Our Year in Food: 2020

2020 was a year like no other in our lifetimes, but I don't think I need to explain why to anybody reading this post because we all lived through (and are living through) the same global event. Writing up our year in review one year ago, thinking ahead to 2020, I don't think I ever could have imagined we would be where we are right now. Zero travel, barely any in-person restaurant visits, it was anything but a typical year (to the extent such a thing exists). But we made it through the year, and I'm incredibly grateful for that. After this unpredictable year, I have no expectations for 2021, and am just hoping for the best. Here was our 2020 in food:

The first restaurant meal we ate in 2020: The first restaurant food we all ate together was from Eons Greek Food for Life, getting some Greek bowls for takeout for a family gathering in early January. Our first non-takeout, non-delivery experience wasn't until the end of February at Boston Market. Three weeks later, lockdown.

The first home-cooked meal we ate in 2020: The first thing we made at home was a semi-home-cooked dinner of shawarma chicken thighs, dolma, Grecian eggplant, and giant white beans, all from Trader Joe's, but not requiring anything more than heating and plating. The first thing made from scratch were the chickpea omelettes I made for Week 1 of the 52 week cooking challenge.

The last restaurant meal we ate in 2020: Our last takeout/delivery meal was NYE lunch poke bowls from PokeBowl Station, and the last thing we ate out as a family were doughnuts from Doughnut Plant, B's first time having doughnuts. I guess technically that could be considered takeout, so then it would be pizza at Brooklyn Firefly (more on that later).

The last home-cooked meal we ate in 2020: A made shepherd's pie with a tomato, chickpea, onion, and feta side salad for our New Year's Eve dinner, and the pie was amazing.

# of different restaurants we tried in 2020 (together and separate): 17 in person (although half of that is places I went to solo), 43 takeout and delivery spots. A dramatic drop from previous years, but not surprising. We can count on less than two hands the number of dine-in experiences we had all year as a family, and since the start of the pandemic, we ate out 5 times (if you count the doughnuts).

Places explored (outside the NYC metro area): None. Since the start of the pandemic, we haven't even left the city.

Most frequented restaurant of 2020: In person, Qdoba. Takeout and delivery, a tie between Ginger House, a vegan Asian spot, and Next Level Burger, a vegan burger joint. We try to order delivery for our family dinners from vegan spots when we can because of B's allergies, so this result is unsurprising.

Progress on WorldEats challenge: Still 58/196, because we haven't written about any of the other countries yet.

Progress on Around the World Cooking Challenge: A few "random" meals out of order, but otherwise finished off Afghanistan and Alabama, and started on Alaska. I really need to post about these in the new year.

Favorite overall meal of 2020: Our outdoor lunch at Brooklyn Firefly in mid-November. We've been doing mostly takeout and delivery during the pandemic, only choosing outdoor (and in two anxious cases, indoor) dining when we already had to be out of the house for doctor visits and things like that. This meal is probably our favorite because, for one, it felt safe. We were sitting outside in the yard and not in the middle of the street, there was plenty of space, and it was also safe on the allergy front because they had vegan pizzas. This was the first time we'd gone out for pizza as a family, and B loved it. Just a really happy memory from this year.

Wishing you a happy and healthy 2021!

48 Challenges

Another challenge year in the books! I skipped three and postponed/skipped one, so I guess it was really another 48 challenges, but I'm really glad I got back to doing the challenge this year. It pushed me to try so many new recipes, and with so much time at home due to this quarantine year, I was even happier that I had chosen to try again.

Since I didn't post these in order (especially in December, what a mess of numbers that list of posts is), here's the whole 52 week challenge for this year with links:

Week 1 - hindsight 2020 (chickpea omelettes)
Week 2 - miso (ginger chicken meatballs in miso broth)
Week 3 - Russian (turkey stroganoff)
Week 4 - 24 hours (NYC deli-style potato salad)
Week 5 - rice (cheesy Italian rice with sausage)
Week 6 - Jamaican (black eyed pea curry)
Week 7 - braising (three cup chicken)
Week 8 - used to dislike (vegan kuku sabzi)
Week 9 - Brazilian (Bahia-style moqueca prawn stew)
Week 10 - fermented (peanut tempeh stir-fry)
Week 11 - kawaii (skipped)
Week 12 - peppers (turkey stuffed peppers)
Week 13 - deep frying (bolani)
Week 14 - alphabet (C comfort food)
Week 15 - beans (kidney bean curry)
Week 16 - South African (Durban chicken curry)
Week 17 - from scratch (vegetarian bolognese)
Week 18 - ginger (ginger scallion ramen)
Week 19 - Sri Lankan (postponed)
Week 20 - puree (skipped)
Week 21 - flour (focaccia; also the original post about postponement)
Week 22 - Nepalese (vegetable tarkari)
Week 23 - crunchy (baked onion rings)
Week 24 - black and white (black beans and rice)
Week 25 - Australasian (ika vakalolo and lolo buns)
Week 26 - proofing (Afghan naan)
Week 27 - retro recipes (Swedish meatballs)
Week 28 - soul food (johnnycakes with green beans)
Week 29 - emulsification (vinaigrette)
Week 30 - cartoon (Absentee Shallot burger)
Week 31 - cucumber (tzatziki)

Week 32 - Finnish (Karelian pie)

Week 33 - food in disguise (meatloaf cupcakes)

Week 34 - figs (baby spinach salad with dates and almonds)

Week 35 - Chilean (pastel de choclo)

Week 36 - caramelizing (roasted eggplant with caramelized onion and chopped lemon)

Week 37 - bacon (BLT pasta salad)

Week 38 - Yemeni (chicken zorbian)

Week 39 - dipping (pico de gallo)

Week 40 - local specialty (smoked salmon with scrambled "eggs" and diner potatoes)

Week 41 - Lebanese (shish tawook)

Week 42 - microwave (mug cake)

Week 43 - food mashups (quesadilla pasta)

Week 44 - apples (rosemary-apple chicken)

Week 45 - sous vide (skipped)

Week 46 - seasonal (cabbage rolls)

Week 47 - mushrooms (buttered balsamic mushrooms)

Week 48 - gourds (roasted delicata squash)

Week 49 - 30 minutes (teriyaki tofu stir-fry)

Week 50 - sage (sweet onion sage bread)

Week 51 - Jewish (chraime)

Week 52 - garnish (carrot flower failure)

Hopefully next year I won't have to skip any!

Week 52 - Garnish

I'm disappointed to be ending the challenge year on something that feels so lackluster, but with the Week 52 theme being garnish, there were few things my not-very-crafty self could do that would live up to how great some of the other challenge weeks were. I wasn't even sure what to do here. My usual garnishes are things like chopped parsley, but that seemed really low-effort for a challenge meal. Sprinkling herbs? Surely, that couldn't be what they meant.

I thought about it some more and then decided I would attempt to make a carrot flower. I followed the tutorial on Wikihow, and it turned out about as well as I expected (i.e., it wasn't good). I'm not the best at plating or artistic things with food, and my flower wasn't really much of a flower. I guess it could pass for a thick stem, but it was not very good at all.

When they put up the intro thread for the challenge week on Reddit, they talked about just making things pleasing to the eye, whether it was sprinkling salt or herbs or even non-edible garnishes. So I guess they really did mean something as simple as sprinkling some chopped parsley, even if that doesn't feel challenge-worthy to me. Since the carrot flower was a bit of a failure, let's end the year instead with a photo of a dish with a lovely sauce and garnishes of za'atar and parsley, which is the next installment in our Ottolenghi Jerusalem project that I'll hopefully write about soon.

Looking forward to another year of cooking challenges!

Week 51 - Jewish

The Week 51 challenge, Jewish, was technically the last challenge I completed in 2020. I had planned to do it earlier in the month, but just kept pushing it back since the original plan was to make challah, which is a many-hour-long affair. The time never seemed right, and then when it finally came time to make it, I just wasn't feeling it, plus we were running out of flour and I wasn't sure we would even have enough. I decided to scrap the challah plan and instead make chraime, a Sephardic fish dish I had never had or heard of before but was mentioned in the Reddit intro thread. I used a recipe from Breaking Matzo which seemed simple and tasty.

The ingredients for our version (approximations since I didn't measure anything) were:

- about 1 tbsp cumin ($0.10)

- about 1 tsp smoked Spanish paprika ($0.05)

- about 2 tbsp olive oil ($0.20)

- 1 yellow onion, chopped ($0.68)

- big spoonful of minced garlic ($0.10)

- 2 cans diced tomatoes, drained ($2)

- 1/2 of 16 oz jar of roasted red peppers ($2.50)

- juice of 1/2 lemon ($0.40)

- 1/2 cup of water ($0)

- 1 lb of boneless skinless pollock fillets ($5)

- salt and freshly ground black pepper ($0.02)

- small bunch of cilantro, leaves chopped ($0.25)

The cost for the fish was about $11.30, and we ate it with some microwave rice packets ($3.37), for a total of about $14.67. For a fish dish, it wasn't that expensive, although we had the same white rice problem we always have where we're still hungry not long after dinner. If someone knows the science for why that's the case, would love to hear it.

While making the chraime, it occurred to me that the cooking process was very similar to shakshuka. Make your tomato sauce, add the fish/eggs into the sauce, and then cook until they're done. The basic steps were:

- heat spices

- add olive oil

- add onions and cook until softened

- add garlic and cook for about a minute

- add tomatoes, red peppers, lemon juice, and water (I used less water than the recipe because I had canned tomatoes, and just added enough water to be sure there was enough sauce to surround the fish)

- bring sauce to a boil, lower heat, and simmer for 5-8 minutes

- add fish (after drying in a towel if needed, like ours did because it started out frozen)

- make little wells in the sauce and put the fish fillets in the pan, making sure the fish is surrounded by sauce

- cover and cook for about 6-7 minutes until fish is opaque and temperature is at least 145 degrees

- remove from heat, and add salt, pepper, and cilantro

- serve over rice

This dish was delicious, and I'm glad I did this instead of the challah this time around. It took far less time and made for more of a complete dinner all on its own instead of needing to figure out what else to make with the challah. B passed on it completely, so I'm not sure if I'll be making it again any time soon, but A and I thought it was really tasty. It also felt super healthy, which was much appreciated after our holiday eating.

Week 32 - Finnish

The first thing I thought of when the Week 32 challenge came up as Finnish was Karelian pie (also known as Karjalanpiirakka). The only time we'd ever had Finnish food before was at Nordic Bakery in London, where we tried out Finnish-style cinnamon buns and rice-filled Karelian pies, so I wondered if I'd be able to replicate that at home. I found a recipe on Saimaa Life and decided to start there.

I took the original recipe and halved it, and then converted it from metric. The ingredients for our version of the Karelian pies were:

for the rice:

- 1/2 cup water ($0)

- 1/2 cup Arborio rice ($1.25)

- 2.5 cups whole milk ($0.75)

- a few grinds of salt ($0.02)

for the dough/finished products:

- 1 cup of rye flour (plus extra to flour the board)* ($3)

- 1/4 cup of all-purpose flour (plus extra to flour the board) ($0.10)

- 1/2 cup water ($0)

- a few grinds of salt ($0.02)

- 2 tbsp of butter, melted ($0.18)

* The price estimates for the rye flour and all-purpose flour actually represent double the amount listed here because I had to make the dough twice. More on that later...

We ate the pies with a package of smoked salmon ($6.49) and some grape tomatoes ($3.49; doubt that's a traditional accompaniment, but since everything else was new to B, I wanted to include something he would definitely like). The total came out to about $15.30, but 42% of that was smoked salmon, kind of a premium ingredient.

The first step in making the pies was to make the porridge, which had to be chilled before being added to the dough. Other than using too big of a pot and starting later than I planned (which made me concerned that there wouldn't be enough chilling time, but it will soon become apparent that was not an issue), this step went smoothly. To make the porridge:

- Boil the water.

- Add the rice, and cook until the water is absorbed. [This happened very quickly.]

- Add the milk, and bring to a boil, stirring frequently.

- Reduce heat to low and simmer until all the milk is absorbed, about 1-1.5 hours, stirring periodically.

- Season with a little bit of salt.

- Cool and then put in the fridge to chill for a few hours (or however long you have).

After letting the porridge sit in the fridge for about 30-45 minutes, I went to go start on the dough. The directions in the recipe said to stir the flour and salt into the water and then knead the dough until it was solid. Usually, I mix the water into the flour instead of the other way around, but went to follow the recipe. Let's just say it did not go well. It was so wet and sticky, and no matter how much flour I added, it just didn't get any better. (I was also having deja vu, because the exact same thing happened with arepas earlier in the week, but at least those were salvageable.) Eventually, I gave up and started over. I hate, hate, hate throwing out food, but there was no way that dough was going to turn into pies (or anything at all).

The second time, I drizzled the water slowly into the flour little by little, mixing as I went along, and didn't use the entire 1/2 cup of water. It still came out a little too sticky and wet and stuck to the rolling pin, so I needed to use a lot of flour on the board. I tried to make them all the same size, but there was no consistency so we had all different shapes for our pies.

The part I was most worried about before making this actually was the step that went the smoothest, making pinched sides. Unfortunately, at this part in making the pies, I'm at a loss for what happened next. I never finished writing the post at the time, and I can't find my notes. (It was almost 4 months ago. If I find them, maybe I'll update this post.) If I remember correctly, I baked them for about 10-15 minutes until the tops of the rice started to look golden, and then took them out and brushed them with melted butter. I don't remember the temperature, which isn't great for repeating this experiment, since that could be where things went wrong.

The exterior shells of the pies were tough and dry. Did I bake them too long? Did I roll them out too thin? Did I mess up when making the dough? Did I knead it too much? Not sure, but they were hard to bite, and I felt like I was tearing the dough with my teeth with more force than should have been necessary. I only gave B the inside rice part, and after a while, ended up discarding some of the shells and eating mostly rice myself. The rice part tasted really good though, so at least we had something good for dinner to go with our smoked salmon and tomatoes. I want to try this again sometime, maybe for the Finland part of AtWCC, and hopefully it goes better next time.

Week 38 - Yemeni

One of our favorite restaurants specializes in Yemeni cuisine, so I was both excited and intimidated by the Week 38 Yemeni challenge. My favorite dish there is chicken zorbian, similar to biryani, and I knew that I wanted to make that, but I also knew that there was little chance that, on my first try, it could live up to the one we've been eating on all of our restaurant visits. I found a Sifra Foods recipe for zorbian that looked delicious and doable, so used that as my starting point.

The zorbian recipe had several components and was decently complicated, with our adapted version coming in at 21 steps in my pre-cooking notes. I started this draft post back in September, but all I wrote about was the easy part, the salad, so we'll see how much of it I get right over three months later (not that anyone will know if I don't). I really need to start doing these timely before I forget all the details of what I did, especially since this is counting for both the 52 week challenge and the AtWCC. Unlike some other times, I think I was also so exhausted from cooking that I didn't even make handwritten notes on what I did. Very helpful.

The ingredients for the chicken zorbian portion of dinner were:

- 1.5 lbs boneless skinless chicken breasts ($7.82)

- 2 yellow onions ($1.44)

- 2 Russet potatoes ($1.34)

- packet of peeled garlic ($0.40)

- 4 scallions ($0.36)

- 1/4 cup olive oil ($0.40)

- 4 + 2 bay leaves [separated these out because they are divided in use] ($0.50)

- 2 + 1 cinnamon sticks ($0.60)

- 5 + 4 cloves ($0.15)

- 5 + 4 cardamom pods ($0.15)

- about 1/2 tbsp cumin ($0.10)

- about 1/2 tbsp coriander ($0.10)

- about 1/2 tbsp turmeric ($0.10)

- about 1/2 tbsp paprika ($0.10)

- about 1/2 tbsp garlic powder ($0.03)

- about 1/2 tbsp oregano ($0.05)

- salt and freshly ground black pepper ($0.03)

- 16 oz plain whole milk yogurt ($1.70)

- 3 cups basmati rice ($3)

- parsley for garnish ($0.10)

The zorbian portion of dinner cost about $18.47, although that's a very general ballpark figure since I have no idea how much the spices should really come out to. Overall, this challenge meal came in on the higher side as far as cost, but I was expecting that considering how much was going into making it.

Our steps for making the zorbian (at least as I remember them 3+ months later) were:

1. Prep - chop chicken breasts, slice onions, peel and chop potatoes.

2. Heat about 1/4 cup of olive oil in a Dutch oven, and then add the onions. Fry the onions until golden brown (mine may have gone past golden brown to very brown), and then remove to a paper towel-lined plate. Leave the oil in the Dutch oven.

3. Add the chicken into the same oil in the Dutch oven, and cook until starting to brown. Add 4 bay leaves, 2 cinnamon sticks, 5 cloves, and 5 cardamom pods.

4. Once chicken has browned, add the dry spices (cumin, coriander, turmeric, paprika, garlic powder, oregano, salt, and pepper). Mix well, and cook until chicken is just about done.

5. Add water to the pot, and bring it to a simmer. Add enough water so that the potatoes and chicken will both be covered so that the potatoes can cook.

6. Add the potatoes, and immerse them in the water. Cover the pot and simmer over medium heat for about 15-20 minutes until potatoes are soft.

7. While potatoes are cooking, finely chop garlic, finely chop scallions, and chop some of the fried onions.

8. Mix the garlic, scallions, and onions with the yogurt. (I think I used 16 oz of yogurt, but really can't remember. Does that look like 16 oz in the bowl?) Blend together. (I used our immersion blender since I had no room for a regular one and also hate using it if I don't have to.)

[I also soaked some raisins in warm water here, but those were just to add on the side for B since most of this was going to be new food for him, and we wanted him to have something familiar. Some zorbian recipes include raisins, so it seemed appropriate.]

9. While the potatoes are cooking (or depending on the time, starting before it), also cook the rice. Put 2 bay leaves, 1 cinnamon stick, 4 cardamom pods, and 4 cloves into the water while it boils, and use 3 cups of dry basmati rice. Cook for the length of time that the package says minus 25%. [This was supposed to parboil the rice, and we were supposed to strain the rice out of the water after that time, but the rice was completely done when the timer went off. Also, as you can see from a photo further down, I probably shouldn't have made 3 cups of rice based on the amount of meat and potatoes I had.]

10. Add yogurt mixture to the pot once the potatoes are done cooking.

[This is one part where I majorly diverged from the recipe but not intentionally. The original recipe said to remove the potatoes when they were done, drain any extra cooking broth, and then add the yogurt mixture to the meat only. I couldn't remove the potatoes, because I had chopped them smaller and they had gotten so soft they were almost mashed. The original recipe had quartered them, but I made them B bite-size from the start like I do with lots of vegetables when cooking. We also didn't have much extra broth. So I ended up just adding the yogurt mixture to all of it. Also, since the original recipe used lamb instead of chicken, their cook time was much longer, so our chicken was pretty much done a long time ago.]

11. Add the rice on top of the meat and potatoes. [I don't remember if I added water or some chicken broth or something else here, but I remember adding some liquid since it had to simmer some more.] Reduce heat to low, cover, and cook until no liquid remains. Then turn off the heat, and leave it covered to steam for about 10-15 minutes.

I don't think I should have made 3 cups of rice...

12. Garnish with the rest of the fried onions and chopped parsley.

The zorbian was good, but of course, not as good as our local Yemeni spot. The proportions were way off - too much rice for the amount of chicken and potatoes. I should have realized this because of how much more lamb the original recipe used, but messed that up. Also, I tried the chicken and potatoes at various points in the cooking process, and the flavor from the spices was amazing before the rice got added into the mix. It was like the rice diluted all the flavors to the point where the spices were so muted. I think I would have liked it better if I had taken the chicken, potatoes, and yogurt and put it over rice. The flavors would have been so much more potent. That said, all the elements were there, and for a first try, it wasn't terrible. I might try again at some point. It just wasn't as good as what we're used to getting from the professionals, and it's hard to justify putting in all this work all the time when we could just support a local business.

The recommended sides for the zorbian were salad and zahawig (similar to salsa), so we paired ours with a quick side salad based on a Yemeni salad, also from Sifra Foods. The Sifra Foods version contained a lot more vegetables than ours did, but the salad we usually get at our neighborhood Yemeni spot is usually just lettuce, tomatoes, and maybe some onions and cucumbers, so considering how much else there was to do for dinner, I was fine going simple.

The ingredients for the salad were:

- 2 large romaine lettuce leaves ($0.40)

- 1/2 red onion ($0.50)

- 2 green onions ($0.25)

- 4 roma tomatoes ($2)

- about 1/4 cup chopped parsley ($0.30)

The ingredients for the dressing were:

- 2 tbsp olive oil ($0.20)

- 3 tbsp apple cider vinegar ($0.21)

- 2 large squeezes of lemon juice ($0.15)

- 1.5 tsp ground cumin ($0.10)

- salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste ($0.03)

The salad cost about $4.14, bringing the total for dinner to about $22.61. It did make a lot of food though.

After all the steps involved in the zorbian, having a simple, easy, straightforward salad to make was just what we needed. All that was needed was prep (slicing the lettuce into thin strands, slicing the onions into thin slices, finely chopping the scallions, chopping the tomatoes (including removing the pulp if needed), chopping up the parsley leaves, and making the dressing), and then mixing it all together. The first bite of the salad tasted really similar to the one at the restaurant (although they might add a little bit of jalapeño or something to the dressing and blitz in a little tomato), and it was so refreshing and flavorful. We were really happy with the salad to balance out the much heavier zorbian, and would happily make this again.

After our first experience making recipes from the Sifra Foods blog, I can pretty confidently say that we'll be doing that again, especially as we explore Yemeni cuisine for the Around the World Cooking Challenge. I'm counting this for the Yemen section of the AtWCC now, because that's hundreds of places down the list and this was a pretty big cooking project. Who knows when we're going to get there? Since we're currently freshly stocked up on some of the common spices used in Yemeni cuisine, we may just split that exploration up over time too. The goal is just to explore new dishes, and we're so excited to do that!

Week 35 - Chilean

We love Chilean food, but for some reason, Chilean restaurants don't seem to last very long in NYC. Over the years, we'd been to Pomaire on Restaurant Row, Barros Luco, and San Antonio Bakery, but none of them exist anymore. In the entire metro area right now (and who knows how that's changed because of COVID this year), you could probably count all the Chilean restaurants on one hand, which is so sad, because the cuisine is so delicious.

I wasn't sure what to make for this challenge since we've had such good Chilean food made by professionals. Back in 2015, I made a Chilean butternut squash casserole for a challenge meal, which was tasty and reminded me of a vegetarian pastel de choclo, which I really like, but I didn't want to make that again. Completos weren't a great option since hot dogs are a choking hazard, and sandwiches (if I made chacareros) wouldn't be the easiest thing for a toddler to eat either. In the end, I decided to circle back to pastel de choclo, one of the first Chilean dishes I remember eating, to give that a try.

After looking around, I found a recipe on The Spruce Eats that sounded good, so I started there but knew I was going to need to make some modifications. First, I don't cook much beef at home, so I needed a replacement for that. I wanted to use Impossible Burger, but Trader Joe's was sold out of it on our last two visits before making this, so I ended up going with their beefless beef. Second, hard-boiled eggs were not going to be part of our casserole, but the internet said extra firm tofu mimicked the texture of hard-boiled eggs so I went with that. Lastly, the recipe used fresh basil, but I used dried. Considering all the grocery issues lately (especially with vegan options; they had no Impossible Burger or tempeh at the time we shopped for this meal), I wasn't sure when we were going to make this, and it seemed like a better idea since basil can go bad really quickly.

The ingredients for our version of pastel de choclo were:

- 2 onions ($1.50)

- 1 tbsp olive oil ($0.10)

- 1 package of beefless beef ($2.99)

- 1 tbsp cumin ($0.10)

- salt and freshly ground black pepper ($0.03)

- 16 oz bag of frozen corn ($1.29)

- about 1 cup whole milk, divided ($0.30)

- 4 tbsp butter ($0.36)

- 1 tsp sugar ($0.04)

- 2 tbsp dried basil ($0.15)

- 2 small boxes (1 oz size) of raisins ($1)

- 2.25 oz can of sliced black olives ($1.49)

- 16 oz package of extra firm tofu ($2.49)

- 1 can of chicken ($2)

- about 2 tsp powdered sugar ($0.05)

The whole dish cost about $13.89, which was lower than I thought it would be, considering it had three different proteins included. If it had been Impossible Burger, it would have been over $18, and if it had been ground meat of any sort, it would probably have been at least a couple dollars more. Fresh basil would have tacked on another couple of dollars too, so I guess we made the budget version of pastel de choclo!

To make the pastel de choclo, here's what I did:

1. Prep - chop the onions and tofu.

2. In a medium skillet, heat the olive oil and then add the onions, cooking until translucent. Then add the beefless beef (or whatever meat/protein you're using), cumin, and some salt and pepper, and cook until done (whatever that means for what you're using). Remove from heat and set aside.

3. In a food processor, add the corn (came out to just under 4 cups) and about 1/2 cup milk, and process until all the corn is blended. [The original recipe used 1/4 cup of milk and said that it would appear creamy, but ours just looked like powder, even after adding another 1/4 cup of milk. I figured it was getting cooked more anyway, so just went with it as it was.]

4. In a small saucepan, melt 4 tbsp butter, and then add the corn mixture, a sprinkling of salt, and about 1 tsp of sugar, along with 1/2 cup of milk. [The original recipe had 3/4 cup but it seemed like enough with 1/2 cup, getting a little bit watery, plus it came out to the same total as the recipe just split differently.]

5. Simmer the corn mixture until thick, stirring constantly for about 5-10 minutes. Then add the basil and remove from heat.

6. Preheat oven to 375 degrees, and grease a casserole dish. [The original recipe said 3-4 quarts for the size of the dish. That seemed a little big for our finished product, but not sure if the next size down would have been too small.]

7. Add the components to the casserole dish in layers:

- beefless beef and onions on the bottom

- raisins, olives, and tofu

- chicken

- corn and basil mixture on top

- sprinkle of powdered sugar over the top

[The corn was supposed to fully cover the whole thing, but despite using almost a cup more corn than the original recipe, it barely made it.]

8. Bake for about 30 minutes until the casserole is bubbling and hot, and the top is golden brown. [Our corn was white, so it was more golden than golden brown. Funny story, the week before, I made arepas, and the corn flour we bought was yellow while Venezuelan arepas often use white, and here we had white corn, while every pastel de choclo we've had has been yellow.]

With all our modifications, how was the pastel de choclo? Really tasty! The flavor probably would have been richer if we used Impossible Burger (why is TJ's often out of stock?!), and actual eggs would have added something different than tofu as far as taste, but the finished dish was really good. I think if we made this again, I'd want to try it with the fresh basil for a more potent basil flavor (and of course, with Impossible Burger if we could get it), but we really liked how this turned out. I might also add another box of raisins, because the raisins were B's favorite part and I'm sure he wouldn't mind more. I also might try using a smaller casserole dish in the future. I don't know how often we would be making this though, considering it had three different proteins (beefless beef, tofu, and chicken), which would normally turn into three separate meals for us, but it could be good every once in a while!

Week 39 - Dipping

Back in September, I started doing a lot of Yelp virtual events, many of which were cooking classes. Around the time of the Week 39 challenge on dipping, I made a bunch of things that could have qualified for this challenge, which people seemed to interpret as being about both dips and things that could be dipped. I made some pretzels for the first time, but I wanted to do something with more of an actual dip than a jazzed-up mustard, so I didn't pick that one.

Instead, for the challenge, I'm counting this pico de gallo that I made for an event where we learned how to make Mexican-style tortas (which were amazing). Despite pico being pretty easy to make, I'm not sure I've actually ever done it before (other than a Rotel version). Chopped tomatoes, red onions, and a lot of cilantro, plus some fresh squeezed lime juice, which then sits for about 15 minutes to come together, and that's it. So much fresher than buying a store-prepared container, although that does save time.

This is the type of snack I often crave, so I wish this would keep longer so I could always have some in the fridge for a light bite. Would definitely make again!

Week 37 - Bacon

I wrote almost all of this post in September. Not sure why I never finished it and posted it, but considering all the time references in the first half of the post, try to pretend you're reading it in early fall...

Salads aren't the easiest thing for a little one to eat (a point I think I've made on here several times in the past), so a salad wouldn't normally have been my first choice for the Week 37 bacon challenge. But when looking for something to make, I found a vegan BLT pasta salad on This Savory Vegan, loved the sound of the recipe, and decided to make my own tempeh bacon to go with it. I figured there would be enough other stuff in the salad that the greens wouldn't be a huge part, so B would be able to eat it.

Salad, but where's the bacon?

Then I put together my grocery list, A went to Trader Joe's, and no tempeh. I started reading on various grocery threads about tempeh being missing from other grocery store shelves. Someone said something about the tempeh at Trader Joe's undergoing recertification and returning at the end of October. (No idea if that was true.) Whole Foods had tempeh available, but by the time we put in a delivery order, they were out (and out for a while after that). Amazon Fresh had no tempeh. I didn't want to order any Lightlife products after their disastrous ad campaign, but I was getting desperate and willing to buy it. But their tempeh and even the Lightlife already-made-and-seasoned tempeh bacon strips were out of stock at our delivery options.

And that's how we ended up with our non-vegan but egg-free BLT pasta salad. I really wanted to make a vegan version of this, but with The Great Tempeh Shortage of 2020, that just wasn't going to happen. If I knew I was going to use regular bacon, I probably would have made something other than a salad, since what attracted me to the salad in part was the tempeh bacon since it's texturally different from pork bacon, but it's 2020, and who can predict grocery shortages these days?

Anyway, I went ahead with the same recipe for the vegan BLT pasta salad but just replaced the vegan bacon with the bacon we had in the freezer. The ingredients for our version were:

for the dressing:

- 1/2 cup Vegenaise ($1.25)

- 1/4 cup olive oil ($0.40)

- 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar ($0.14)

- garlic powder ($0.03)

- small bunch of parsley ($1.18)

- salt and pepper ($0.02)

the rest of the salad:

- 2/3 package pasta ($2)

- 3 strips of bacon ($1.50)

- 12 oz grape tomatoes ($2.09)

- 1 avocado ($0.75)

- 1/2 red onion ($0.50)

- 2 green onions ($0.25)

- 1 large head of romaine ($2.49)

The salad cost about $12.06. It did make a lot of salad by volume, way more salad than you would get at any of the salad chains for that price. If I had made it with tempeh bacon, it would have cost more than that, but if I had more bacon than the three strips in the freezer, it would have cost more too.

The salad took a while to make, mostly because of the prep involved - making the pasta, frying the bacon, washing and chopping the tomatoes, cubing the avocado, slicing the onion, finely chopping the green onions, finely chopping the parsley, making the dressing, and then the most time-consuming part, chopping the romaine into thin strands. If this salad was just for A and me, I would have probably roughly chopped the romaine, not caring how it ended up in the salad. But B hadn't had much lettuce yet because it's a tougher thing for young kids to eat, so I had to slice the romaine into thin strands including part of the rib in each slice. With limited counter and cutting board space, getting the romaine done took a while.

Assembly was easy. I mixed together all the salad ingredients other than the pasta and the bacon, added the dressing, and then added the pasta (since we cooked the whole package) until it looked like a balanced amount compared to the vegetables, continuing to mix until the dressing had coated everything. The reason I didn't add the bacon was because I had fried it until it was very crispy, and upon crumbling it, it seemed a little too crunchy for B. So I left it on the side to top our salads. The salad without the bacon, after tasting it, seemed very bland. The bacon pretty much added all the flavor, but that's what we were expecting for a BLT salad. Of course, the next time I made bacon and it was crispy, B tried it and loved it, crunch and all, so I guess I could have added it here and mixed it in.

Fast-forward to December...

This post has been sitting in drafts for so long that I ended up making tempeh bacon like I wanted to originally (but with a side of potatoes instead of in a salad) before posting. It didn't taste exactly like bacon, and you could definitely tell the difference, but it was delicious. I now see why the tempeh recipe I followed used two packs of tempeh, because we finished our single package very quickly and wanted more. I wish I had been able to use this tempeh bacon for this salad, but since I didn't technically make it for the challenge, that's all I'm going to say about that right now. As long as they keep tempeh in stock, I definitely want to keep making this!

Week 41 - Lebanese

The Week 41 challenge, Lebanese, was one of my favorite challenges all year. (I thought it would be when I made it in October, but since it's taken me this long to finish this post, I can now say it with certainty in December.) It was so hard to choose a recipe since I love Lebanese food, but once I found a shish tawook recipe on Feel Good Foodie, I knew that I had to make that. We love getting shish tawook from restaurants, and this one looked delicious. Also, I had made some yogurt-marinated kebabs for our Afghanistan AtWCC and they hadn't turned out as well as I expected (which, of course, you wouldn't know since I still haven't finished that post), so this was a chance at redemption.

The ingredients we used were:

for the chicken and marinade (all spices eyeballed and estimated because I didn't use measuring spoons):

- about 1.5 lbs of boneless skinless chicken breasts ($7.23)

- 1/2 cup plain whole milk yogurt ($0.82)

- juice of 1 lemon (about 1/3-1/2 cup) ($0.39)

- 1/4 cup olive oil ($0.40)

- 1 large spoonful of minced garlic (with some of the garlic water) ($0.08)

- about 1 tsp paprika ($0.05)

- about 1 tsp cinnamon ($0.05)

- about 1 tsp garlic powder ($0.02)

- about 1/2 tsp oregano ($0.02)

- about 1/2 tsp ground ginger ($0.03)

- salt and freshly ground black pepper ($0.03)

for grilling the chicken skewers:

- grapeseed oil for the grill pan ($0.20)

- 1/2 red onion ($0.49)

for the salad we ate on the side:

- grape tomatoes ($2.79)

- Persian cucumbers ($1.99)

- 1/2 red onion ($0.50)

- a few scallions ($0.35)

- 1 can white beans ($0.79)

- 1 can chickpeas ($0.93)

- olive oil ($0.40)

- lemon juice ($0.20)

- sumac ($0.10)

- salt and pepper ($0.02)

also on the side:

- garlic spread ($2.99)

- whole wheat pita ($1.39)

Since we had a full salad alongside our skewers, it was, as expected, not an inexpensive meal. It ended up coming in around $22.26, more expensive than most of our challenge meals ($9.81 for the chicken skewers, $8.07 for the salad, and $4.38 for the accompaniments). We had some salad left over for lunch the next day, but that was it. A little bit more of a "splurge" cooking night, but worth it.

The steps for making the chicken were:

1. Mix yogurt, lemon juice, olive oil, minced garlic, paprika, cinnamon, garlic powder, oregano, ground ginger, salt, and black pepper in a large bowl.

2. Chop chicken into large chunks, and place into the bowl with the yogurt marinade, stirring to coat and making sure all the chicken is covered by the marinade. Cover with plastic wrap, and place in the fridge for at least 4 hours and up to 24 hours (I chilled ours for about 19 hours).

3. Thread the chicken on skewers with a chunk of onion on each end.

4. Add oil to grill pan, and then grill over medium high heat until cooked through and at least 165 degrees inside, about 5 minutes per side.

5. Remove finished skewers and place on plate to rest.

6. Serve skewers with sides (salad, garlic spread, and pita for us).

The salad on the side was just some prep and mixing, most of which I think I did prior to making the skewers. We got the garlic spread and pita from Trader Joe's since I knew I didn't have the capacity to make it all from scratch in one night.

This chicken was amazing. It was so tender, even the pieces from the skewers I left on the pan too long that got a bit browner than I had planned. I think what really helped these skewers come out better than the last yogurt-marinated kebabs I made was that I used plain yogurt instead of Greek yogurt thanks to the recipe notes/comments. I had no idea the water content of plain yogurt was so different (although I probably should have, given the different thicknesses of each yogurt type), so I'm thankful for the recipe note because it helped these turn out so much better than I expected. This was my first time skewering anything and using wooden skewers on our grill pan, and it was so much easier than I thought it would be. We loved our healthy Lebanese dinner, and we would absolutely do this again.