Week 5 - Whole Spices

Challenge week: 5

Theme: Whole spices

What I made: Coconut chickpea curry, but since I made it in the beginning of February and decided while making dinner that it should count for whole spices because I was using them (whole cloves and cardamom pods, didn't actually use the cinnamon sticks in the picture), I don't really have any notes and am not 100% sure what recipe I was using as a starting point. (This is also why I should write things more timely!)

Challenge quick review: I do remember that we really liked this coconut chickpea curry and that I wanted to make it again, so I probably should have taken better notes on what I did. It's possible I have a handwritten note about it somewhere on my desk, so if I find something, I'll update it here. It was really hard to figure out what to do for this challenge that would "spotlight" whole spices, but I ended up deciding that putting them in curry was good enough. I've actually used whole spices plenty of times since then, mostly because we don't have non-whole cloves or cardamom, and one tip would be to make sure you find them before you serve the meal. Luckily, I was the one who crunched into the cardamom pod, but that's my takeaway from week 5!

Week 29 - Grilling

I really intended to catch up on all these challenge posts a couple of months ago, but my brain has had a really hard time focusing on writing these days. Probably because I aggressively moved my sleep schedule up by 3 hours in less than a month, breaking some bad sleep habits/schedules that I've had for over a decade. Anyway, still a little too sleep-deprived (and feeling jet-lagged without any traveling) to feel super inspired to write, but I do want to catch up on these challenge posts so I don't forget what I did (more than I already have). Maybe it'll spark something in my brain, and I'll be able to get back on the writing train.

Going backwards through the challenges (which I have mostly been keeping up with, even if I haven't been documenting it on time), here's Week 29!

Challenge week: 29

Theme: Grilling

Theme note: We have no outdoor space, so the closest we were going to get to grilling was to use the grill pan.

What we made: Grilled Impossible Hawaiian BBQ skewers using the recipe from the Impossible website (with some modifications, like using our open bottle of Trader Joe's sweet and spicy pineapple BBQ sauce instead of making their sauce)

How much it cost (with breakdown): $13.73 (dinner for 3 + a little leftover veggies for lunch)

- 1 package of Impossible Burger ($5.99)

- BBQ sauce, enough to baste the skewers, probably 2/3-3/4 cup ($1)

- 2 green peppers ($1.99)

- 1 orange pepper ($1.79)

- 1 red onion ($0.79)

- 1 can of pineapple chunks ($1.50)

- dried oregano ($0.05)

- onion powder ($0.05)

- garlic powder ($0.03)

- salt ($0.02)

- freshly ground black pepper ($0.02)

- avocado oil spray to coat grill pan ($0.50)

(Ingredients note: Probably should add a little for the skewers too but got those so many years ago that I have no idea how much they would have cost. Also, it did not need 3 bell peppers like the recipe said. Two would have been sufficient. We still had more peppers, onions, and pineapples after filling up our skewers, so we just cooked the rest on the side and had some leftovers for another day.)

Challenge quick review: Delicious skewers, and the BBQ sauce was a great match for them. A few of the burger pieces fell off the wooden skewers during the cooking process, but since it was a grill pan and not an actual grill, they ended up completely fine. I did mess up a little in prep when I forgot pineapples on one, but at least I remembered by the second one. We ate the skewers with a tarragon parsley potato salad (a vegan version loosely based on an Ina Garten recipe sans dill), and it was a very tasty, summery meal. The only negative was that it all took a little longer to make than I had originally planned, but I think part of that was making both the skewers and the potato salad at the same time in a limited amount of kitchen space. Would make both dishes again.