoecakes) plus green beans, with some easy BBQ chicken on the side (just chicken with store-bought BBQ sauce like from the black and white challenge, really not worth mentioning again other than to figure out the total cost of dinner). It may have taken a long road to get there, but I was happy with our end result.

Johnnycakes

I actually made the johnnycakes second, but since I've spent most of this post talking about Sweet Home Cafe, I'm going to start there. I pretty much followed the recipe from the book except that they used white cornmeal and all we had (and all the stores had) was yellow cornmeal. I also skipped the butter and syrup for serving, since we were eating them with chicken and green beans.

The ingredients for our johnnycakes were:

- 2 cups cornmeal ($2)

- 1 tsp salt ($0.02)

- about 1/4 tsp baking powder (didn't have a 1/4 tsp to measure exactly) ($0.05)

- 1/2 tsp sugar ($0.06)

- about 1.25 cups water ($0)

- 1 cup whole milk ($0.38)

- butter for greasing the skillet ($0.18)

Coming in at approximately $2.69 (or possibly less, since I can't remember where the cornmeal came from or how much it was exactly), the johnnycakes were filling and affordable. Definitely a good budget meal.

The steps for making the johnnycakes were:

1. Combine the cornmeal, salt, baking powder, and sugar in a medium bowl, and mix well.

2. Heat 1 cup of water and 1 cup of milk over medium heat until simmering.

3. Remove from heat, and add the cornmeal mixture, stirring until the batter is smooth. [This is where I ran into a problem. I added the cornmeal mixture. I stirred it around. There wasn't enough liquid, and all I had were clumps. There was no smooth batter, and there was no more liquid to make it smoother. I added hot water, a little bit at a time, probably somewhere between 1/4-1/3 cup in the end, until I had a somewhat smooth batter. I expected it to be thinner like pancake batter, but having never made this before, I wasn't sure if it was supposed to be that thick.]

4. Melt a little butter in a skillet over medium heat. Spoon the batter onto the hot skillet without crowding the pan, and cook for a few minutes per side (turn once). [I used a 1/3 cup measuring cup to scoop out the hot batter, but no idea if that was right since they said to form cakes about 3 inches.]

5. Move the cooked cakes to a plate and keep warm. Add some more butter to the pan to grease, make the cakes again, and repeat as much as needed.

Not being an experienced pancake maker (that's more of an A thing, and I think the only ones I've posted about here are zucchini pancakes and carrot pancakes, which are completely different), I didn't realize that their instruction to form cakes probably involved a little bit of flattening them down as well. As a result, all of our cakes, except the last one that A made since I couldn't see the bottom of the pot with the batter to scrape it clean, were thick and dense. They tasted good, but could have used some work on the texture. I'm not sure if the batter was supposed to be so dense either or if there was something I did wrong, so I'll have to look into that some more too.

Green Beans

We love green beans in this household, but I usually use canned because they're faster to cook and easier to eat for B. For these stewed green beans, I decided to go with frozen whole green beans instead, since they were more economical and would last longer than fresh (and we didn't know how long until we were making this meal since it was pretty much a pantry meal). I mostly used the original recipe as a guide, because we made quite a few modifications to fit the groceries we could get. Among other things, I omitted the red pepper flakes, added a red bell pepper (for color, a little accent, and because we had one), and substituted bacon for the smoked turkey leg, because I'm not even sure where I would get one of those here.

The ingredients for our green beans were:

- 1 bag of frozen whole green beans ($2.29)

- 1 strip of bacon, chopped ($0.45)

- 1 tbsp of butter ($0.09)

- 1 onion, chopped ($0.79)

- about 1/4 cup of garlic, finely chopped ($0.33)

- 1 red pepper, sliced ($0.99)

- 1 cup of chicken broth ($0.50)

The green beans cost approximately $5.44, and when combined with the johnnycakes and the chicken, the total for dinner was about $9.33. I love when we can do dinner for 3 under $10.

The cooking time for this recipe is long, but there isn't too much active time. The steps for making the green beans were:

1. Prep - chop bacon, chop onion, chop garlic, slice red pepper, take green beans out of freezer to thaw a little while prepping.

2. In a large, deep skillet, add the bacon to a cold pan over medium heat and let the fat render. Once the bacon is mostly cooked, add the butter and melt the butter.

3. Add the onion, and cook until softened.

4. Add the garlic, and cook for another minute or so, and then add the red peppers.

5. Cook for a few minutes, and then add the chicken broth.

6. Add the green beans, and mix everything well.

7. Cover and simmer (low and slow) for about an hour, stirring once or twice.

The last step is supposed to be to taste, and to add salt and pepper if needed, but it was late and I forgot about that. In hindsight, I would have added a little black pepper at the end.

We loved these green beans, and would absolutely make them again. Although I'm sure the smoked turkey leg would have given it more depth of flavor, I liked how it turned out with the bacon, and bacon is far easier to get here than some of the other meats I often see in soul food recipes, like turkey legs and ham hocks. The red pepper was a good addition (and actually B's favorite part). Really glad to have found this recipe so we can add another delicious vegetable recipe to our rotation.

In the end, our soul food exploration was fun and delicious. We didn't end up making this until weeks after the scheduled challenge (good thing I'm not officially participating), and the actual dinner ended up being a last-minute change of plans, but it worked out well!

Miss Lily's

Seven years ago today, we were off on a WorldEats exploration at Jamaican restaurant Miss Lily's. At the time, we were trying to visit places one country at a time, and this was our last planned stop for Jamaica. We were excited to try some things on the Miss Lily's menu that we hadn't found anywhere else we'd gone that summer, most notably ackee.

It was a gorgeous summer evening on West Houston Street seven years ago, when you could gather on the street or inside a dining room without thinking about social distancing...

We decided to order three appetizers and one entree to split. (Remember, when reading this, that we went seven years ago. The menu is almost entirely different now. Also, if the description of the first dish sounds much more detailed than the rest, that's because we wrote that part in 2013 and everything else is relying on our fading memories and the notes we took at the time which consisted of one line per dish.)

One of the appetizers we had picked out in advance was the jaquitos (Jamaican-style mini tacos), because the fillings listed on the online menu included the national dish of Jamaica - ackee and saltfish - which we really wanted to try. Unfortunately when we got there, the menu didn't match the online menu and there was no ackee and saltfish anywhere on the menu. Since this was supposed to be our last Jamaican spot for WorldEats and we were planning to move on to Haiti after our visit to Miss Lily's, we were sad that we would be concluding our Jamaican exploration without trying their special national dish. But since we've revamped how we approach WorldEats to any time, any place, with no order, we can still try to get ackee and saltfish sometime!

The menu had three types of jaquitos listed - spicy beef, jerk chicken and avocado, and the one we ended up getting, the callaloo and plantain jaquitos, which came with a very hot pepper relish on the side. Eating it in the tacos was fine, but on its own, it really packed a punch. The tacos were fine, although probably the least exciting of the three appetizers. If you're not familiar with callaloo, it's a green leafy vegetable, somewhat similar to spinach, so it made sense that the filling tasted like creamed spinach once the tender callaloo greens mixed with the soft plantains. The biggest issue was that the tacos were super tiny, only one or two bites each.

We also got the fish tacos, which were escovitch fish over jicama with a watercress salad. Unfortunately, seven years down the line, our memory of this dish has evaporated, and the only notes we have say that the fish was served on sturdy pieces of jicama with a salad of arugula and peppers. (But the menu says watercress, so perhaps we just misidentified it in the dark.) Looking at it now, the pieces of jicama don't look big enough to hold an entire piece of fish with salad to be eaten as a taco, but it sounds like we liked the flavoring of the dish since we thought it was better than the jaquitos. To add some sort of value to this paragraph, if you're unfamiliar with escovitch fish, it's a Jamaican-style fried fish with spicy sauce and pickled vegetables, packed with lots of different flavors and so tasty.

The last appetizer we got, kind of hidden by this massive pile of plantain chips, was ackee dip. If we couldn't order ackee and saltfish, at least we could try ackee! Ackee is one of those things that you sometimes find on "world's most dangerous foods" lists, because if you eat it unripe, it can be poisonous and even fatal. Raw ackee is banned from being imported into the US, so you can only get it canned or frozen, which should be safer and more regulated (one would hope). We had never had ackee before, and all we knew about it was that it was a fruit and that you shouldn't eat it unripe, so we were really interested in this dip.

The dip, in addition to ackee, seemed to have scallions and tomatoes, and texturally, it was really creamy, a perfect pairing for the crispy, crunchy plantain chips. It was our favorite appetizer of the three. As for the ackee itself, we couldn't place the flavor, but it was so familiar. We were pretty sure we had never had ackee before, but it tasted like something we had. The familiar taste notes were so hard to describe though, that we could never figure it out by searching. Guess we'll just have to try ackee again sometime!

The entree we shared was the jerk chicken, slow-cooked and grilled, which came with a marinated cucumber salad and rice and peas. (This is the only thing from our entire meal that is on their current menu.) The chicken was delicious, perfectly grilled and incredibly juicy, even the white meat. The sauce tasted similar to the jerk BBQ sauce that was in bottles on the tables, sweet and smoky with a little peppery zing in the aftertaste. It wasn't as spicy or stewed as the one we got from Freda's (which, by the way, we still haven't written about, even after a return visit so that we could write about it when "fresher"), but it was still delicious. 

The cucumber salad was two big pieces of pickled cucumbers with some other pickled relish, and the other side was the rice and peas. Both were tasty, but the star of the entree was definitely the chicken itself. Overall, we had a great meal at Miss Lily's to "end" our Jamaican WorldEats exploration, and now that we've expanded our journey, we would definitely return to try some more, including ackee and saltfish if it stays on the menu this time!

Week 27 - Retro Recipes

What does retro mean to you? Merriam-Webster defines it in relation to styles of the past, suggesting any time in the past, but to me, retro feels like the '50s, '60s, '70s, maybe the '80s. For the Week 27 challenge, retro recipes, I had no idea what would qualify for the various decades, so I combed a bunch of lists until I found something I wanted to make - Swedish meatballs! Apparently, Swedish meatballs were popular in the '50s, '60s, and '70s, although I also remember them from my childhood in the '80s and '90s. Not just at Ikea, but I remember Costco selling bags of frozen Swedish meatballs with sauce that would make for tasty holiday and party appetizers. That seemed to fit the definition of retro, and I decided to try that out by modifying a recipe for Swedish meatballs from Damn Delicious.

The main changes I planned to make for our meatballs were to use ground turkey instead of beef and pork and to substitute the egg yolks with flax eggs, so our modified list of ingredients for egg-free Swedish meatballs was:

- olive oil, about 2 tbsp divided ($0.40)
- 1/2 onion ($0.40)
- 1-1/3 lbs ground turkey ($4)
- 1/2 cup panko ($0.20)
- 2 flax eggs ($0.16)
- about 1/4-1/2 tsp ground allspice ($0.05)
- about 1/4-1/2 tsp ground nutmeg ($0.05)
- salt and freshly ground black pepper ($0.03)
- 4 tbsp butter ($0.36)
- 1/3 cup flour ($0.08)
- 1.5 cups chicken broth ($0.75)
- 2/3 cup sour cream ($1)

The total for the meatball portion of dinner was approximately $7.48, and we made this alongside mashed potatoes (probably about $2) and some mixed vegetables (probably another $2) for an approximate total of $11.48. Not bad for a filling dinner.

The steps for our egg-free Swedish meatballs were:

1. Prep - chop onion. Make 2 flax eggs (2 tbsp ground flaxseed + 6 tbsp water).

2. Heat olive oil (about 1 tbsp) in skillet, and cook onion until softened.

3. In a large bowl, combine the turkey, panko, flax eggs, allspice, nutmeg, salt, pepper, and cooked onion. Combine well (tried using a spoon but hands always work better for me), and then roll into meatballs.

4. Preheat oven to 250 degrees, and line a baking pan with parchment paper.

5. Heat olive oil (about 1 tbsp) in the same skillet, and cook the meatballs in 2 batches until browned. Once each batch is browned, put into the parchment-lined baking pan in the oven until ready for step 9.

6. In the same skillet the meatballs were cooked in, melt the butter. Add the flour and stir until browned.

7. Add the chicken broth gradually, stirring the entire time. Keep stirring and cooking the sauce until it becomes thick. Scrape any of the browned bits from the meatballs off the pan, and combine into the sauce as you stir.

8. Add the sour cream, and continue stirring the sauce until well-combined. Add salt and pepper, and season to taste.

9. Add the meatballs back into the pan, coat well with the sauce, and cook for about 10 minutes.

10. Serve meatballs covered in sauce with sides of your choice. (Ours were mashed potatoes and mixed vegetables, so I was running those two pots of food alongside the meatballs which was more chaotic than I had anticipated and not really sure why. It was our first time having mashed potatoes with oat milk, and they were pretty good.)

These were tasty meatballs, and the sauce was creamy and delicious. It didn't taste exactly like Ikea for us, but we did use turkey instead of beef/pork and made some other changes, so we weren't expecting it to. I'm curious how this would taste with Impossible Burger in place of the meat, but given that B wasn't a huge fan of it in turkey form and hasn't loved Impossible Burger in the past (really thinking this kid might be mostly pescatarian or vegetarian, which is just fine with me, given that I didn't eat red meat for ~15 years), we may wait a little bit before trying that. I did like this recipe, and I love meatballs, but if we want a super quick Swedish meatball night, still might just buy the frozen (chicken or veggie) ones with cream sauce from Ikea.

Week 25 - Australasian

Australasia was the focus of the Week 25 challenge, focusing on the area of Oceania comprised of Australia, New Zealand, and the neighboring islands of Melanesia (Fiji, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, and Papua New Guinea). Since I've made Australian food for two other challenges before (here and here), I thought I would focus on an area I haven't really explored before and try making some Fijian dishes. After researching for a bit, two recipes stood out that I really wanted to try: lolo buns and ika vakalolo (coconut-style fish).

Lolo Buns (Steamed Coconut Buns)

Lolo means coconut milk, which you might have been able to figure out since it appears in the names of both things we made for the challenge. Lolo buns are basically coconut buns that can be either steamed or baked. Most of the recipes for baked lolo buns included an egg, so I gravitated toward a recipe I found on Nom List that was steamed and required zero eggs. We've never been to Fiji, so another reason I liked this recipe was because the author learned how to make them in a cooking class while in Savusavu, Fiji. They also mentioned that Fijians prefer the buns boiled/steamed compared to baked, and if that's true, then I saw no reason not to make them that way!

We started the lolo buns first since they were going to need to steam in the pot for half an hour, giving us time to work on the fish. The ingredients for the lolo buns were:

- 5 cups flour (plus extra for kneading, probably ended up being 6 cups) ($1.20)
- 5 tbsp brown sugar ($0.30)
- 2 tbsp yeast ($0.39)
- 2.5 cups warm water ($0)
- 5 tbsp butter, softened to room temperature ($0.45)
- 1/2 can full-fat coconut milk ($0.85)

The total cost for the lolo buns was approximately $3.19, and it made a lot of bread.


We tried to stick close to the recipe, but our time spent ended up being way more than the recipe. The steps for making the lolo buns were:

1. In a big bowl, mix 5 cups of flour with the brown sugar and yeast. Mix lightly.

2. Slowly pour up to 2.5 cups of warm water while mixing with a spoon. Mix well but don't overwork the dough. [I should have stopped pouring water before I did. My instincts told me to stop, but I think I had somewhere between 0.5-1 cup of water left, so I thought I needed to use more because that's what the recipe said. I should have listened to myself, because it was too wet.]

3. Knead the dough for 1-2 minutes, folding and pressing it together, sprinkling it with flour between steps. [It looked like pancake batter at this point and couldn't form any shape whatsoever, so we probably kneaded it more than we should have, and we used a lot more flour, probably another cup.]

4. Take 1 tbsp of softened butter and knead into the dough.

5. Grease a deep pot with about 3 tbsp of butter (or more if needed).


6. Rub butter on your hands, and then take chunks of dough, shaping them into circular buns and putting them in the pot. [Once we added all that extra flour, they sort of resembled buns until they went into the pan, and then they just all melted together.]

7. Pour coconut milk over the buns until almost completely covered. [The original recipe said 3 cups, but the buns were almost completely covered with half a can of coconut milk, which was a little confusing. But this time, I told myself to listen to myself and not pour in 3 cups. In our case, this step also included using a chopstick to try to make holes and divisions so the coconut milk could get inside and around the dough in as many places as possible.]


8. Cover pot with a lid and cook over low flame for 30 minutes.


This was our first time using yeast, and I knew the bread was going to end up rising, but I was surprised at how much it had ballooned to the top of the pot when I opened it after 30 minutes. Despite my best efforts to separate the dough into buns, it came out looking like a well-formed cake. While the shape may not have been what was intended, the bread/cake itself turned out pretty well. There was a light flavor of coconut (more would not be bad, but no idea how it would have turned out completely covered in coconut milk; maybe an experiment for another day), and it was just really soft, tasty bread. We all liked it, and I think it ended up being the majority of B's dinner as he kept asking for more (not surprising; the kid loves bread). I would definitely try making this again. Maybe when we get around to our Fiji exploration in AtWCC, or maybe earlier, because that could be years from now.


Ika Vakalolo (Coconut-Style Fish)

Part 2 of our Australasian dinner was ika vakalolo, or fish cooked in coconut milk. I found a bunch of different recipes for this online, all making the fish slightly differently. Some fried the fish first and then simmered it in coconut milk with some vegetables. Others cooked the vegetables in coconut milk first and then added the fish as one of the last steps. I liked the idea of pan-frying the fish a little bit, but I also wanted our vegetables to be softer and less crunchy, so I decided to adapt a recipe I found on Fiji Vacations from the Flavors of Fiji Cooking School to do just that.

The ingredients for the ika vakalolo were:

- 1 lb boneless skinless cod ($7.91)
- about 1 lb bok choy ($4.98)
- 1 yellow onion ($0.79)
- 1 small container of grape tomatoes ($2.69)
- 1-2  tbsp grapeseed oil ($0.20)
- 1 can full-fat coconut milk ($1.69)
- juice of 1 lime ($0.49)
- salt ($0.02)

The original recipe called for 12 stalks of Chinese cabbage, 1 onion, and 1 tomato, but I used a lot more vegetables since that's how we like to eat at home. I also swapped lime for lemon, since we had a bunch of limes left over from key lime pie, the internet said both limes and lemons are found on Fiji, and at least one recipe said you could use either. The last big change was to skip the chilies so B could eat it too. The total cost for the fish portion of the meal was $18.77, and we also split a microwaved rice packet, making the total for the entire meal, with the lolo buns, approximately $22.96. Not a cheap dinner, but we did have a pound of cod, plus bok choy is much more expensive outside of an Asian grocery store.


The steps for our adapted recipe were:

1. Prep - wash tomatoes and bok choy thoroughly. Chop bok choy, onion, and tomatoes. Check fish for bones.

2. Heat grapeseed oil over medium heat. Add onion and the chopped stems of the bok choy, and cook until starting to soften. Add bok choy greens, and after a few minutes, the tomatoes.

3. Push vegetables to the sides of the pan, and add the fish. Cook on each side for a couple of minutes until opaque/almost done.

4. Add coconut milk to mostly cover the fish and vegetables. Season with some salt. [One of the recipes I found also used fish sauce, sugar, and basil, which I seriously considered doing, but I just went for the simple version this time and did coconut milk and salt.]

5. Simmer for a few minutes while juicing a lime.

6. Add lime juice, stir, and remove from heat.


We really liked this dish too! Using just a simple coconut milk, lime juice, and salt broth really allowed the flavors of the fish and the vegetables to stand out, and it just felt so light and summery, perfect for the current weather. Although we made some rice to go with it, I didn't think it needed the rice at all. It worked fine as a stew, and we had the lolo buns to dip into it if we wanted to soak up some of the liquid. My main issue with this dish had to do with the pieces of fish we got, as they were different shapes, one a nice thin fillet and the other, a thick, steak-like piece, but that has nothing to do with the delicious recipe. Would definitely make this one again too, and maybe even try it with some of the extra seasonings. I consider this adventure to Fiji a success, and I'm so glad we did it!