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.

Week 14 - Geometry and Shapes

I'm not great at making things in defined shapes. For a long time, my pizzas were just whatever random shape I could form with the dough (before I realized I had to leave it out to warm up for much longer than the package indicated). But even now, they're not the best circles or rectangles. Also, I couldn't even make dinosaurs with a mold! When trying to figure out what to make for this challenge, a few things came to mind. Pizza, except for the aforementioned issues with circles and rectangles. Dumplings for semi-circles, but I think I'm even worse at those, plus they take me forever to make. Then I had a lightbulb moment for the shape I ended up going with - spirals!

I settled on spinach and artichoke pinwheels from Damn Delicious, making a few modifications like substituting frozen spinach, and some others mentioned in the comments, like reducing the amount of sour cream and making them individually in muffin pans instead of a pie pan. A and I have always been big fans of spinach artichoke dip, and although B hasn't had much exposure to artichokes and is not a fan of dips or sauces at the moment, I thought he might go for this considering it would be a small amount of dip wrapped up in bread.

To make the pinwheels, the first step is putting together a bowl of spinach artichoke dip. Then you roll out the crescent rolls, spread on the dip, roll them up, and cut them into rounds. Some of the commenters had mentioned that this part of the instructions to the recipe were kind of confusing, and I would agree with that, as I had to get A's help to figure out how they would have been laid out if they were 13x18 so I could figure out which way to roll (I was doing them one can at a time). The first few rounds that I sliced got a bit squished, as I was holding them tightly so they wouldn't fall apart, but once I realized that a gentler, lighter slice worked better, the process was much smoother.

The pinwheels came out of the oven, and you could definitely see the spiral shape, so challenge met! The weird thing was that the muffin pan on the cooler side of the oven came out slightly overdone on the bottom, and the one on the warmer side was just right, except stuck to the pan. Can the "warm side" of an oven switch?! Flavor-wise, they were fine, but not a ton of spinach-artichoke dip flavor once rolled up in the bread. A and I heated up some of the leftover dip (since I didn't use all of it to make the pinwheels, trying to break my bad habit of overstuffing things), and added them to the pinwheels and that was perfect. I don't know that I would need to make the pinwheels themselves again (although B did eat a whole one himself), but I would 100% make the dip again.

Week 17 - Deconstructed

Publishing some drafts that have been done for months, but were waiting for their "proper" chronological spot. A little over three months to the end of the year (how?!), so who cares about order anymore?

The Week 17 challenge was deconstructed, and as usual when it comes to more "abstract" challenges, I had no immediate ideas. After some googling, I found deconstructed Spam musubi in the form of bowls, and considering our household's love for Spam, it was a no-brainer.

Usually, Spam musubi consists of rice topped with Spam that has been marinated and pan-fried, and the combo is held together by strips of nori. I used all the same ingredients here for the bowl - Spam, rice, and nori.

I wasn't sure what went into the sauce, but after looking at numerous Spam musubi recipes online, the general consensus seemed to be about 1/2 cup of sugar, 1/4 cup of oyster sauce, and 1/4 cup of soy sauce. Ours probably ended up having a little less sugar, because the original plastic bag I was mixing the marinade in (really should have used a bowl) got a hole in it and some sugar got lost in the transfer to the new one. I marinated the Spam in the sauce for about an hour before pan-frying it. On the side, A made some wonderfully sticky Calrose rice, and I tore up some nori. It was a pretty simple meal to put together and perfect for a school night in that respect.

Since we don't have a musubi mold and I didn't really want to make my own out of the can, this was a great way to have all the elements of Spam musubi without trying to get it shaped properly. (Because all the flavors and elements were there, it's also why I'm counting it for the AtWCC.) I debated using some of the extra marinade to make a glaze, but it tasted fine without it and was already decently salty from the marinade and the Spam itself, so I skipped it. The bowl was delicious, and doing this in a deconstructed way allowed us to also have some fun and experiment with other options like hand rolls during the same dinner. Very happy with this meal!

Butter, Berries, and Botched Burmese Bowl

It's been a while since I posted here. May?! I thought it was more recent, but then realized there was a lot of stuff in drafts. So, what's been going on since May? Summer came and went in the blink of an eye. We went on our first plane trip since COVID arrived in 2020. We've explored more destinations in the AtWCC, and I've been keeping up with the 52 week cooking challenge, but you'd never know that since there aren't any posts here.

To remedy that, unless there is a reason for a separate post (like if it's also counting for the AtWCC), or unless it's one of the ones already languishing in drafts, I think I'm going to group together some of the 52 week challenge posts. For some of them, there just isn't that much to say. I made them, they fit the challenge, and that's that. So, in an attempt to catch up and so that I'm not finishing writing about the challenge next March like I did for last year's, here are weeks 31 through 35.

Week 31: Butter

For Week 31, I made a mixed berry cake with butter sauce. It wasn't the most photogenic cake, but it definitely spotlighted the theme ingredient - butter. The original recipe from Taste of Home used cranberries, but it was the middle of the summer with no cranberries to be found in the grocery store outside of canned cranberry sauce, so I used strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries (frozen, actually, since fresh berries are expensive and we prefer eating those fresh). It was the rest of the bag of frozen berries from last year's failed akutaq plus some extra frozen raspberries, and I just kept hoping that this would be a better use of those berries than the last time.

Following the instructions, I actually got a little bit stressed out that this was going to be an akutaq repeat, because after I added the milk to the creamed butter-sugar mixture, everything started to look clumpy and curdled. It was still lumpy after the flour, so I had very low expectations. When it came time to make the butter sauce for the top, I ran into another complication because I hadn't noticed the half-and-half on the ingredient list. Oops. From some internet research, I found out that someone mixed olive oil with soy milk, and it had the same effect. I was skeptical since it looked like a pool of oil when it started on the stove, but it really came together as a nice, thick glaze. I have no idea why it worked, but it did. Overall, the cake turned out delicious. Super sweet and super buttery, but successful! If we can get some fresh cranberries in the fall, this may turn up on our meal plan again.

Week 32: Chamorro

This one is going to get its own post, because it's going to count for Guam!

Week 33: Allergies

For allergies week, I tried to get as many of the top 9 allergens (wheat, milk, eggs, soy, fish, shellfish, peanut, tree nuts, sesame) in one dish as possible. So this pasta dish had tricolor spaghetti (wheat) with peppers and onions in a peanut ginger sauce (peanuts, soy, sesame), topped with crispy tofu (more soy), salmon (fish), and slivered almonds (tree nuts). I've made this dish a number of times before (with just tofu), but it had been a while, so I didn't realize we were out of unexpired almond butter. The slivered almonds look like a last minute add-on, and they were, since I wanted to do tree nuts but didn't have almond butter.

The ones I left out were shellfish (inspired by a recent back of the cupboard challenge, I tried to only use proteins we already had at home), eggs (because of B's allergy), and milk (lactose intolerance over here). 6 out of 9 was pretty good! The dish didn't come out as well as I would have liked because I think it needed more sauce and had more sauce in the past, but at least it still tasted fine.

Week 34: Oats

Oat-crusted chicken and oat risotto were on the menu for the oats challenge. The chicken was brined in vegan buttermilk that had an oat milk base and then crusted with oats. A did most of the work for the chicken, since these are chicken tenders he makes often and they're always so good. For the oat risotto (which A really wanted me to call ris-oat-to), I used a recipe from Allrecipes, added mushrooms, and it was fantastic. I would make the risotto again.

Week 35: Burmese

Burmese week sounds like a shoo-in for an AtWCC post, but this one was an absolute failure. I was hoping to make tohu thoke, a yellow tofu salad and one of my favorite Burmese dishes ever. (If it looks familiar here, this salad made our top 10 food memories list back in 2010, and we also posted about Rangoon in Philadelphia, which sadly no longer exists). Unfortunately, it didn't set at all. The tofu had the consistency of pudding and was not solid at all. I'm not sure what went wrong. Did I chill it for too long? Did I mess up something from the recipe (which I followed from YouTube because I couldn't find the related website)?

The yellow tofu itself was made of chickpea flour (besan), water, salt, and turmeric, and it really thickened up on the stove, so I thought it would just need some time to solidify. I used different toppings from the video, trying to mimic the ones we've had at the food fairs, using cilantro, fried onions (didn't have fried shallots or an easy way to get them), lime juice, fish sauce, tamarind, and garlic. The taste, especially in certain bites, was really reminiscent of what we'd gotten in the past, but the texture was not. I do intend to try this again (have a giant container of besan right now), and hopefully it will turn out better next time and be worthy of an AtWCC post.

More challenge catch-ups coming (hopefully very) soon!

Afghan Potato Salad

When trying to figure out what should accompany our chicken kebabs, I chose not to go with bread or rice. I had already slotted in the bread for a different Afghan meal, and it's hard for B to eat a ton of rice since he's a little toddler (wrote this post in June 2020; now he just likes to make rice "rain" so it's still not the easiest), so I try not to make rice every single day. (I try to look at it from his perspective. If I was working on my spoon skills and rice were difficult and sometimes frustrating to eat, would I want someone to make it every single day instead of also giving me something easier to eat?) After looking around at more recipes on Afghan Culture Unveiled, I found the answer - potato salad! The Afghan potato salad, shor nakhod, was egg-free and mayo-free, and it seemed like something our family would really enjoy. I don't know if it's remotely traditional to pair potato salad with chicken kebabs in Afghanistan, but grilled chicken and potato salad do make for a quintessential American BBQ, which is probably why it was so easy for my brain to accept the pairing.

The ingredients for the potato salad were:

- 3 large Russet potatoes ($2.37)
- 2 cans of chickpeas ($1.75)
- 1 bunch of scallions ($1.29)
- 1 bunch of cilantro ($1.99)
- about 1/2 cup white wine vinegar ($0.54)
- salt and pepper to taste ($0.03)

The cost for the potato salad was about $7.97, which isn't that much considering it was half of our dinner and it did make enough to have a bowl left over for lunch.

The steps for making the potato salad were:

1. Prep potatoes. Wash, peel, and chop the potatoes into bite-size pieces. Put in large pot, bring to a boil, and cook until fork tender. Drain potatoes and allow to cool. [I was busy doing other things, and the potatoes cooked too long. They were beyond fork tender.]

2. Prep scallions and cilantro. Chop both as finely as possible. [The original recipe makes the dressing in a blender or food processor. I really hate lugging those out, plus the noise, plus the lack of space for it on the counter while making other things, plus the noisy mini food processor scares B, so I just chopped them by hand. Took a little longer, and not as fine as a blender would get it, but it worked out just fine. Probably didn't even need to be as finely chopped as it was, although in the recipe photo, the food-processed version pretty much turns the potatoes green instead of seeing the herbs themselves. Much harder to do that without the processor.]

3. Make dressing. Combine scallions and cilantro with white wine vinegar, salt, and pepper. Season to taste. [Given that I used more potatoes and chickpeas and scallions than the original recipe, I needed more vinegar than the recipe, and probably could have used even more S&P.]

4. Drain chickpeas and rinse. Add to large bowl with the potatoes and the dressing. Mix well and season to taste.

The potato salad could be served warm or chilled. We had no room in our fridge to chill it, and I didn't make it far in advance, so I just left it under a fan for as long as it took to make the chicken kebabs. It tasted good, but so many salads work even better once the flavors have time to meld together and chill. We did have leftovers though, which I ate for lunch the next day, and the flavor of the dressing came through much more, which I really liked.

Overall, the salad was good, even if it was 75% of the way to mashed potatoes given how long I boiled the potatoes. Since it was vinegar-based, the sour flavors were predominant in the dressing, along with the strong bite of the herbs. I personally liked that a lot, but not sure B was that into it since he would normally eat more potatoes than he did. Despite being full of heavier ingredients like potatoes and chickpeas, the dressing gave the salad a lightness that I really liked. I would make this again, although I have a very long list of potato salads to try first!

Afghan Chicken Kebabs

Going out to Afghan restaurants, we often got kebabs, eating delicious pieces of grilled meat over rice and with bread. If we were going to explore Afghan food, it only seemed right to include a kebab, and the yogurt-marinated kebabs I found on Afghan Culture Unveiled, kebab-e-murgh, looked and sounded delicious. The big issue we faced was that we don't have a restaurant-quality grill or any grill at all, and we needed to use our grill pan. But I was hopeful we would at least get close and have some tasty grilled chicken kebabs.

The ingredients for the kebabs were:

- 2 lbs of boneless skinless chicken breasts ($8.98)
- 2 cups of whole milk Greek yogurt ($2.75)
- garlic powder (a lot) ($0.05)
- about 1 tsp ground coriander ($0.20)
- about 1 tsp ground cumin ($0.10)
- salt ($0.02)
- freshly ground black pepper ($0.02)
- grapeseed oil for brushing grill pan ($0.20)

The cost for the kebabs was about $12.32, the majority of which was the chicken. We probably could have made less chicken or frozen chicken and reduced the cost, but didn't feel like defrosting the frozen chicken when we could get fresh, better-quality chicken on our grocery trip.

The steps we followed were:

1. Combine the yogurt, garlic powder, coriander, cumin, salt, and pepper in a large bowl. Slice up the chicken to desired size and cover with the marinade.

2. Put the chicken and yogurt marinade into sealable bags, and marinate chicken in fridge overnight.

3. Take chicken out of fridge about 30 minutes before grilling. [That was the plan, but it turned into an hour. The chicken seemed fine.]

4. Put chicken into a colander to allow yogurt marinade to drip off. If any marinade remains, wipe off as much as possible before grilling so the yogurt doesn't burn. [Writing this out, I just realized that maybe I was supposed to put it in the colander for at least part of those 30 minutes instead of just letting it sit out on the counter?]

5. Heat a grill pan and brush with grapeseed oil.

6. Grill chicken pieces until cooked through on both sides. [I am definitely not an expert at grilling. I never know when they're done and always worry about undercooked chicken, so it ends up overdone 80% of the time. Since the time I wrote that in July 2020, we have gotten an instant read meat thermometer.]

7. Once chicken is done, wrap in foil and allow to rest for 5 minutes before serving.

I also made a small portion of yogurt dip using the same recipe as the previous aushe burida, bolani, and borani banjan, but this time using dried mint. I think it turned out fine, although the fresh mint (and fresh garlic) gave the first version of the dip a much stronger flavor which we really liked. But for an everyday sauce, where you may not have fresh mint on hand unless you grow it since it goes bad so quickly, dried mint definitely works.

How were the kebabs? Not as good as they would be on a real grill. Not as good as they would be if made by someone who doesn't have a habit of overcooking chicken. Some pieces were kind of juicy, but others were dry. Probably because I also sliced them up rather unevenly given the shapes of the chicken breasts. The flavor was good, but it mostly just tasted like grilled chicken without any strong spice flavors. We haven't made a lot of yogurt-marinated meats but thought the yogurt was supposed to tenderize the meat, and these just seemed texturally like other grilled chicken we've had before. [Note: I learned when making Lebanese shish tawook later in the year that plain yogurt instead of Greek yogurt might make all the difference.] They made for a good dinner, but we might have to keep working on it to see if they improve with better grilling technique!