Week 5 - Rice

The week 5 challenge theme, rice, was actually one of the more difficult ones for me as far as choosing a recipe to try. We eat a fair amount of rice at home, but how could I make rice the central ingredient instead of just an accompaniment? Risotto was the first thing that came to mind, but considering I'm currently in physical therapy so that I can figure out how to stand longer without pain, something where I needed to be standing at the stove for an extended period of time was just not a great option. I looked and looked until I found a recipe that sounded delicious and where rice seemed to be a main part of the dish instead of the side, and I ended up deciding on cheesy Italian rice with sausage from Delish. It wasn't an especially complicated dish, but it sounded like it would work for us.

The ingredients for the rice dish, as adapted from the Delish original, were:

- 2 cups brown rice (measured before cooking) ($2)
- olive oil for sautéing and drizzling ($0.20)
- 1 yellow onion ($0.79)
- 2 spoonfuls of minced garlic ($0.25)
- 14 oz mild Italian chicken sausage ($5.99)
- 2 zucchini ($1.47)
- a few handfuls of cremini mushrooms ($2.19)
- 1/3 batch of parsley ($0.50)
- shredded parmesan cheese ($2)
- lemon juice to taste ($0.15)
- freshly ground black pepper ($0.05)

We made some modifications from the original, like opting for zucchini and mushrooms instead of spinach since those were easier for B to eat, choosing parmesan over mozzarella and cheddar because it was better for my lactose intolerance issues, using more sausage, and adding parsley. The total cost of our recipe was $15.59. Not cheap, but not bad at all for dinner for three hungry people with enough leftovers for one lunch.


The steps for making the rice were:

1. Make the rice in the rice cooker. [Note: We made two cups of rice in our rice cooker, but didn't end up using 100% of it. We kept a little bit on the side in case B didn't like this and wanted some plain rice, but at the end of the meal, it was still in the rice cooker so we just finished it. We could have added all of it though, so I'm counting it all.]

2. Heat olive oil in large pot. Add onion and garlic, and cook until soft.

3. Add sausage, crumble while cooking it, and cook until fully cooked through.


4. Add zucchini and mushrooms, and cook until both are soft enough to eat.

5. Add cooked rice into the pot along with the cheese. Stir well. Add parsley, stir, and remove from heat.

6. Season with olive oil, lemon juice, and black pepper to taste.


Overall, we really liked this one. It was our first time using the 365 brand mild Italian chicken sausage, and despite the fact that it contained over 3000 milligrams of sodium according to the package, the dish was somehow not incredibly salty. I didn't add any extra salt because of the sausage's sodium content, but it wasn't really that salty at all. It was also probably a little less cheesy than the original, since we used parmesan instead of super-melty cheddar and mozzarella, but we were okay with that.


As far as the challenge, the rice was definitely the center of attention, mostly because there was so much rice. This probably could be made with less rice to let the other ingredients shine more, but considering we were hungry that night, it was probably good that we used as much as we did. Making the dish was fairly simple and easy, and if you already had cooked rice (and didn't have to wait two hours for it to be ready in the rice cooker), it could be a good, quick work night meal. We would make this again.

Week 4 - 24 Hours

There are some themes for the 52 week cooking challenge where I have absolutely no idea what I want to do, like Week 4's theme - 24 hours. The themes are open to interpretation, but all I could think of was a complicated recipe that would take 24 hours to make, in which case, no, thank you, I'll skip this week because no one with a toddler has time for that. Thankfully, other people on Reddit were also in need of guidance, and someone suggested a recipe that has to chill overnight, so one that would technically take 24 hours, but not necessarily 24 hours of cooking. That worked for me, and after a little bit of thought and remembering that mayo-based salads like cole slaw often turn out better when made the night before, I decided to try my hand at the quintessential New York deli-style potato salad, something I've always wondered how to make.

Ingredients:

I decided to follow a recipe I found on Food.com for this type of potato salad, knowing that we were going to have to make one significant ingredient change that could make the salad taste completely different. A central ingredient in deli potato salad is mayonnaise, and with B's egg allergy, that was just not an option. I had been wanting to try out vegan mayo for a while because of his allergy, figuring it could be a good replacement in tuna salad and the like, and this was a good excuse to pick one up.

Who knew that it would be so hard to find vegan mayo? Apparently, Trader Joe's discontinued theirs about six months ago, which I didn't know when I went to the very crowded store before the snow trying to find it. I ended up finding one at Fairway, but after looking at every shelf in the condiments aisle, they had exactly one brand of vegan mayonnaise, Avonaise, so Avonaise it would be.

The ingredients for our modified potato salad were:

- 3 lbs Dutch yellow baby potatoes ($5.58)
- 1 cup Avonaise ($5.47)
- 3 tbsp white vinegar ($0.15)
- 2 tbsp sugar ($0.20)
- salt, freshly ground black pepper, and garlic powder to taste ($0.10)
- 1/2 sweet onion, finely minced ($0.40)

Even though potato salad is a side, this recipe was not cheap. It came out to approximately $11.90, in part because of the Avonaise, since regular mayo would have been maybe 60% of the price. Once I started making it and realized just how many potatoes made up three pounds of potatoes, and how there would only be three of us eating and we didn't even know if B was going to like the potato salad, I realized I should have halved the recipe. It would have been much more manageable since potato salad wasn't our entire dinner. This potato salad was enough for a potluck. Oh well, lesson learned.

Steps:


To make the potato salad, I pretty much followed the instructions in the recipe, except that I decided to refrigerate it overnight at a minimum. The steps were:

1. Bring pot with water and potatoes to a boil and cook until potatoes are fork tender. Drain and cool potatoes.

2. While potatoes are cooking, mince the onion, and combine with all the non-potato ingredients to make the dressing. Mix well.


3. Once potatoes have cooled a little bit, rub the skins off and then slice. Add potatoes to the dressing and mix in well. Season to taste.

4. Refrigerate overnight so that it's ready to eat 24 hours later (since that's the challenge theme!).

Assessment:


How did this potato salad end up comparing to the NY deli-style potato salad I grew up with and really like? Well, texturally, it was right. I wasn't sure when I put it in the fridge if it would be, but when I tested it a few hours later (I checked it throughout the day to see how the flavors changed), it absolutely reminded me of deli potato salad in texture.

As far as the taste, there was something missing, but I don't think that's the recipe. Every time I tried it throughout the day, even as I tasted the flavors improving the longer it sat in the fridge, I kept thinking something was missing. NY delis use mayonnaise, actual mayonnaise with eggs, and I think that's a big difference in the flavor. Vegan avocado-based mayonnaise just can't replicate the same flavor that you get with eggs. The ingredients are just different, and I think part of what gives deli potato salad that distinct flavor is the eggs and the mayonnaise. Also, a lot of the mayo brands I usually buy seem to include some form of mustard in their mayo combinations as well, and I think this might have been improved with a little bit of mustard (which, again, wouldn't have been an issue if we used regular mayo - although I do note that Duke's doesn't seem to have mustard but is a delicious outlier). Lastly, I think if I made this again, I would probably include the entire sweet onion instead of half. I did half because I wasn't sure how strong the raw onion would be for B, but it was pretty sweet and the whole onion would have been fine and also added some more flavor.


Potato salad alongside some rotisserie chicken and grape tomatoes. Kind of like a picnic...
So, would I make it again? I don't know. It was a lot of work (not hard, just time-consuming with the potatoes), and to do all of that again with those modifications and to still feel like it was missing something would be a little disappointing. If B outgrows his egg allergy, maybe someday I'll try this with real mayo, and if he doesn't, maybe I'll try it again with these tweaks, but there are so many other things I'd rather try first. Just to be clear, there was nothing wrong with the potato salad, I was happy to eat it, I'm glad I made it, and it was not tossed on the floor in its entirety by the toddler, but there was just that missing taste that will continue to bug me.

As far as the challenge, in the interests of full disclosure, the time from the start of the potato salad making to the time we ate it wasn't 24 hours. I had every intention of having the potato salad ready to go 24 hours prior to the next night's dinner, even planning to make it on MLK Day because we would both be home for the holiday, but I woke up really late from a nap and then had to make it at the same time as rushing through that night's dinner, so everything got delayed. But I think it still counts for the 24 hours challenge because I intended for it to be a 24 hour thing, it still was in the fridge overnight for us to eat the next day (even if not a strict 24 hours), and the only reason it was less was because I was tired and moving slowly. I'm not officially participating anyway, but that's why it counts for me.

Week 3 - Russian

Week 3 of the 52 week cooking challenge brought something new into our kitchen - Russian cuisine! While we've had Russian food before at places like Teremok (sadly now closed) and Onegin (which I think is also closed) here in the city, we've never made it at home, so this was something completely new. After reading through lots of recipes for Russian dishes, the one that seemed to make the most sense for a challenge family dinner was a recipe for turkey stroganoff that I found on Simply Recipes. Although we had definitely heard of stroganoff before (mostly beef stroganoff), A and I weren't actually sure we'd ever eaten it before, so that made this one a little hard to judge in terms of whether my finished product came close to what a stroganoff should be.

According to Wikipedia, stroganoff as it has evolved today in many parts of the world consists of meat (usually beef), mushrooms, onions, and a sour cream sauce over pasta or rice. This recipe certainly seemed to classify as a stroganoff based on that description. In our adapted version, we used the following ingredients:

- 1 package of white mushrooms, sliced ($3.99)
- 1 onion, chopped ($0.35)
- 2 tbsp butter ($0.20)
- 1 lb ground turkey ($4.35)
- 1/8 tsp nutmeg ($0.10)
- 1 tbsp dried thyme ($0.20)
- 1/2 cup sour cream ($0.50)
- freshly ground black pepper ($0.05)
- 1 package of pasta (brown rice fusilli) ($1.99)

While stroganoff is often accompanied by egg noodles, we obviously couldn't do that here for allergy reasons, so we just went with some brown rice fusilli since it would also be able to hold the sauce decently well. The original recipe was also targeted at Thanksgiving leftovers, using turkey and gravy, but since it was January, we opted for ground turkey. The estimated cost for the entire recipe was $11.73. It would have been under $10 if we got the mushrooms from Trader Joe's instead of our local Superfresh since the package there is slightly smaller and cheaper, but for dinner for three plus a little left over for lunch, that's really not a bad price.

After two very long cooking challenges that took more time than we anticipated, I am happy to say that this recipe took less than an hour from start to finish. (Finally!) The steps for making the stroganoff were:

1. Dry saute the mushrooms until they release water (about 5 min).

2. Add the butter and onions, and cook until onions are done.

3. Make pasta at some point while everything else is cooking.

4. Add ground turkey, nutmeg, black pepper, and thyme, and cook turkey, breaking it up as it cooks, until done.

5. Remove from heat and add sour cream. Mix well.

Pretty simple to execute, and probably could have been done faster if the turkey had completely finished thawing before we started cooking. It was nice to finally make something for a challenge meal that didn't take two hours.

So, how was the stroganoff? I liked it, but not as much as some other pasta dishes we've made before. It seemed relatively basic in flavor, and you couldn't really taste the thyme or the nutmeg, just the sour cream, turkey, and black pepper. A found it a little bit bland. B didn't seem to be a huge fan of it for dinner either, but he had had cheese and Cheerios for a snack not that much earlier, so that may have also played a role. He was willing to eat it for lunch another day, but nowhere near as enthusiastically as the fajita pasta bake we made another night (which was a bigger hit with the whole family). Also, we have no idea whether or not it was really representative of what stroganoff should be, since we don't think we have anything to compare it to, or how "Russian" it really tasted, given that that was the challenge. Conclusion - good dinner, glad we tried it, but don't think it'll make it into our regular rotation.

Philly Cheesesteak Bao Buns

One of the more interesting-sounding things to arrive in the Trader Joe's freezer case last fall (and still available today) was a box of Philly cheesesteak bao buns ($3.49 for 4 buns). They looked just like the bao you'd get at dim sum, but they were filled with shredded beef, American cheese, onions, and bell peppers in an attempt to replicate the flavors you'd get if you were eating a cheesesteak.

We were excited to try these, and following the microwave instructions (they also provide steamer instructions), they were done in a couple of minutes. Unfortunately, cutting open the bao, it didn't look anything like the one in the photo. Instead of shredded meat and vegetables, it was kind of just some sort of meat mush. As far as flavor, it tasted like beef and peppers, but without the words on the box, neither of us would have ever thought "cheesesteak" when describing it. The taste was okay, but nothing special.

Buy again? Probably not. Glad they're taking a chance on some more unique items, but this one didn't work for us.

Week 2 - Miso

When I hear miso, my first thought is soup (which amuses me, since the majority of the miso mentions on this blog have nothing to do with soup), and since it's January and it's cold, soup sounded really appealing. I didn't want to make a plain miso soup, so I looked around online until I found a recipe for ginger chicken meatballs in miso broth on No Spoon Necessary. I've been wanting to make homemade meatballs for B ever since we found out about his egg allergy, so this seemed like the perfect time.

The ingredients for our adapted recipe were:

For the meatballs:
- 1 lb ground chicken ($4.99)
- 1 cup panko breadcrumbs ($0.40)
- 3 cloves of garlic, minced ($0.30)
- 1 tbsp soy sauce ($0.20)
- 2 tsp ginger paste ($0.40)
- 5 scallions, greens only (use the whites for the broth) ($0.50)
- 1 tbsp fish sauce ($0.10)
- 1 tsp lemongrass, minced ($1.29)
- 1/2 batch of cilantro, leaves finely chopped (several tbsp) ($0.50)
- 2 tbsp broth (from the broth below)
- olive oil to coat pan ($0.20)

For the broth:
- 6 cups water (although I added 2 more later because we had too many vegetables)
- 2 spoonfuls chicken bouillon ($1)
- 3 cloves of garlic, sliced ($0.30)
- 1 medium shallot, sliced ($0.33)
- 1 tbsp ginger paste ($0.20)
- 1 tbsp fish sauce ($0.10)
- 4 scallions, whites and greens sliced, plus the whites from the meatball scallions ($0.49)
- 2 tbsp white miso ($1)
- baby corn ($2.50)
- napa cabbage ($2.89)

That came out to about $17.69 ($8.88 for the meatballs and $8.81 for the broth) for soup for three for dinner with about a bowl left over for lunch. On the more expensive side for the home cooking/challenge meals we've done, but it made a lot of food and the meatballs had so many ingredients in them that they definitely didn't taste like ordinary meatballs.

The original recipe called for baby bok choy, but apparently in everyone's "it's the new year and it's time to eat healthy" madness, bok choy and baby bok choy were nowhere to be found. (Either that or there was a supply issue somewhere that we didn't know about when planning this.) We tried two different stores, and there was a single package of bok choy that we were planning to use for something else, so we went with napa cabbage here and some baby corn. I think there are a lot of vegetables that would be complementary here, so we went with what we could find. Tastewise, it was fine, but the giant napa cabbage was a little harder to manage than bok choy would have been, and I only ended up using a third of it, max (and that was with adding more to the broth after we all had our first bowls and had made some space in the pot).


Another ingredient note, this was my first time using actual lemongrass. I watched a few YouTube videos to prepare, and I thought I was ready. Remove the fibrous outside layers, mince the inner tender part finely, and you're good to go. But instead, it was like the bamboo root adventure all over again. I kept removing the outer layers because they felt fibrous, and ended up with very little lemongrass. I don't know if I tossed too much and should have used more, and I tried to follow one YouTuber's method of sticking your thumbnail in to see if there's an indentation, but very little of it seemed tender. Will need to investigate further. (Comments and advice welcome!)

The steps for the recipe were:

1. Prep. [Here I should note that the recipe total time was given as 40 minutes, with 20 minutes of cook time (not that inaccurate) and 20 minutes of prep time. Yes, I'm a little slow on prep on a good day, and yes, I'm a little rusty, but even when I wasn't, I don't think 20 minutes would have been nearly enough to do all of this. 20 minutes in, I had gotten through the garlic, the lemongrass, and the shallots, and that's it. The prep probably took at least an hour, and even if you subtract all the time I had to take to wash my burning eyes out (thanks, delicious scallions and shallots), it still wouldn't be anywhere close to 20 minutes. I feel like to do that you would need a giant counter with room to lay everything out for prep, very quick knife skills, and someone to wash all the vegetables for you. Washing vegetables thoroughly takes so long!]

Anyway, this first step of prep was for the garlic, shallots, scallions, cilantro, lemongrass, and the soup vegetables. It shouldn't have taken as long as it did, but time just vanished, and that was with using shortcut ginger!


2. Start the broth. I added the water and bouillon to the pot along with the garlic, shallot, ginger paste, fish sauce, and scallions.

3. Once the broth had come to a boil, I lowered the temperature and then made the miso mixture by combining the miso with 2 tbsp of the broth. After stirring to combine it into a nice paste, I added it to the pot and stirred it in. [Note that the original recipe removed the solids from the pot, but considering they were just vegetables we'd normally eat anyway and not the fibrous lemongrass or something like that, I just left them in.]

4. Add all the meatball ingredients to a large bowl and mix together. Form small meatballs and place on parchment paper-lined surface. [I can't tell you what size they were, because I have no idea. Maybe a tablespoon size or a little bigger. I tried to be consistent but didn't measure.]

5. Add the vegetables to the broth (as long as it's been simmering for at least 15 minutes) and simmer until vegetables are tender and while the meatballs cook.


6. Add olive oil to a pan over medium heat, and add the meatballs in batches to cook until golden brown. [I think they were mostly cooked by the time I was done with them, but they were going to finish in the soup anyway.]

7. Add finished meatballs to the broth and cook for another 5-10 minutes until done.

Thankfully, after A and I took turns working in the kitchen for almost 2 hours (he did some of the vegetable washing and chopping, which I really appreciated), the soup tasted really, really good. It would have been so disappointing to put in so much time and not love what we made, but the soup turned out really well, especially the meatballs. They also seemed to be a hit with baby B, and I'm glad we were able to introduce him to some new flavors we haven't given him at home before, like lemongrass and miso. I could eat a giant bowl full of those meatballs, I liked them so much.


What would I do differently next time? Start cooking earlier, and set my expectations accordingly for how much time prep will take. Watch more videos about lemongrass preparation. Choose another vegetable for the broth that wouldn't take as much time as the corn and cabbage to prepare. Figure out a way for A and I to both work in the kitchen at the same time, because having two extra hands would have made things go much more smoothly (and is how I'm still used to operating, since I haven't cooked a lot of prep-intensive things since B's arrival). Wear contacts so I don't have to keep running to the bathroom to wash out my eyes.

All that said, the recipe itself was delicious, and I would make this again. I think with better planning, quicker ingredients, and less rusty kitchen skills, things might go a little faster next time. (Hopefully!)

Week 1 - Hindsight 2020

I unofficially took part in Reddit's 52 week cooking challenge beginning in 2014, and I stopped partway through 2017 because I just wasn't finding it fun anymore, especially with how crazy life had gotten. (More in this post.) After that, I checked in on the challenges every so often, but never really felt the inclination to go back until recently. I just found myself in a rut, lacking inspiration, relying on the same dishes over and over, and I also thought that my cooking skills had gotten a little rusty, especially the improvisation ones. Everything in me yearned to go back to trying new things, and I wanted to introduce baby B to new foods and textures and tastes, real home-cooked food and not as much processed food. So here we are, back again, hopefully refreshed and inspired. I'll do whatever challenges I can, and there will be no guilt if I choose to skip a theme. After all, this is just for self-improvement and fun.

Of course, the first theme was something that required a bit more thought than a simple ingredient challenge: hindsight 2020. Looking back at the past year, what would I want to do differently? Was there a recipe I wanted to attempt again? I didn't really make much last year, very few new or experimental dishes, so what would I even do for the challenge? When the thought finally hit me, I knew this had to be the challenge because it was perfect: redoing the vegan chickpea omelettes I made back in October.

Can't rely on easy scrambles anymore...

Learning that B had an egg allergy was challenging when it came to things to make. Meatballs often use egg as a binder. Scrambles and frittatas are great foods for babies and so easy to make, but can't do them. I had never realized just how much we relied on eggs for filling up the meal plan. I don't remember how I stumbled on it, but while I was thinking about this, I found a recipe for vegan chickpea omelettes on Fork and Beans, and I knew I had to make it so that B could get a little bit of the egg experience without actual eggs.

The recipe looked so easy on the site. I figured it would be simple to do. The steps themselves weren't hard, but then they came out looking like this:

Mistakes in execution (especially that first, super dry one), too much turmeric, and I was just disappointed in how they turned out. Not the fault of the recipe, but I think I expected it to behave like an omelette in terms of how to make it, and tried to fold it and move it and flip it like eggs, which was also probably an error on my part.

For my "hindsight redo," I used the following ingredients:

- 1.5 cups garbanzo bean flour ($1.13)
- 1/2 tsp baking soda ($0.05)
- turmeric ($0.10)
- garlic powder ($0.05)
- onion salt ($0.05)
- freshly ground black pepper ($0.05)
- oregano ($0.05)
- thyme ($0.08)
- 1.5 cups whole milk ($0.45)
- 5 tsp apple cider vinegar ($0.10)
- 1/2 bag frozen spinach ($1)
- 1 can fire-roasted diced tomatoes ($1)
- 4 small handfuls of shredded Colby jack cheese ($0.50)
- olive oil ($0.25)
- 2 avocados ($2.33)


Total for dinner was around $7.19, which for three people, is a great price. Almost a third of that is the avocados alone, so this was a really affordable family meal.

The first time I made it, I didn't use so many spices, but this time, I wanted more flavors than just turmeric. I also added tomatoes so we'd have more vegetables, and avocado to eat on the side. We had a big carton of whole milk now that baby B has moved on to that, so I used that instead of the soy milk I used the first time, since we didn't need it to be vegan, just egg-free.

I thought those changes would make for a better omelette than the first time and that I would get it right this time if I just followed the steps carefully. I should have known it would be more difficult than that once I forgot which pan I preferred the first time after trial and error and had to oil a second pan once I remembered. I clearly didn't write any actual notes down after the first attempt. Anyway, the steps I followed this time around were:


- Mix the batter (everything in the ingredient list from the garbanzo bean flour down to the apple cider vinegar).
- Saute the spinach and tomatoes until all the water is released and then remove from heat.
- Add olive oil to pan and then add a portion of the batter (didn't measure and forgot that last time they worked better with thicker layers of batter, so I made the same mistake - again).
- Add vegetables and cheese to one side of the batter.
- After a couple of minutes, fold over the non-vegetable side, and then cover and steam for about 5 minutes.

I couldn't remember what heat to put it on, so I started on low, raised it to medium once it wasn't setting very quickly, and then forgot it was on medium, so it got a little... overdone (but still edible). That one was clearly going to be mine and not the baby's.


I ended up making four omelettes this time (pictures 2 and 3 in the collage below are the same one). The second time, I watched the temperature better, raising it in the beginning so it would cook faster but making sure it steamed on low. By the third time, I was starting to get frustrated with how long the whole thing was taking, so I started steaming it twice, once before folding it and once after, trying to get it to cook faster. I had thought this was a quick recipe, forgetting that it's one omelette at a time with 5+ minutes per omelette, and it was getting really late for dinner (a usual 52 week challenge problem that really can't happen anymore with a baby!).


For the last one, I kept the temperature low the whole time, didn't steam it at all, but let it go for a very long time since I was busy cutting up baby B's omelette for dinner. This one turned out the best for us and was the least dry. The steaming was supposed to cut some of the earthy flavor, but they all kind of tasted the same to us and we don't really mind that flavor.

So, what did I learn in hindsight from my redo experience? I still think this recipe is a good idea, but maybe it's just not for me (sort of like the baked mozzarella sticks). Maybe I should make a chickpea frittata instead. There isn't really any way to speed up the process of making the omelettes, so this is probably also not ideal for a super quick dinner (and maybe another vote in the frittata direction if it's going to take just as long). Lastly, I'm a little out of practice with trying new things, so I really want to do as many challenges as possible this year.


But this experiment also made me remember that, when it comes to cooking, how it looks on the plate and perfection aren't always everything. B probably ate almost as much as I did, finishing almost his entire omelette, so no matter how much it didn't look like the original, no matter how much I wanted it to turn out better, it must have still tasted fine (or good enough if he was just that hungry). Very little ended up on the floor until he was getting full so at least he seemed to enjoy it, which is probably the only reason I'd try it again!

Our Year in Food: 2019

Where has 2019 gone?! Despite our best intentions to post more this year, we can count the number of posts on two hands. Hopefully next year we'll be better at repaying our sleep deficit, managing our time, and sharing our thoughts and stories here, because a lot of time has gone by since we've been consistent about this, and just speaking for myself, I really need to get back into the habit of writing regularly for my brain's sake!

2019 was an interesting year in the food department, introducing baby B to solid food for the first time and learning to navigate our food exploration journey as a family of three. The first half of the year had a pretty high delivery bill, but by the end of the year, we were back to meal planning. I'm even considering going back to (a selective version of) the 52 week cooking challenge next year. Anyway, here's our year in review, since it was largely undocumented on this blog.

The first restaurant meal we ate in 2019: We didn't go out to restaurants that much until the spring since baby B was so small and it was still flu season, but the first restaurant meal out was at Blaze Pizza in mid-January. First delivery was a delicious Turkish dinner from Istanbul Bay with lots of dips, spreads, and adana.

The first home-cooked meal we ate in 2019: Technically, the first thing we cooked was an egg and salsa scramble with some Trader Joe's hash browns, but that's not a very exciting answer. As I wrote in an end of February post about a new gnocchi recipe, we hadn't done much beyond basic cooking or familiar recipes until that dish. We largely prioritized convenience until the late summer and fall, which coincided with when we started to cook dinners for all three of us, which are hopefully more nutritious and less processed. It also takes a little more thought now not just about nutrition, but because we can't rely on easy egg-based dinners.


The last restaurant meal we ate in 2019: Family lunch at Qdoba. They have a quesadilla kids meal that is perfect for baby B, and we got our usual bowls, piled high with rice, chicken, veggies, and guacamole. Last takeout/delivery of the year was a sandwich and lunch bowl from the Family Store in Bay Ridge, one of our favorite spots.


The last home-cooked meal we ate in 2019: Chinese home cooking! A made his family's scallion pancakes along with some homestyle chicken with peppers and onions. We haven't been able to explore much Chinese food with baby B (more on allergies below), but he loved his dinner, so it looks like we'll be doing more Chinese home cooking in the new year!

# of different restaurants we tried in 2019 (together and separate): 107 spots in-person, 45 takeout and delivery places.

Places explored (outside the NYC metro area): Philadelphia, PA. We mostly stayed local this year.


Tofu salad from Rangoon in Philadelphia
Most frequented restaurant of 2019 (together): The most times we ate at any given restaurant this year was three, and that was four different places - two Chinese restaurants for family dinners (Affable Eatery and Mang Tang Hung), Qdoba, and Tairyo Japanese Fusion. As far as takeout and delivery go, two spots local to us - Pier 69 Market and Grand Sichuan House - led the pack.


Salmon teriyaki lunch special from Tairyo
Progress on WorldEats challenge: We didn't write any more posts for WorldEats this year, but continued to explore when we could. So the count is still 58/196, but we've been to more. Next year, hopefully, will bring at least some new posts on this front.

Favorite overall meal of 2019: Our first visit to Saravanaa Bhavan in Murray Hill with baby B in the fall. We were just going out for dinner and planning to give him some cereal and puffs, but while there, we thought that maybe we'd try giving him some uthappam since it's fairly soft, even though the one we ordered was covered in tons of onions and peas. He absolutely loved it and kept wanting more, so we've been back several times since then, each time amazed by his love for all the new foods (and also his tolerance for spice at such a young age). It helped that it's a restaurant that doesn't have any eggs in the kitchen, since baby B is allergic. It's hard dining out, especially at small spots, when you have no idea how a kitchen is set up, whether anyone really understands how to handle food allergies (we've learned from many family dinners out at Chinese restaurants that there really are some significant barriers with that), and how much of a risk cross-contamination is. We're thankful that we've been able to find places to go that let us still explore as a family but also keep B safe.


Uthappam
As A put it when we were discussing our favorite meal of the year for this year, "We've had so many amazing eating experiences, and everything is new for him. For him, everything is brand new, and seeing that excitement and that joy for him makes this all worth it, because we've done most of these things already on our own. Food is such an important part of our lives before him. For him to love and appreciate it as much as we do, it's a beautiful thing." That's definitely what we found as we dined out at Saravanaa that first time and every time after, and that's what made this meal so special for us as a family.

Can't believe it's the eve of a new decade. Hoping 2020 brings everyone health, happiness, and delicious food!

Hold the Corn

The last couple of months of the year at Trader Joe's are appetizer season, when they offer tons of options for Thanksgiving appetizers, holiday parties, New Year's Eve, or just everyday snacking. I absolutely love hors d'oeuvres, so it's really exciting to see what new stuff they come out with every year. After a couple of failed attempts, we finally picked up the Hold the Corn appetizers (a take on their Hold the Cone ice cream desserts) on our last visit, and they were worth the wait.

Each box has 12 cones, and each cone consists of a handmade rice wrapper with a filling of two types of corn, water chestnuts, coconut, green onions, wood ear mushrooms, red chile peppers, lemongrass, garlic, cilantro, green peppercorns, and red chile powder. Everything in the filling was chopped finely, so outside of the corn, we couldn't really distinguish the individual ingredients, but they combined together for a very tasty appetizer. The flavor was bright and citrusy without being overpowering or artificial-tasting. The cones themselves looked like upscale appetizers with that delicate netting, and it was hard to believe they're selling these handmade cones that look labor-intensive for just $3.99.

We baked them in the oven for 15 minutes (always go on the long end of the instructions that TJ's gives!), and they were perfect. Crispy on the outside, and not that messy because the cones were strong enough to handle the amount of filling provided. Immediately after we finished our six cones each, we wished we had more ready to eat, and we both agreed that we could probably eat an entire basket of these cones in one sitting. They're such a delicious snack that you just want to keep eating, and they feel so light that you don't feel stuffed either.

Buy again? Yes, if they have any more at the store on our next visit (no guarantee because they're seasonal, sadly). We're pretty glad we picked up two boxes to start with. Maybe we'll get lucky and this will be an appetizer TJ's adds to the regular offerings in the future instead of being something seasonal.

Gnocchi alla Sorrentina

Reviews of Trader Joe's products aren't usually that long or time-consuming, yet somehow it's November and we haven't posted in ages despite trying a ton of new stuff (even if not new to TJ's, new to us). I've really been trying to write more, hoping to exercise that part of my brain regularly, so hopefully I can get more of these up soon. They're very helpful to us, even if no one else out there is actually reading them, because it's so hard to remember with so many products which ones we've tried and liked and which ones aren't our thing. Without further ado, the next up is the gnocchi alla Sorrentina ($2.99)!

These gnocchi are in the frozen section and are pretty easy to make. They have both microwave and stovetop instructions, but we made them on the stove in a skillet. Just add some water to the skillet, add the contents of the bag (gnocchi and large circles of pasta sauce and cheese), and cook until everything is melted and warm. There aren't any surprise or hidden ingredients here; it's just gnocchi (wheat and potatoes), tomatoes and tomato juice, mozzarella cheese, and seasonings, like onion, basil, garlic, and some white and chili pepper. But since that's all there was to it, we were looking to make it a more complete meal and added some Mediterranean vegetables (really just squash, green beans, and carrots, but that's what 365 has deemed "Mediterranean"). They were a good match for it, and overall, it was a good meal, but it wasn't anything extraordinary.

Buy again? Maybe, if we're in the mood for gnocchi and too lazy to make our own dish with the shelf-stable ones and some sauce. This is a quick and easy way to prepare it, and convenience would be the main reason we'd get it again.

Halloween Gummies

Trader Joe's is flush with fall seasonal products right now, lots of pumpkin and Halloween treats, and even though I'm trying to cut back on sugar, I couldn't resist picking up a bag of the Halloween gummies ($3.99) when we were there. Instead of one big bag of gummies, it's broken down into 20 small snack-size (or trick-or-treat-size) bags, so it's built-in portion control.

Each bag contains multi-colored gummies (I've seen purple, pink, red, yellow, and orange, I think) in Halloween shapes (skeletons, bones, skulls, bats, and pumpkins). Texturally, they're great, very chewy but not sticky. I don't think they've gotten stuck in my teeth at all yet, which is different from a lot of other gummies on the market. (Looking at you, Swedish Fish.) According to TJ's (from a blog post about last year's gummies, which we somehow never saw, but the bag looks exactly the same), they're made by the same French gummy producer who makes the gummy tummies, but I like these a little bit better because they don't have that extra gush that the gummy tummies do. I haven't been able to nail down what the flavors are exactly, but they're sweet without tasting artificial or overly sweet, which I appreciate. Last year's post said they were made with various extracts and concentrates that included black carrot, apple, carrot, pumpkin, blackcurrant, and spirulina, but this year, it just lists fruit juice, vegetable juice, and spirulina, so that might have changed.

Buy again? I don't even know if they'll be at the store the next time we go since they're probably one-and-done as far as product runs, but I would get them again next year. They're a nice gummy treat that seem a little healthier and less sweet than some other candies.

52W Challenge: Corn

I stopped doing the 52 week cooking challenge in late 2017, mostly because it didn't fit our lifestyle at the time, but also because it wasn't as much fun anymore. Lately, finding myself in a cooking rut and lacking inspiration, I've found myself checking in more and more to see what the weekly challenges were, hoping that, even if I didn't start participating every week again, I could at least find something interesting to put on our weekly meal plan. I missed trying new recipes and adding new things to our repertoire, so when the Week 37 challenge came up as corn, I decided it was finally time to plunge back in.

Corn is that quintessential summer ingredient (although we love eating it in all seasons). A good corn recipe, especially a salad, just makes me think of summer, and when I saw a recipe for fresh corn cakes with summer salsa on MyRecipes, I knew that was the one we had to make. It wasn't especially difficult, some of the prep work could be done in advance, and any leftover ingredients (from our modified recipe) could be repurposed for other things during the week.

The ingredients were:

For the corn cakes:
- 4 oz of all purpose flour
- 1/2 cup plain yellow cornmeal
- 2 tsp baking powder
- some salt and pepper
- 1 cup light sour cream
- 2 eggs
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 can of sweet corn
- 1 jalapeño pepper, minced

For the salsa:
- 2 small Roma tomatoes, chopped
- 1 medium zucchini, chopped
- 3 large scallions, chopped
- apple cider vinegar
- olive oil
- salt and pepper

We didn't plan it this way, but I ended up making the salad/salsa and A ended up making the corn cakes. The salad was relatively simple: just chop the vegetables, add the oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper to taste, and mix. The corn cakes were a little more involved, but fairly straightforward. Mix the dry ingredients (flour, cornmeal, baking powder, salt, pepper) in one bowl, and in another bowl, mix the wet ingredients (sour cream, eggs, olive oil). Add the sour cream mixture, corn, and jalapeño to the dry ingredients, and stir until combined. Then you just drop the corn mixture onto a griddle like pancakes, and cook them until they're done, flipping as needed.

We really liked this recipe. The corn cakes were tasty, and the additions of the actual corn kernels and the jalapeño were key. We thought that they could be improved with some cheese if we were to make them again, maybe some feta or some cheddar. The salsa on the side was an excellent accompaniment for a light vegetarian meal. I read some of the recipe comments afterwards, and someone had suggested also making some salmon with this, which would work really well with the flavors we tasted. This made 8 or 9 corn cakes, so it was pretty filling for the two of us, but if it were being split among more people in a family meal, the salmon would be a nice addition. The only negative to this recipe for us was that we were really bummed that we couldn't share this with baby B. The texture of the corn cakes would be great for a baby his age, and we think he would love the flavors, but the eggs make that impossible right now. If not for the egg allergies, this would be a great recipe to add to our family meal rotation.

Fiery Chicken Curry

I'm generally a big fan of the Indian food at Trader Joe's, as that's the section where you can often find some of the more interesting, flavorful, and balanced single-serving frozen meals. Recently, I spotted something new to me that seems to have debuted over the summer - a Goan-inspired fiery chicken curry with a side of turmeric rice ($3.49).

On the chicken side of the meal, you have a few pieces of chicken breast with a sauce made with onions, coconut milk, tomatoes, vinegar, garlic, ghee, tamarind, green chilies, and some other spices and seasonings, and on the rice side, basmati rice with turmeric and spices. I was expecting a mild heat even though it said fiery, but I was wrong. There was quite a decent amount of heat, but unfortunately I found that the heat masked the flavors of the spices and seasonings in the curry. Most of the flavor I got was just acidic tomatoes and heat, so much so that I preemptively took an antacid immediately after eating. With that overpowering heat, whatever seasonings there were in the rice were also impossible to taste, and the whole dish was pretty much "fiery" without any corresponding bump-up in flavor. Just hot for the sake of hot, in my opinion.

Buy again? No. There are so many good Indian dishes in the freezer case (thinking about the lovely korma fish curry, for one) that I don't feel the need to get this again. I love Indian spices, and I'd rather forgo the heat and taste those in a milder dish.

Organic Coleslaw Kit

My favorite recipe for making coleslaw (is it coleslaw or cole slaw anyway?) is the one I found years ago on the Budget Bytes site in the recipe for the BBQ bean sliders. A simple mix of shredded cabbage, scallions, and a dressing of mayo, honey, mustard, and vinegar, it was so easy to make and a great side dish. When we were shopping at Trader Joe's over the weekend, I saw this organic coleslaw kit and thought I'd see how it compared, both in terms of taste and convenience. Theoretically, a salad kit should save you time since a lot of the components are already done for you, but that doesn't really matter if the salad isn't as good.

Ingredients:
The coleslaw kit came with a mix of green cabbage, red cabbage, and carrots, while the slaw I usually make just uses shredded green cabbage. There are scallions in my usual slaw, but I added them in with the kit as well. For the dressing, the kit had a "creamy, sweet dressing" made with soybean oil, sugar, apple cider vinegar, egg yolks, garlic, onion, lemon juice, and some other spices and seasonings, compared with mayo, honey, mustard, and vinegar. I think the taste of the latter is slightly better, and it's a little creamier, but they were very similar. The amount of dressing in the kit, however, was far less than the dressing that the slaw recipe from Budget Bytes made.

Price:
The coleslaw kit was $2.69, and the only thing I added to it was some scallions, so it came out to about $3. When I made the coleslaw from scratch in the post a few years ago, the slaw also came out to around $3. Prices of the ingredients may have increased over the years, but I don't think by much, so on this factor, they're about equal, except that the coleslaw kit had red cabbage and carrots and less dressing (which probably cancel each other out).

Speed/Time:
When making my usual slaw, I liked to let it sit for hours, usually overnight, in the fridge for the flavors to meld together. We didn't have that type of time with the kit, nor did it recommend doing that anywhere on the package. I made it at the start of dinner prep, and left it to sit for an hour or so, and the dressing seemed to have completely soaked in. I think there is a slight advantage to the kit here because the dressing ingredients have already had lots of time to mix together, and you also don't have to make it from scratch. The mixing of the salad is about the same, although marginally more difficult with the kit because it has less dressing in the packet. (Note that it seemed kind of dry and like there wasn't enough dressing when first mixed, but by the time the hour was up, it was enough.)

Taste:
I like both slaws, although the taste of the dressing in the Budget Bytes slaw is a little better than the kit. That's probably due a little bit to the mustard, as that's one component that's different, and a little bit to there just being so much more dressing.

Buy Again?
I would get this slaw again for a couple of reasons. One, the convenience factor of not having to make the dressing. The dressing isn't difficult to make, but when it's 10:30 pm and you need to get dinner on the table, every minute counts. Two, making our own dressing means having mayo on hand, and since we use mayo so rarely (pretty much just for slaw and tuna sandwiches), having a fresh jar in the fridge hasn't always been a guarantee. That's even more the case now that we aren't buying any more mayo, other than maybe vegan mayo, for so long as baby B is allergic to eggs. Having a small packet of dressing that we can consume and then toss is much better for our current situation. Very glad we tried this, since now we know we have another option other than just making it ourselves!

Fajitas de Pollo

So many days, it is so tempting to just pull up a delivery app, place an order, and breathe while we wait for dinner to arrive. After putting baby B to bed, sometimes we're just spent, and the idea of going into the kitchen to make something, even something easy, feels daunting. It's also usually late, like 9:30 or 10 pm, which isn't great for ordering delivery either, but sometimes exhaustion and convenience just win. We're trying to be better about it though by planning ahead more, trying to stay disciplined, finding easier and quicker things to make, and also picking up some ready-to-make/eat products at Costco and Trader Joe's to keep things simple.

One thing we picked up on a recent Costco visit was a package of fajitas de pollo by Del Real. They were $12.99*, which felt like a lot for a single packaged meal when shopping at Costco, but compared to the price of ordering something similar for delivery or the time cost of making it yourself, it really isn't so bad. Note though that it doesn't come with any of the usual restaurant fajita accompaniments, like tortillas or rice or beans or toppings, so tack on another dollar or so for those if you're pricing it out. Inside the box, there's a packet of chicken, one with vegetables, and a third with sauce (which they mark optional in the instructions, probably because it has a fair bit of spice thanks to serrano peppers and chipotle peppers in adobo). You can cook it on the stovetop (the recommended option) or in the microwave, and both take about the same amount of time, around 10 minutes.

* I wrote the majority of this post after we tried the fajitas the first time, and since then, we've made two other visits to Costco, buying three more boxes of fajitas. Part of the reason we picked up two on our last visit though was because they were only $7.97, which is good because less expensive, but bad because the 97 cents plus the star on the price tag meant they were being discontinued. The last visit wasn't at our usual Costco, so we are hoping, hoping, hoping that they are not being discontinued everywhere and only at that Costco.

We weren't sure how we would feel about this ready-to-cook fajita kit, but we were really happy with the results. Sometimes when you get pre-made food like this, it tastes highly processed, but this didn't. This tasted like you made it from scratch in your own kitchen, probably because there isn't a whole lot of excess stuff added in. It's one of those products that passes the "you can recognize and pronounce all the ingredients" test. The chicken is just strips of grilled chicken breast in a marinade that includes pineapple juice, chipotle adobado, orange juice, brown sugar, key lime juice, garlic, and spices, the vegetables (onions and green and red bell peppers) are just seasoned with salt, garlic, and some spices, and the sauce is just roasted tomatoes, serrano peppers, more chipotle adobado, green onions, onions, cilantro, and garlic. Would take some time to put together from scratch at home, but these pre-mixed packets completely worked to deliver the same result. It also didn't taste as buttery or greasy as restaurant fajitas sometimes can.

Comparing the finished product to the picture on the box, it looked pretty similar other than the fact that the box picture had grill marks on the chicken. Not such a big deal in terms of taste. We were pretty impressed by the quality of the product here and would definitely do this again (for as long as Costco's inventory will allow us to!). They don't expire immediately or within a week after purchase either (at least ours didn't), so it's an easy thing to toss into the fridge for a day when you really don't feel like cooking and don't want to spend a lot on yet another delivery order. Del Real also made a carnitas kit that I tried during the Cinco de Mayo sampling, but it wasn't nearly as good as this fajitas kit in my opinion. (Kind of hard to believe they came from the same company, to be honest.) Hoping we can make fajitas for a while!