Our Year in Food: 2022

2022 was another year that flew by. The weeks just seemed to pass at a quicker rate than ever before, and we definitely did not keep this blog updated with any of our cooking and food adventures. Hopefully we'll be able to do better about preserving our memories in 2023 (and catching up)!

The first restaurant meal we ate in 2022: I had a solo meal at Fat Choy (sadly now closed), A had a solo meal at Summer Salt, but our first meal together was delivery from Pokebowl Station.

The first home-cooked meal we ate in 2022: A traditional Southern New Year's Day meal of hoppin' John and collard greens. It's my usual go-to New Year's Day meal, but the plan is to try something different this time around.

The last restaurant meal we ate in 2022: In person, it would be Mario Happy Meals and McDonald's, but our New Year's Eve lunch was a delivery of cheese oven pie, babaghanoush, spinach pie, and kibbeh from Ayat (more on them below).

The last home-cooked meal we ate in 2022: Mussels (surprisingly good prepared ones from Costco), fire-roasted vegetables (also surprisingly good out of the freezer from Costco), homemade French bread (A), and a failed homemade Algerian orange cake (me; failed as a Bundt cake, but tasted good).

# of different restaurants we tried in 2022 (together or separate): 73 in person and 57 for takeout and delivery. Huge jump for in-person visits this year versus last year.

Places explored (outside the NYC metro area): Chicago, IL. First time out of the metro area since 2019, and first time on a plane since 2018. Felt like a huge step after the isolation of the past few years.

Amazing vegan sushi from our Chicago trip

Most frequented restaurants of 2022 (together, in person): A three-way tie between the vegan burger joint Lekka Burger in Tribeca, Korean fried chicken spot Mad for Chicken in Cobble Hill, and Indian-inspired Malai Ice Cream in Carroll Gardens. Mad for Chicken and Malai were a common post-soccer lunch and snack combo, so not surprised that that's high on the list.

Chicken tenders from Mad for Chicken

Most frequented restaurant of 2022 (takeout or delivery): Putting aside McDonald's (because some of those visits were just for fries or breakfast, and because it's probably B's favorite place to eat so we're there a lot), we ordered from Ayat, a Palestinian spot in Bay Ridge, more than once a month. That makes two years in a row now that this has been Ayat, which doesn't surprise us at all because of the way they can accommodate B's allergy.

Mezze filistini from Ayat

Progress on WorldEats challenge (posting): 57/196. I'm confused because I count 57 countries on our summary list, if we include the new post we wrote this year, but it's been 58 in this year in review for years, since before the pandemic, so I have no idea what the missing two are. It's 82/196 for where we've actually been, so maybe we can do some catch-up in the coming year whenever Swarm reminds us of places we've been.

Progress on Around the World Cooking Challenge: Alphabetically, we're almost done with "unit" 5, Algeria, but we have a lot of post catching up to do.

Favorite overall meal of 2022: Our first in-person visit to Ras Plant Based, a vegan Ethiopian spot in Crown Heights. We'd ordered some of their delicious food earlier in the pandemic, but this was a lovely, warm spring day, right after our visit to the botanical garden to see the cherry blossom trees, and we sat outside enjoying dishes at a table in the sun. B was feeling adventurous that day, and ate some sambusa along with trying some of our other vegetable dishes (more than he would eat on subsequent visits), and we got to indulge in Ethiopian cuisine for the first time in a long time. Any visit to Ras is tasty, but that lunch felt special.

Looking forward to new adventures, and wishing you all the best in 2023!

The First Third

Making our way back to the beginning of the challenge before next year's challenge starts, here's a group post from the first third. Besides the ones already posted, skipping weeks 3, 8, 9, 12, 13, and 15 for the AtWCC (managed to fit in a lot!) and week 6 because I wrote most of that one already.

Week 4: on a stick

I had high hopes for this Serious Eats tsukune recipe, because those Japanese chicken meatballs skewers are one of my favorite izakaya dishes, but these were just okay. Considering we made these almost a year ago (I really need to get better about more timely writing), I don't remember a lot about them except that they didn't live up to my expectations. I don't know if it was because we had to use an egg replacer, or because they were made on a grill pan instead of an actual grill, or what was different about ours, but they just didn't taste as good as the ones you would get at an izakaya. Because I love tsukune, I do want to give them another shot whenever we make our way to the Japan section of the AtWCC, so I'm not counting them for that here.

Week 5: plant milk

I decided to go sweet for the plant milk challenge to try something different instead of just using store-bought plant milk as a substitute in dishes like we often do. First, I made some vegan condensed milk based on a Make It Dairy Free recipe (far easier to do than I thought it would be), and then used that to make some lime coconut snowballs (a MyRecipes recipe). They were different than how I thought they would come out. I was anticipating something solid and chewy like cookie dough, but they were soft and sticky, plus incredibly sweet. Tasty, but I couldn't eat more than a couple at a time because of how sweet they were. B and his sweet tooth liked them a lot.

Week 7: molding

The molding challenge was a complete failure. I made, or tried to make, dinosaur fruit jellies based on a YouTube video from Let's Stella. They looked so simple to make - Naked juice smoothies, sugar, and corn starch set in an ice cube mold. I got some cute dinosaur molds, thinking that we'd have lots of juice-filled fruit snacks that would be healthier than the store-bought ones. Except they didn't set. There were also supposed to be orange ones but I couldn't get those out of the mold at all. The taste was fine, but they were not the jellies they were supposed to be.

Week 11: inspired by art

I always have a little difficulty with the "inspired by" weeks, whether it's movies or TV shows or video games or books or art. I guess I'm not very inspired. The only thing that came to mind for this (besides a Mondrian cake, which I am not talented enough to make) was Campbell's soup, based on Andy Warhol's Campbell Soup Cans. I found a recipe for tomato soup meatloaf at The Kitchen Magpie, and I went with that, subbing turkey for the meat portion. This was over 9 months ago, so I don't remember much about it except that it turned out a little too watery on the bottom and it had nice flavor from the tomato soup. We have other meatloaf recipes we like more, so we'll probably stick with those, but this was nice for the novelty.

Four more recaps done, 24 more to go (at least it's less than half a year?)!

The Last Third

Time for a group challenge post for the last third of the year! Skipping weeks 40, 41, 45, 47, and 51 because they're also for the AtWCC and week 49 because I already wrote most of that one separately. Not sure if I'm going to get all these posts done before the end of the year, but I'm going to try my best!

Week 36: smashed

My immediate thought when hearing "smashed" was smashed potatoes, probably because A makes them so often (and so well). With A's help, I put together loaded smashed potatoes (based on a recipe from Budget Bytes) topped with cheddar cheese, (vegan) sour cream, bacon bits, and red onions. We don't usually top them with more than garlic and herbs (and they are delicious that way), but it was nice to try something different, especially that tasty melted cheese.

Week 37: honey

I stumbled upon a honey butter biscuit copycat recipe on Let's Dish when doing research for this challenge, and they sounded like a good thing to try since I'd never been to the Texas-based Church's Chicken chain before (and A had never had the biscuits). They apparently sell millions of biscuits a year and have even trademarked the term "Honey-Butter Biscuit" (not sure how since that sounds like a generic description to me, but I'm not a trademark professional). The biscuits were good, although I think I might have cooked them too long since the honey butter browned a bit too much on the bottom, and I personally prefer my drop biscuits not so sticky. Maybe we'll give these another try for the Texas part of the AtWCC.

Week 38: cultured

They announced the week 38 theme far in advance for people who wanted to do things like culture their own yogurt, but that was still far beyond my comfort level for safety reasons, so I figured I would just stick to using a cultured product like yogurt. I went with Molly Yeh's yogurt-marinated chicken skewers which were flavored with ras el hanout and harissa, and skewered with peppers and onions. These came out good, but probably not something I would make regularly at this point considering the marinating time and how long it takes me to skewer things.

Week 39: soaking

I like having overnight oats for breakfast, but they've become a bit of a running joke in our household because I'm always talking about them and rarely making them because I forget to set them up at night. This challenge was the perfect motivation to actually make them, and this bowl was overnight oats with almond butter, oat milk, chia seeds, flaxseeds, cinnamon, maple syrup, and topped with blueberries and blackberries. I really do need to make them more.

Week 43: punny names

"Punny names" is the type of concept challenge that I'm not good at picking recipes for. I spent a long time googling punny foods, punny recipes, and all variations of that, but found very few things that interested me. Eventually, I got attached to the idea of doing pizza for "pizza my heart," but at the end decided on "little pizza my heart," which made more sense because I was making little flatbread pizzas. The pizzas were topped with artichoke pesto sauce, mozzarella, provolone, and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheeses, and a pancetta and mushroom heart. I was actually really happy with the combination flavor-wise, and the hearts, while more difficult to make than I thought they would be, kept their shape thankfully.

Week 44: Greek

The country weeks are usually a no-brainer for doubling up with the AtWCC, but I wasn't in the mood for trying regular spanakopita when this challenge rolled around. I don't know why, but I was really fixated on making it into a Christmas tree. (Note: It was not Christmas or December, not even Halloween yet.) I followed the recipe on Dimitra's Dishes for the spanakopita Christmas tree, and with a little help from A for making the tree "branches," it turned out pretty well. Probably more time-consuming than making regular spanakopita, which I'll likely do next time instead, as fun as this was.

Week 48: leaves

There are lots of things you can do with leaves, but I naturally gravitated toward salad. Now, if I had been doing these in order, you would have known that I made at least three other chicken-based salads in the second half of the year. I can't explain why, but my brain just really wanted salads like this, so I just went with it. This one was very loosely based on a Food52 recipe for a farmhouse chicken salad, and the leaves I ended up using were arugula, parsley, tarragon, chives, and thyme. I also made some tarragon radishes on the side. Good salad, but a ton of work with all those fresh herbs, so this is probably a one-time thing if made exactly like this.

Week 50: rosemary

Last one for this batch! I thought I might end up using this for the AtWCC too, but it was not meant to be. I chose rosemary aloo paratha based on another Food52 recipe, since I'd always wanted to try making paratha and rosemary and potatoes were such a good combination. (I didn't want to make more smashed potatoes since I had just done that for a challenge recently.) Unfortunately, there was something wrong with one of our potatoes and it just would not get soft enough for mashing despite being fork tender when boiled. I should have just used instant mashed potatoes but I was trying to do it the "right" way. That meant that the chunks of potatoes that wouldn't mash broke through the dough, and the whole thing was a mess. I'll try paratha again for the AtWCC, and hopefully it'll come out better next time.

Week 52 - Broiled

Last challenge of the year! (But not the last challenge post of the year because I'm so far behind in posting.) I did all 52 weeks of the challenge this year, and I did them all on time, even the themes I wasn't that into, which I'm fairly proud of. The theme for the last challenge of the year was broiled, and I went fairly simple, making a broiled salmon (based on a Dinner at the Zoo recipe) with broiled balsamic vegetables (based on a Budget Bytes recipe). The salmon came out perfectly, and we definitely want to make that again. The vegetables were also good, very fresh, and went well with the salmon.

I'm still a broiler novice, to the point where I didn't even realize that the broiler needed to heat up for about 5 minutes before it started "working," until the vegetables looked exactly the same 5 minutes later. That explains why some of my previous recipe attempts where I just turned the broiler on for a set amount of minutes (instead of watching to see when it had browned or melted) did not work at all (ex: pan de yuca). We never used the broiler in our old apartment because we weren't exactly sure where it was in that oven or if we could trust it, so I can probably count our broiler usage on less than two hands. This challenge was a great way to end the year because I really feel like I learned something!

Week 22 - Desert

The theme for Week 22 - desert - came up right as we were finishing Albania and moving on to Algeria for the AtWCC in mid-May, so it seemed like a good time to jump right in to Algerian cooking. After all, more than 80% of Algeria is desert, so it felt appropriate. I've been trying to post the AtWCC recaps in order (generally, at least for the alphabetical ones), but since I'm already doing this one for the 52 week cooking challenge and Algeria is fresh(er) in my mind, I'm going to try to do those first (other than the next few Afghanistan ones I've already written) and jump back to the other four "units" later.

For this challenge, I decided on a kefta and olive tadjine from the site, The Teal Tadjine. There are a lot of delicious-sounding recipes there, and it's been a great source for us as we explore Algerian cuisine. As I mentioned in our Bar Omar post, tadjine has always been the first thing that came to mind for us when thinking about Algerian and North African cuisine generally, so it was an appropriate first choice for our challenge.

Although the original recipe used beef, I substituted chicken here, but other than that and the flax egg replacement, stuck fairly closely to the recipe. The meatballs were made of ground chicken, garlic, onion, cubed bread, milk, cumin, flax egg, green olives, parsley, salt, and pepper, and the sauce had onion, garlic, paprika, tomato paste, preserved lemon, tomatoes, more green olives, salt, and pepper. I skipped the harissa in the hopes that if B decided to try the meatballs, they wouldn't be too spicy for him. (It was a good choice - he did have a couple!) I was really excited to try this recipe in part because I had never cooked with preserved lemon before. I love trying new ingredients!

There was a fair bit of prep to this recipe - pitting and blanching olives, removing seeds from the lemon, making the flax eggs, cubing the bread and soaking in milk, grating the tomatoes, and chopping up the onions, garlic, parsley, some of the olives, and the preserved lemon. A helped with grating the tomatoes, which was something we'd never really done before, and it's definitely a different texture than anything you can get canned. I also learned from the prep for this that pitting olives was much easier than I thought, since we usually just bought the pitted varieties from the store (but I couldn't find any that day).

After the prep, making the recipe was fairly simple. First, the meatballs, then the sauce, then the meatballs go back into the sauce and the whole thing simmers for about 20 minutes to come together. We didn't own a tadjine, so I used a risotto pan which seemed close enough.

We really liked how this recipe turned out. It was a little salty, but considering the amount of olives involved, that wasn't too shocking. It also made B happy, because he loves olives. Overall, it was a comforting, cozy recipe that was delicious. We would definitely make this again, and it was a great way to kick off our Algerian unit!

Bar Omar

We're currently in the Algerian section of the AtWCC, which brings back memories of the only Algerian restaurant we've ever been to - Bar Omar in Williamsburg. We went back in 2017 when we were doing more WorldEats exploration than we are now, and the dinner we had was great. The restaurant was only open for a couple of years and closed a long time ago (2018, maybe?), but since Algerian cuisine wasn't common in NYC, we were grateful we had the opportunity to go. Even now, there are only a couple of restaurants that are serving Algerian cuisine, so it's still relatively rare.

We went to Bar Omar after spending the afternoon going to the Hall of Magic (a promotional event sponsored by The Magicians, reminding us we still need to finish watching that), and walking around on a cold January night. The sign outside advertising "Algerian soul food" sounded like exactly what we needed in the middle of winter.

We split one appetizer and one entree (since the tagines served two). Our starter was chicken bastilla, described as "sweet and savory chicken with almonds in brick pastry." We had a little familiarity with brick pastry from a Tunisian dinner in London (which we never got up to in our recaps, maybe someday we'll get back to those), and thought it would be similar to that (which was very crispy and light). What arrived was more like a pie, denser, more solid, but the flavor of the seasoned chicken was excellent. It's probably the taste we remember most from that meal. The powdered sugar on top was also a surprise for us in how well it went with such a savory dish.

Tagine was the dish we most associated with Algerian and North African cuisine generally. We chose the kefta, so it came with "North-African beef meatballs, cracked egg, potatoes, bell peppers, tomatoes, onions, and zucchini." (These recaps almost six years later would have been so much more difficult without pictures of the menu.) We had some couscous on the side, and it was good from what we remember, but it didn't make as much of an impression on us as the bastilla, maybe because we've had more similar dishes to tagine before.

Based on our one meal there, we would have returned, but we didn't find ourselves in Williamsburg very often back in 2017, so unfortunately didn't make it back before they closed. But we are thankful that we made it there at all, because otherwise we never would have known about chicken bastilla!

Week 23 - Stinky

I am not a fan of stinky cheese, which is where my mind immediately went upon reading the theme for Week 23. That and durian, which I'm still a little afraid to eat/purchase. After looking around a little bit, I stumbled on a thread on Reddit where someone wanted suggestions for things that smelled really stinky but still tasted good. That was an idea I could get behind for choosing this meal. Among the ideas, which included things made with fish sauce, asafoetida, and others, was a recommendation for bagna cauda. I had always wanted to try that, and it was already on the list for the Italy part of the AtWCC (who knows when that will be, as we're still in A), so bagna cauda was the plan!

If you've never heard of it before, bagna cauda is a garlic and anchovy dip that originated in northern Italy in the Piedmont region. The primary ingredients are olive oil, garlic, and anchovies, with some variations adding in butter or cream to make the dip even richer. It's served with bread, lots of raw vegetables (like endives or peppers or other crunchy things), and onions, which are roasted whole and skin-on.

Following recipes from Marcellina in Cucina and Serious Eats, I intended for ours to be made with olive oil, garlic, anchovies, and butter with sides of toasted country bread and some raw crunchy vegetables. Of course, life happens, and we ended up being in quarantine thanks to a potential COVID exposure at the time we made this, and we couldn't get a grocery delivery order in time, so the plan had to be adjusted. The main ingredients remained the same, but I ended up serving ours with toasted wheat sandwich bread (the old loaf of country bread we had was ... a little too old; I need to start freezing bread instead of putting it in the fridge) and the whole roasted onions instead. I think I just missed the discussion about the onions the first time I read the recipes, because otherwise they would have always been part of the plan. Not a very colorful meal, but it would have to do.

The first thing I did was roast the onions. I'd never actually roasted onions whole before, but I think I kind of love it now. I could just eat onions whole like this as a snack. I ended up covering them in olive oil, salt, and pepper, and then roasting them at 375 for about 25 minutes. I don't remember what site I got that from because I read 5 or 6 of them when I was looking into this, but they then said to raise the temp to 400 degrees for another 15 minutes. As soon as the temperature went up, oil started splattering all over the inside of the oven, which was making me incredibly uncomfortable, so I turned it off and figured they would be done enough for dipping by that point anyway. They probably cooked a little longer, because I just left them in the oven until it cooled off. I don't know what the onions are supposed to be like for this, but for us, they were actually the perfect texture for dipping at that point.

The next thing was to prep the garlic - peeling all 30 cloves, removing the germ if it was starting to get some color, and then slicing it up. That, as expected, took forever, but at least I could watch YouTube videos while doing it. The garlic then was simmered in some water for about 10 minutes to help it soften, and then combined with the olive oil in a cold pan over low heat to soften some more. This was supposed to take about 10 minutes, but it was still not smash-able at that point, so I raised the heat a bit, figuring maybe our low heat was actually too low. It got better, but it did take longer than 10 minutes even after poaching it first.

Anchovies were next, and this was my first time ever cooking with them. I guess anchovies are packaged in all different ways, but the only ones I could really find were canned. I drained them, and then added them to the sauce so they could melt. That happened far more quickly than I expected, especially considering some of the garlic was still not very smashed at the time. I added a few tbsp of butter at this point, and then after some more stirring and smashing, the sauce really did come together.

I usually try to make our cooking challenge meals toddler-friendly and accessible to all of us, but I had a feeling (which turned out to be correct) that this one would be for just me and A with the strong fishy and salty flavors and also B's current aversion to sauces. We thought this was really good. Very salty, far more salty than what we would normally make at home (at least on purpose), but quite tasty. The best bites were the ones with the onions, which seemed to both temper the saltiness a little bit and add another layer of flavor. Those bites were amazing. We did enjoy it, but I don't know if I would make it again, partially because of the saltiness and partially because B probably won't eat it until he decides he likes sauce again. But the roasted whole onions? That I would 100% do again.

Week 26 - Blended

I had been using our immersion blender a lot this spring, making sauces of various types, and then the Week 26 theme came up as blended and my mind drew a blank. I couldn't even remember which sauces I had just made with the blender, much less come up with an idea for a new one! After a bit of googling, I stumbled upon chermoula, which was actually a perfect fit since we were in the Algerian section of the AtWCC, and chermoula is, per Wikipedia, "a marinade and relish used in Algerian, Libyan, Moroccan, and Tunisian cooking." We also love green sauce of all types, so it was an easy choice.

Chermoula consists of fresh herbs with citrus and spices, and there are a bunch of variations. From what I can tell (and please correct me if I'm wrong), the recipe I used from Epicurious is the Moroccan variation (it's in the recipe description) but also seems like it could be Algerian. (Wikipedia doesn't give an Algerian description specifically.) For that reason, I'm going to count it for both Morocco and Algeria for the AtWCC. I didn't discover until later that some varieties also include preserved lemon, and since we still have one in the fridge left over from some other recipes, maybe we'll be making more chermoula in the not-so-distant future.

The version I made (with some adaptations/shortcuts on the spices) used the following ingredients:

- ground coriander ($0.10)

- ground cumin ($0.10)

- a few garlic cloves ($0.10)

- 3/4 cup olive oil ($1.20)

- lemon zest from 1 lemon (see next)

- 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice ($0.34)

- smoked paprika ($0.05)

- salt ($0.02)

- red pepper flakes ($0.02)

- 1 pack of cilantro ($1.99)

- 1 pack of parsley ($1.99)

- about 15 mint leaves ($0.85)

I haven't done an estimated cost in a while (although since everything is posting all out of order, it may not appear that way), but the chermoula itself was about $6.76. Add on some couscous for about $1, chicken tenderloins ($5.44), zucchini ($2.29), carrots ($0.60), red onion ($0.85), and oil/seasoning for roasting ($0.60), and the total was around $17.54. It made a lot of food (no leftovers though), but not bad for dinner for three, considering the way prices have increased since I was last doing these comparisons.

The sauce was really easy to make. Blend everything other than the herbs, and then blend the herbs in. I was a little concerned in the beginning because it looked more orange than green, but once all the herbs were in, it was the green sauce I was expecting. It tasted really good on its own, but we've been known to eat various green sauces by the spoonful, unaccompanied, before, so this was no different.

Typically used with fish or seafood (according to Wikipedia), chermoula is also used with meat and vegetables, so that was what I did, making it a topping for some grilled chicken (re-used the chicken souvlaki recipe from the Week 24 challenge because of the complementary flavors, just without the sticks, more on that another time), couscous, and roasted vegetables (zucchini, carrots, red onions). We really enjoyed it. It was a little lighter on the spice than the original recipe because I toned it down for B, even though he didn't actually end up eating any of it. Would make this again!

Week 16 - Layered

When I hear layered, my first thought is usually lasagna, but I had no interest in making lasagna for the Week 16 challenge. After googling "layered recipes," I stumbled on a 5 layer casserole on Taste of Home that was attributed to Dolly Parton. I couldn't find any actual evidence of Dolly Parton making said casserole or talking about it, but multiple sources mentioned that this famous layered casserole is supposed to be one of her favorites, so why not try it?

The five layers were potatoes, meat (used Impossible Burger), onions, tomatoes, and green peppers. I seasoned each layer (twice for the potatoes, since there were two layers) with salt, pepper, sometimes onion powder, sometimes the green goddess seasoning from Trader Joe's (love that stuff), and also added cumin, paprika, and garlic powder when I cooked the meat. I don't know how much seasoning would have been in the "original," but ours had plenty.

Outside of cooking the meat, everything else was just prep, and the casserole cooked in the oven for two hours. Long cook time so it was a late night, but if I had started on time, things would have gone better. Overall, we thought the casserole was really good. Again, no idea if it's really Dolly Parton's or if it's just a rumor, but it was a great dish.

Week 10 - No Recipe

One of the things I love the most about the 52 week cooking challenge is the way it gets me to try new things, usually by following a new recipe. What was I going to do if I couldn't rely on a recipe for Week 10?

Many years ago, before I started learning how to cook more and before it was easy to find recipes for anything on the internet, one of the things I often made without a recipe/cookbook was turkey burgers. I decided to revisit that for this challenge, and hopefully bring in different ingredients and flavors that I've picked up over the years.

This turkey burger had an eggplant-yogurt sauce inspired by baba ghanoush. The patty included carrots and scallions because we had them in the fridge, and instead of bread crumbs, I used some of the koftelik bulgur I had left from the Turkish challenge (which I will post about at some point...). Turned out well, and would make again!

Week 46 - Potatoes

The problem with a theme like potatoes is that we love potatoes, which means there are too many great-sounding dishes to choose from! When this theme came up, the first thing that came to mind during these cooler days was a warm potato salad, and after some looking around, I decided on Swabian kartoffelsalat from the southwestern area of Germany (based on this recipe from Five Heart Home). Usually when I think of warm German potato salad, there is some sort of bacon involved, but this one was just potatoes and onions, so I was curious how it would turn out.

I usually like to do all of these challenge meals on my own (with some prep help from A when needed so we don't eat too late at night), but A did most of this one after I accidentally crushed my thumb hard with the refrigerator door. It's thankfully better now, but there was no way I was going to be able to peel and thinly slice potatoes with only one working hand (and the other one in throbbing pain). At least I chopped the onion before that happened.

The recipe here was fairly straightforward. Just boil the potatoes until tender, then peel them and slice them thinly. Put them in a large bowl and top with some beef broth, minced onions, apple cider vinegar, and salt and pepper. Then the bowl gets covered with plastic wrap and sits at room temperature for half an hour to let the potatoes soak up all those delicious flavors. Parsley goes on top as a garnish once the time is up, along with mixing in a few tablespoons of neutral oil.

This potato salad was simple but so good! Letting the potatoes and onions sit in the beef broth made such a difference from other potato salads. We ate this with some bratwurst (TJ's) and cucumber onion salad (which thankfully I had made earlier in the day before the thumb incident), and it was a lovely German night for dinner.

Week 42 - Low and Slow

A theme of "low and slow" is not the easiest thing to do when we're trying to make faster dinners for earlier bedtimes. We could have gone with the slow cooker, but I didn't want to figure out how to do that in the Instant Pot, so just decided to make a recipe for Moroccan-style chicken with lentils that I found on BBC Good Food. Cooking for 1.5 hours at a low temperature seemed low and slow enough for me.

Before going into the oven

The recipe was fairly easy. Just make a spice rub out of crushed garlic, ground cumin, ground coriander, and paprika, and then rub some chicken thighs with olive oil and then the spice rub. Brown the chicken, set it aside, then fry a sliced-up onion. Add red lentils, chopped tomatoes, ketchup, chicken stock, a cinnamon stick, and a bunch of whole dried apricots. Cover and stick the casserole dish in a 350 degree oven for 90 minutes. That was it. Sounded so straightforward and easy. Just long.

Unintentional soup after 90 minutes in the oven

We did have one complication though. I tripled the amount of lentils, so figured that I would need triple the amount of chicken stock. But the amount of chicken stock in the original recipe was so far off that we ended up with soup. The broth tasted great, and it wasn't bad having extra to spoon on top of our couscous, but we could have gone with at least two cups less liquid and been just fine.

The chicken was so tender and completely fell apart (in a good way), and the entire dish tasted delicious and nourishing. We really did enjoy eating it, but I didn't add it to our cookbook because putting aside 1.5 hours just for the oven time isn't the easiest thing to do right now. We took a break for the summer, but we've done a fair amount of North African food this year because we're up to Algeria in the AtWCC, so it was nice to get back to the region as the weather is getting cooler. We're definitely glad we tried the recipe, even if we don't know when we'd make it again.