Week 3 - Indonesian

The last time the Indonesian challenge came up (in 2015), I tried to make nasi goreng, and while it tasted like fried rice, it didn't taste like any nasi goreng we had had before. It was just missing something. For the Indonesian challenge this time, I wanted to make something different. I looked through lots and lots of delicious-sounding recipes, but wasn't sure what to make since there were many ingredients I didn't have access to, especially during a pandemic when we couldn't shop around at specialty stores. I eventually decided on mie goreng, a fried noodle dish, based on a recipe I found on Recipes Indonesia. Even though I knew I would need to make substitutions, it at least seemed doable. Also, unlike the last time I did the Indonesian challenge, this time I had a bottle of kecap manis (Indonesian sweet soy sauce) and didn't have to try to fake the flavor with other things.

I made a lot of substitutions, perhaps too many since the finished product (spoiler alert) wasn't like any mie goreng we had eaten in Indonesian restaurants before. (If you think this is sounding like a repeat of last time's nasi goreng, you would be right.) We couldn't get to an Asian grocery store before making this, so the only noodles we had were spaghetti. I used a can of chicken instead of an actual chicken fillet, trying to save a little money since our grocery bill that week was higher than usual. Instead of slicing up my own cabbage and carrots, I got coleslaw mix, something we've used as a substitution before when cooking that has done well. Instead of choy sum, I used a little baby bok choy. The store had no bean sprouts. I left out the chiles, except a little bit of sambal, because I didn't want it to be too spicy for B. We left out the eggs because of our allergy, fried onions, and parsley. With all the ingredient changes, it was a somewhat different dish, but they all seemed like similar enough substitutions that could potentially work at the time I planned it out.

Non-traditional ingredients for mie goreng

The ingredients for our version were:

- 1 package of whole wheat spaghetti ($1.39)

- 1 tbsp grapeseed oil ($0.10)

- 3 large shallots ($1.43)

- 6 cloves of garlic ($0.33)

- 1 can of chicken ($1.92)

- 1 bag of coleslaw mix (green cabbage, red cabbage, carrots) ($2.99)

- 1 baby bok choy ($0.75)

- 7 scallions ($0.99)

- 1 small spoonful of sambal oelek ($0.05)

- about 1 tsp chicken bouillon ($0.10)

- about 3 tbsp kecap manis ($0.84)

- about 2 tsp soy sauce ($0.10)

- white pepper to taste ($0.05)

The noodles cost about $11.04 on their own. We ate them with some stir-fried bok choy and red onion on the side that I made in the same wok right afterwards, and they tasted pretty good together. The total cost was about $13.73, a great price for dinner for three and a lot of food. There was a (very) little bit left for the next day.

I generally followed the same procedure to make the noodles as the original recipe, but with a couple of significant differences. One was skipping all the egg-related steps. The other was that, instead of grinding the shallots and garlic into a paste, I just fried them in the oil. I didn't have time to make a paste, and we only had a wooden mortar and pestle that I didn't want to forever smell like shallots and garlic. It probably would have been better as a paste, but I don't think it would have made so much of a difference as to change our final conclusions on our version of the dish. The steps we followed were:

The original recipe said five shallots, but this was three shallots, so I stopped there. Thankful for the goggles we bought and never used for COVID, because they have become onion and shallot goggles...

1. Prep - finely chop shallots, finely chop garlic, rough chop baby bok choy, chop scallion greens and whites into medium-sized pieces and keep separated, make sauce by combining the chicken bouillon, kecap manis, and soy sauce, boil water for spaghetti. [I started that last one way too late, which delayed everything and made our vegetables a little too soft.]

2. Heat grapeseed oil in a hot wok. Add shallots and garlic. Fry until fragrant.

3. Add chicken, stir-fry for a little bit, and then add the sambal oelek. [If using actual chicken fillets, this would obviously be a much longer step until the chicken was mostly cooked.]

4. Add the coleslaw mix, baby bok choy, and scallion whites. Stir-fry until beginning to soften. [That was the intention, but getting to step 5 took far longer since the water wasn't boiling yet.]

5. Add noodles, scallion greens, and sauce. Mix everything together well, and make sure sauce is evenly distributed. Adjust to taste. [It was a little too bland for us, probably because we had so much stuff in the wok. We added more kecap manis and more soy sauce here as well as a little white pepper.]

The noodles were good, a little on the blander side but with a nice mild flavor. They were not, however, something we would have ever guessed as mie goreng in a taste test. Similar to our last Indonesian cooking experiment, it just felt like there was something missing, and I'm really not sure what it was. The chiles? Too little sambal? Not enough sauce? Too much/too many noodles in the wok? They just tasted like lo mein to us with nothing distinctly Indonesian. Maybe next time I try making Indonesian rice or noodles, I'll finally get it right.

Week 2 - Meat Substitute

When I saw the Week 2 theme, meat substitute, I had every intention of using something like Impossible Burger or Beyond meatballs or Trader Joe's beefless beef to substitute for meat. But then I put a vegan meatloaf I really wanted to try (recipe from Nora Cooks) on the meal plan for the first week of the new year, and remembered that meat substitute didn't just mean some commercially-engineered meat substitute but also things like chickpeas that could stand in for meat. I was really excited to try out this recipe, since unlike some others it didn't need a food processor or a blender, and also because I love meatloaf.

The ingredients for our version of the meatloaf were:

- 1 small onion ($0.19)

- 3 medium carrots ($0.46)

- 2 large celery stalks ($0.30)

- large spoonful of minced garlic ($0.05)

- olive oil spray to grease pan ($0.10)

- olive oil for sautéing vegetables ($0.10)

- 2 cans of chickpeas ($1.93)

- about 1/2 tsp liquid smoke ($0.05)

- 1 cup panko bread crumbs ($0.75)

- 2 tbsp ground flaxseeds ($0.16)

- 3 tbsp nutritional yeast ($0.15)

- 2 tbsp soy sauce ($0.15)

- 2 tbsp + 2 tsp Worcestershire sauce ($0.60)

- 4 tbsp + 1/3 cup ketchup ($0.42)

The total approximate cost for the meatloaf was $5.41. I had to run the calculations twice, because I was in disbelief at the low cost. We paired it with a can of green beans, which meant dinner for three was under $7. It was only the second week of the challenge, but I think this might end up being our most affordable meal of the whole challenge year, based on how much our meals usually cost.

The steps for making the meatloaf were:

1. Prep - chop onion, carrots, and celery into small pieces. Drain and rinse chickpeas. Preheat oven to 375 degrees, and spray loaf pan (used 9 inch pan) with olive oil spray.

2. Heat olive oil in skillet. Add the onion, celery, and carrots along with garlic. Cook until onions are translucent. Remove from heat and cool.

3. In a large mixing bowl, add the chickpeas. Use a potato masher to break them up (but stop before they get pasty or mushy). [This step took far longer than I thought it would, mostly because I used one can of Goya chickpeas, which were soft and mashable, and one can of Trader Joe's chickpeas, which were hard and similar in texture to nuts. The latter refused to be crushed and only sometimes split in half, no matter how hard we mashed. They only got harder with baking too. I won't be using those again, partially because I would rather have a smoother texture for the meatloaf, and partially so I don't spend the entire dinner worried about the chickpeas being nut-like choking hazards.]

4. Add the vegetables to the chickpeas, along with the liquid smoke, panko, flaxseeds, nutritional yeast, soy sauce, 2 tbsp of the Worcestershire sauce, and 4 tbsp of the ketchup. Mix well, and then scoop into a loaf pan and smooth out the top.

5. Cover loaf pan with foil, and bake for 30 minutes.

6. Mix together the rest of the Worcestershire and the ketchup for the glaze.

7. Remove loaf pan from oven after the 30 minutes, remove the foil, and spread the glaze evenly on top. Return to oven, and bake for 15 minutes uncovered.

8. Remove from oven, and let it sit for about 15 minutes [it was late - we did 5-10 minutes]. Slice and serve.

The meatloaf was delicious. A little heavy on the Worcestershire flavor, but I personally like that, so I thought that was great. The texture wasn't the same as you would get from ground meat, but I don't know if that would have been different without the hard nut-like pieces of chickpeas that we had thanks to the TJ's chickpeas. I would absolutely make this again, but I will try to be wiser with my choice of chickpeas.

Sparkling Honeycrisp Apple Juice

I'm not a huge fan of carbonated drinks, so I've mostly ignored the seasonal sparkling beverages at Trader Joe's, despite the raves for previous flavors like watermelon and strawberry. But when the sparkling honeycrisp apple juice cans came in last fall, I knew we had to try them. We hadn't bought any honeycrisp apples during the season, and this sounded like it might be their version of Martinelli's, which was popular in my family during lots of holiday dinners.

The ingredients were simple - just honeycrisp apple juice, water, and carbon dioxide - and the flavor was great. It tasted just like a sweet, ripe, crisp apple, but not too sugary sweet. We found it really refreshing, although A noted it might not be the best use of so many honeycrisp apples. (It's been so long since we've had actual honeycrisp apples!) It was also nice that they came in four cans instead of one big bottle, so that you didn't have to drink too much at one time. (I thought the news said there was an aluminum can shortage, so I'm not sure how they got their hands on so much of this when beer distributors are having issues, but I'm glad they did!)

Buy again? Sure. I think we could pick up a box of these every fall and be happy with a nice bubbly treat. If all the other flavors are as good as this one, we might even try some of those too!

Week 1 - Last Meal

I felt all sorts of emotions when the first challenge of 2021 came up as last meal. I was sad, angry, and upset, because what kind of challenge theme was that?! Coming off of a 2020 that saw such tragedy, why would you start off the year with something so depressing, dark, and dreary? Why wouldn't you want to look ahead to 2021 and try to start it on a bright, optimistic note? [I wrote most of this post before the insurrection... What a start to the year.] Who wants to think about having their last meal at a time when COVID is surging? What an incredibly morbid theme. I was kind of surprised that they went there at all during a pandemic, but especially for the opening theme of the year. I also felt disappointed. I don't like skipping weeks, especially not the first one, but there was also no way I was going to participate in this thought exercise.

I apparently wasn't the only one that felt that way, and there were lots of comments on Reddit from people who found the theme similarly bleak. Some took it to even darker, sadder places, like what it would mean to have the same last meal as someone executed on death row. Not things I want to think about to set the tone for the year. Thankfully, other people came up with less negative lenses through which to view the challenge, one of which was the last meal of the Before Times, the last meal out before lockdown, the last meal at a restaurant before the entire world closed down. For us, the last time we ate out before everything started to get shut down was a family meal at Qdoba. It's a really happy memory for me, just being able to see and eat with family in the middle of so much uncertainty (as we could definitely feel the coronavirus dangers lurking at the time), and B was having a great time at that dinner, dancing to the music and enjoying his Mexican food. So, our challenge meal was set - copycat burrito bowls.

There were a lot of moving pieces for this dinner if we were going to make our own burrito bar, and I don't think I really anticipated just how involved it was, so I started making dinner way too late. The whole process took about 2.5 hours, which meant another late challenge dinner. Outside of the guacamole, for which we just used Kirkland guacamole singles, there were six different dishes made from scratch: copycat Qdoba grilled chicken, cilantro lime rice, fajita vegetables, black beans, corn, and pico de gallo. The black beans and corn weren't going to be replicas of Qdoba, just quick microwavable dishes since I did not have the time for that, but I wanted to make our burrito bowls as similar as possible otherwise.

The ingredients were:

for the chicken (adapted from recipe on Gimme Delicious, did not measure dry spices):

- 1.5 lbs chicken tenders ($8.99)

- big spoonful of minced garlic ($0.05)

- 2 tbsp olive oil ($0.20)

- about 1 tbsp chili powder ($0.10)

- about 1 tsp cumin ($0.05)

- about 1 tsp oregano ($0.05)

- salt and freshly ground black pepper ($0.03)

- adobo sauce ($0.58)

(Note that the recipe called for 2 tbsp of adobo sauce, but I didn't have any and wasn't sure if it would be too spicy for B, so I went with a substitute I found on Pepper Scale, omitting the cayenne. I ended up using about 1 tbsp tomato paste, 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar, about 1 tsp smoked paprika, about 1/2 tsp cumin, a pinch of oregano, and a pinch of garlic powder, again not measuring the dry spices, with the total approximate cost reflected in the list above. I mixed that together first, and it tasted far closer to adobo than I thought it would, lacking some of the depth and not very spicy, but that was just what I needed here!)

for the rice (adapted from Skinnytaste):

- 1 cup basmati rice ($1)

- juice of 1/2 lime ($0.25)

- 2 cups water ($0)

- about 1 tsp salt ($0.02)

- 1/2 big bunch of cilantro, finely chopped ($0.44)

- about 3 tsp olive oil, divided ($0.10)

for the fajita vegetables:

- olive oil spray ($0.30)

- 1 orange bell pepper, sliced into strips ($1)

- 1 red bell pepper, sliced into strips ($0.91)

- 1 large yellow onion, sliced into strips ($0.79)

- salt ($0.02)

- oregano ($0.05)

for the black beans:

- 1 can black beans ($0.94)

- a little olive oil ($0.05)

- salt, black pepper, garlic powder, oregano ($0.08)

for the corn:

- 1 can corn ($0.96)

- scallions (see note with pico de gallo) ($0.20)

- a little olive oil ($0.05)

- salt, black pepper, garlic powder ($0.06)

for the pico de gallo:

- 2 roma tomatoes, diced ($0.81)

- 1/2 red onion, finely chopped ($0.39)

- 1/2 big bunch of cilantro, finely chopped ($0.45)

- 4 scallions, greens finely chopped, whites thinly sliced on the diagonal - split with the corn (all the whites used in the pico, 1/3 of the greens used in the pico and the rest in the scallions) ($0.23)

- juice of 1/2 lime ($0.25)

The cost for our burrito bar was approximately $22.90 ($10.05 for the chicken, $1.81 for the rice, $3.07 for the fajita vegetables, $1.07 for the black beans, $1.27 for the corn, $2.13 for the pico de gallo, and $3.50 for 3 packages of guacamole). Two burrito bowls plus a kid's meal at Qdoba runs us about $20-25, but while their portions are large, this was still more food than we would have gotten there. Well, maybe not more rice, but definitely more chicken.

The first thing I made was the chicken because it needed to marinate. I was too tired to do it the night before, so it ended up only marinating for about 4 hours or so. It was still delicious, but next time I think I would try to marinate it longer. I mixed the substitute adobo sauce first, then added the rest of the marinade ingredients, and then added the chicken tenders, stirring them around until they were all covered with sauce. The covered bowl sat in the fridge until it was time to grill.

Prep was the thing that took the longest. (Wish I had taken a photo of that mountain of cilantro!) I worked on the tomatoes, onions, peppers, scallions, and cilantro the bulk of the time, but after that the pico de gallo was done and mixed, ready to sit out and meld until everything else was done. A started on the rice while I finished the prep, which definitely helped get everything done.

For the rice, we basically followed the Skinnytaste instructions, which were to add the rice, a tsp of oil, water, and salt to the pot, boil it until the water just skims the top of the rice, cook covered on low for 20 minutes, and then keep it covered with no heat for at least 5 minutes. (We left it covered and steaming until everything else was done.) The last step was to mix the rest of the olive oil with the cilantro and lime juice into the rice.

After prepping, I moved on to the fajita vegetables, cooking them in a grill pan that was sprayed with olive oil. This was my first time using the grill pan for active cooking after seeing someone doing that on YouTube. Previously, I only ever put things on the pan to grill like you would on an outdoor grill, but the vegetables cooked exactly the way I wanted them to this way. They were still a little harder and crunchier than I would have preferred when they came off the pan, but I put them in a bowl covered with foil to steam until everything else was done, and the texture was perfect.

Once the vegetables were done, it was time to grill the chicken. A took over at the grill pan, so I could put together the bowls of black bean and corn in the microwave, and the timing worked out well. Even though our meat thermometer said they were done, a few of the pieces of chicken weren't fully cooked when I went to chop them after resting, so we threw them back in the pan. Even after that, the chicken was still juicier than what you normally get from Qdoba and Chipotle.

I wish I had gotten a photo of A's first bowl, because he made it look exactly like the ones we would get at Qdoba, piled high with a dollop of guacamole on the top. We were all really happy with this meal. I love burrito bowls, and it felt so good to have a from-scratch burrito bowl that we made in our own kitchen (other than the guacamole). The chicken flavoring was delicious, the rice was fluffy, the fajita vegetables were texturally great but just needed a little more seasoning, the black beans and corn were easy and tasty, and the pico de gallo added a bit of freshness. Although I love pico de gallo, it was actually my least favorite part, although A might be right that my opinion here is biased by the fact that it was also the thing that took the longest to prepare.

What would I do differently, since I would love to make burrito bowls part of our regular rotation? I would marinate the chicken longer. Otherwise, the marinade was great, and I'm glad we got pre-sliced tenders from the grocery store, which were perfect for this. I would add a little more seasoning to the fajita vegetables, but otherwise change nothing. I would omit the cilantro and maybe the lime from the rice, because the cilantro takes so long to prep and regular rice would be fine. I would buy pico de gallo from the store or just use salsa instead. (They didn't have any this time, which is why I made my own.) I would do the same thing with the corn and the black beans, since they were simple and quick. Basically, I would use some shortcuts to make it so that burrito bowls wouldn't take me 2.5 hours. If I didn't make my own pico de gallo and didn't prep any cilantro, then I could just make the rice while cooking the vegetables, and make the black beans and corn while grilling the chicken, and the whole thing would be so much faster. Can't wait to try that out in the future!

Our Year in Food: 2020

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wishing you a happy and healthy 2021!

48 Challenges

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

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

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

Week 32 - Finnish (Karelian pie)

Week 33 - food in disguise (meatloaf cupcakes)

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

Week 35 - Chilean (pastel de choclo)

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

Week 37 - bacon (BLT pasta salad)

Week 38 - Yemeni (chicken zorbian)

Week 39 - dipping (pico de gallo)

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

Week 41 - Lebanese (shish tawook)

Week 42 - microwave (mug cake)

Week 43 - food mashups (quesadilla pasta)

Week 44 - apples (rosemary-apple chicken)

Week 45 - sous vide (skipped)

Week 46 - seasonal (cabbage rolls)

Week 47 - mushrooms (buttered balsamic mushrooms)

Week 48 - gourds (roasted delicata squash)

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

Week 50 - sage (sweet onion sage bread)

Week 51 - Jewish (chraime)

Week 52 - garnish (carrot flower failure)

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

Week 52 - Garnish

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

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

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

Looking forward to another year of cooking challenges!

Week 51 - Jewish

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

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

- about 1 tbsp cumin ($0.10)

- about 1 tsp smoked Spanish paprika ($0.05)

- about 2 tbsp olive oil ($0.20)

- 1 yellow onion, chopped ($0.68)

- big spoonful of minced garlic ($0.10)

- 2 cans diced tomatoes, drained ($2)

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

- juice of 1/2 lemon ($0.40)

- 1/2 cup of water ($0)

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

- salt and freshly ground black pepper ($0.02)

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

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

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

- heat spices

- add olive oil

- add onions and cook until softened

- add garlic and cook for about a minute

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

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

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

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

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

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

- serve over rice

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

Week 32 - Finnish

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

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

for the rice:

- 1/2 cup water ($0)

- 1/2 cup Arborio rice ($1.25)

- 2.5 cups whole milk ($0.75)

- a few grinds of salt ($0.02)

for the dough/finished products:

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

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

- 1/2 cup water ($0)

- a few grinds of salt ($0.02)

- 2 tbsp of butter, melted ($0.18)

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

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

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

- Boil the water.

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

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

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

- Season with a little bit of salt.

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

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

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

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

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

Week 38 - Yemeni

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

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

The ingredients for the chicken zorbian portion of dinner were:

- 1.5 lbs boneless skinless chicken breasts ($7.82)

- 2 yellow onions ($1.44)

- 2 Russet potatoes ($1.34)

- packet of peeled garlic ($0.40)

- 4 scallions ($0.36)

- 1/4 cup olive oil ($0.40)

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

- 2 + 1 cinnamon sticks ($0.60)

- 5 + 4 cloves ($0.15)

- 5 + 4 cardamom pods ($0.15)

- about 1/2 tbsp cumin ($0.10)

- about 1/2 tbsp coriander ($0.10)

- about 1/2 tbsp turmeric ($0.10)

- about 1/2 tbsp paprika ($0.10)

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

- about 1/2 tbsp oregano ($0.05)

- salt and freshly ground black pepper ($0.03)

- 16 oz plain whole milk yogurt ($1.70)

- 3 cups basmati rice ($3)

- parsley for garnish ($0.10)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The ingredients for the salad were:

- 2 large romaine lettuce leaves ($0.40)

- 1/2 red onion ($0.50)

- 2 green onions ($0.25)

- 4 roma tomatoes ($2)

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

The ingredients for the dressing were:

- 2 tbsp olive oil ($0.20)

- 3 tbsp apple cider vinegar ($0.21)

- 2 large squeezes of lemon juice ($0.15)

- 1.5 tsp ground cumin ($0.10)

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

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

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

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