Our Year in Food: 2021

2021 was an interesting year. It started very similar to most of 2020, isolating at home, trying to stay safe from COVID. Spring and early summer brought vaccinations and warmer weather, the hope of moving back towards pre-pandemic life - seeing family, dining out, going on vacations and adventures. But as we all know, first delta, and then as we started relaxing once again, omicron, continued to make this year stressful, especially for those around people who can't yet be protected (like our little ones). Add on to that, all the "garden variety" illnesses circulating among preschoolers, and we continued to spend a lot of time at home. But we did have a lot of food adventures this year, even if we didn't geographically go as far as we thought we would at the dawn of 2021. 

The first restaurant meal we ate in 2021: Sushi rolls from Daigo Sushi Roll Bar in Gowanus, which were delicious as always.

The first home-cooked meal we ate in 2021: Nutella banana liege waffles for brunch, and hoppin' John and johnnycakes for dinner. 

The last restaurant meal we ate in 2021: Some pies and baba ghanoush from Ayat (see more below).

The last home-cooked meal we ate in 2021: Air fryer crispy tofu (recipe from Sweet Simple Vegan that we make all the time) with some peppers and onions, accompanied by my air fryer experiment making tostadas with vegan cheese and pico de gallo. (Not counting my New Year's Eve cooking experiments because they weren't really "meals.")

# of different restaurants we tried in 2021 (together and separate): 27 spots in-person (although at least a third of those were not together), and 64 spots for takeout and delivery. Far more than last year, but that's not unexpected. Very thankful for vaccines and also for delivery services.

Places explored (outside the NYC metro area): None, but we at least went to New Jersey twice, unlike 2020 when we never left the city.

One of our trips to New Jersey was to pick up some Anderson's Ice Cream

Most frequented restaurant of 2021: Ayat, a Palestinian place in Bay Ridge. We've ordered takeout and delivery from them a lot. They were really responsive to our questions about food handling and allergies, and B loves their pies (both the cheese pizza-like ones and the spinach pies). Everything there is delicious!

Progress on WorldEats challenge: Still 58/196. We were not very good about writing posts about all those past adventures this year (or any new ones).

Progress on Around the World Cooking Challenge: Technically, we've covered 14 different places, but I still need to tell the story of our journey so far. I really need to do that next year. As far as our alphabetical progress, we finally finished Alaska (apparently this took the entire year to do), and will be moving on to Albania in the new year.

Alaskan fish cakes

Favorite overall meal of 2021: Outdoor fall brunch at The Baklava Lady in Englishtown, New Jersey. We stopped by on our way to the pumpkin patch and apple picking to try their vegan Turkish dishes and desserts. It was so nice to have someplace completely safe for B's allergy, and all the food was fantastic. We especially loved their Turkish breakfast board with simit, butter, feta cheese, olives, tomato, and cucumber. It was a hit with all three of us, and we could eat that for brunch all the time. It was just a nice afternoon, and one of the few days all year we really got to get out of the city and go on an adventure, so it's a very special memory for us.

Wishing everyone a happy and healthy 2022!

Week 45 - Brining

Before doing some research on vegetarian recipes involving brining, I had only ever heard of brining involving meat, but I didn't really want to brine meat for this challenge. Bon Appetit had a really intriguing recipe for grilled brined vegetables, and once I saw that, I knew I had to try it.

Basically, you combine water (recipe said 3 cups, we used more) with 2 bay leaves, 10 black peppercorns, a cup of rice vinegar, 1/4 cup of sugar, a pinch of red pepper flakes, and 2 tbsp of kosher salt, bring it to a boil, and then add the vegetables. I used 2 pounds of carrots, and boiled them for about 20 minutes until they were soft. The recipe said 8-10 minutes, but they were still pretty hard at that point, so I just kept going in 5 minute intervals. After that, you pat the carrots dry, put them in a large bowl, and coat them with olive oil, and then grill them.

The recipe was pretty simple, and the resulting carrots were soft but also full of flavor. We liked them, and it was nice to have a carrot recipe that tasted different from your usual carrots because of the brine. We liked them enough to make them again for family Thanksgiving. I don't know if I used less water or what, but they turned out super salty the second time, almost inedibly salty. I do like this brining idea, but if I'm going to make it again, it might take some tinkering.

Week 39 - Made Two Ways

The "made two ways" theme has come up before in the 52 week cooking challenge, and I tackled this back in 2015 with a bunch of dishes using carrots. I'm often looking for quicker and simpler recipes these days, now that school is in session, so multiple dishes using the same ingredient can be a bit challenging. I had some trouble deciding on something for this challenge until it hit me that what I was already planning to make for one of our meals fit - loco moco. I was planning to use Impossible Burger and also make some vegan eggs on top, so based on the recipe from Nutti Nelli I was using as a starting point for the eggs and gravy, I was using soy in two ways - Impossible Burger and silken tofu!

Loco moco generally consists of white rice topped with a burger, fried egg, and a brown gravy. We had a few versions of it in Hawaii, but it had been a long time since we had it. We definitely hadn't eaten it since B came along, and with his egg allergy, I wasn't sure how to replicate it for our Hawaiian meal. The recipe I based this on had such an interesting veganized egg, and I couldn't wait to try it.

The egg white here was made out of a blend of silken tofu, kala namak (black salt), and cornstarch, with an egg yolk made from pumpkin puree, lemon juice, nutritional yeast, black pepper, and a little bit of water. I followed the recipe fairly closely here because I wanted it to turn out right. Blending everything together was easy, and laying down the "egg white" followed by a spoonful of "yolk" in the pan wasn't that difficult either. The hardest part for me was the actual cooking. It was supposed to fry for 2-4 minutes in the pan and be done, but what I wasn't expecting was just how fragile they would be. The first few broke as I tried to lift them, but I got a little bit better as time went on. This was definitely the most time-consuming part too, as they took a little longer than the estimate, plus I was being extra careful, trying not to break them.

As far as flavor, we wouldn't say that they tasted like eggs on their own, but more like a nicely-flavored tofu pudding. But they did have the appearance of a fried egg, and mixed into the final dish, they had the consistency of a runny egg. Eaten together with the burger and rice, it somehow did actually taste similar to loco moco, so the veganized egg brought in some elements of flavor similar to an egg. Such an interesting experiment!

For the rest of the dish, we just made a few cups of Calrose rice, patties of Impossible Burger seasoned with salt, black pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder, and gravy of vegan butter, flour, and chicken broth. I thought I had the right poultry seasonings to be able to make this fully vegan, but apparently I didn't, so we had to go with chicken bouillon. Maybe next time. I was also originally going to make mac salad on the side, but it wasn't meant to be, as this did take quite a while to make. Maybe next time!

Week 15 - Chocolate

Although the Week 15 challenge took place back in April, I didn't actually complete it until it was time to make Christmas cookies in December. I kept intending to make some chocolate cookies, but just never got around to it, putting it off week after week, sometimes changing my mind about which cookies I was going to make. In the end, I decided to make some chocolate chocolate chip cookies, topping some with Andes mints, adapting the recipe I found on Chocolate with Grace.

I followed the recipe closely, other than replacing the egg with a flax egg and substituting chocolate chips for the Andes mint baking pieces because I didn't have the latter. I also only put one Andes mint on top and only on about half the cookies, since I wasn't sure if B would be a fan, having never had Andes mints before. I was a little concerned that the mint topping wasn't going to work when it hadn't melted after one minute, which was what the recipe indicated, but it just took a little longer and ended up being fine. The cookies were really good, and I would make them again.

Week 31 - Coconut

I love coconut. I love it in savory and sweet dishes, and I love how it's a great substitute for dairy (thanks, lactose intolerance), but that made it really hard to choose something to make for coconut week. The first recipe I picked out was for vegan macaroons, next I thought about mango sticky rice, but then I decided to make something savory, choosing a coconut milk adobo. After changing my mind so many times over a couple of weeks, what I ended up making for the challenge was coconut curry chicken. We had rotisserie chicken to use up after one of our meal plan days fell through (our sour cream was topped with some weird red liquid after we opened it), and I stumbled upon a delicious-sounding recipe on Taste and Tell that we had all the ingredients for, so it just made sense. Plus, it didn't just use coconut milk, but also shredded coconut, so it was even more coconut-y than the adobo would have been.

How much it cost (with estimated breakdown): $12 (dinner for 3, although B didn't eat much curry)

1-2 tbsp olive oil ($0.40)

3 tbsp curry powder ($0.70)

1 yellow onion ($0.50)

3 cloves of garlic ($0.06)

about 1/2 tsp salt ($0.02)

about 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper ($0.02)

about 1/2 tsp paprika ($0.05)

big bowl of shredded rotisserie chicken ($2.50)

1 can diced tomatoes ($1.06)

1 can coconut milk ($1.89)

1.5 tbsp brown sugar ($0.15)

small spoonful of minced ginger ($0.10)

juice of 1 lime ($0.40)

1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut ($0.90)

rice ($2.25)

garlic naan ($1)

The recipe was pretty easy to make, and I generally followed it as written. I actually measured the curry powder for this one, and I think perhaps my eyeballing of tablespoons has been a little off over the years and I've been shortchanging us on spices. Oops. The chicken and onions tasted amazing covered in the curry powder, so my worry was that, once I added the coconut milk, that flavor would get muted, since that's happened so many times before. The curry aroma was strong though, and I just hoped the flavor would still be there in the finished product.

Since there was minimal prep for this recipe, the thing that took the longest was just letting the curry cook and thicken (and stirring occasionally). We left it on the stove for about 40-45 minutes before adding the lime juice and shredded coconut, but since that's not really very "active" cooking, this is also a recipe that lets you get other things done while dinner is underway.

I tried the curry after mixing in the lime and coconut to see how the flavor was, and I was amazed. It was delicious! The spices weren't as strong as they were before the coconut milk, but they were still there, and the curry had great flavor. We were so happy with how this turned out! Such a great way to utilize rotisserie chicken.

We ate the curry with some rice and naan on the side, and were so happy with it that I added it to our family cookbook while we were eating. I also loved that most ingredients were pantry staples (since you could sub canned chicken for rotisserie chicken, A's suggestion and a good one), so as long as you had an onion and a lime, this would work. It was quick and easy to put together, perfect for a weeknight meal. While I wish we didn't have to toss our sour cream in the garbage because I hate food waste, I'm also glad it happened because it led me to this recipe!

Week 47 - Tunisian

Tunisian restaurants here in NYC are rare, and I don't think we've ever been to one. Our only exposure to Tunisian food specifically was on our visit to London back in 2015 (which we never finished recapping), where we found a Tunisian restaurant and had a lovely dinner (that will show up in a WorldEats post someday). With such limited knowledge of Tunisian dishes, nothing immediately jumped out at me for the Week 47 Tunisian challenge, but after reading through some recipes, I decided on lablabi (chickpea soup) and kesra bread (which often turns up online as Algerian, so I will probably be making it again whenever we get there).

For the lablabi, I followed a recipe from Serious Eats, which was itself from Mollie Katzen's The Heart of the Plate. It seemed fairly easy to make (with my convenience modifications), starting with cooking onion and cumin in olive oil, then adding some carrots (used baby carrots) and garlic, and eventually a couple cans of chickpeas. Dried probably would have tasted better, but didn't have the time for that. The rest of the ingredients were a few spoonfuls of lemon juice, two cups of vegetable broth, more cumin, a little salt, and lots of black pepper. It tasted really healthy and hearty.

To go along with the lablabi, I followed a recipe from Our Tunisian Table for kesra bread. I halved the original recipe, so I mixed 2.5 cups flour, 1/2 tbsp salt, and 1/4 cup olive oil, and then slowly added in water while mixing it all together. It had been a while since I'd made bread, but somehow the water amount (about 3/4 cup) ended up being just right for a dough that was smooth but also firm enough to stay together. A little bit of kneading and then I split the dough into four balls, sprayed them with olive oil, and let them rest about 20 minutes.

After that, it was time to roll them out into circles (not perfect, but the closest to circles I've ever gotten), poke them with a toothpick to prevent air bubbles, and cook them in a greased pan. All four came out a little differently, and I have no idea if the texture was right since I've never had this bread before, but it was tasty.

This was my first time cooking Tunisian food, so this will count for the AtWCC too. Looking forward to trying more!

Week 22 - Across the Border

When the theme for Week 22 came up as across the border, my initial thought was to cook something Mexican. But as I thought about it more, I realized our closest border was really the one with New Jersey, so why not make something representing New Jersey? Disco fries for dinner!

If you've never had disco fries before, they're similar to poutine - fries covered in gravy and cheese. Although this is usually done with homemade brown gravy and lots of mozzarella cheese, I decided to experiment and make it a vegan night. So our disco fries were made with mushroom gravy (mostly because we already had it in the pantry, thanks to a bizarre Whole Foods grocery delivery substitution; I think we had been trying to get a vegan roast) and vegan mozzarella shreds, and we ate them with mushroom risotto burgers and green beans.

The fries were okay. I don't think the mushroom gravy and vegan shreds worked as well as the usual disco fries ingredients, and I probably needed to add some extra flavor in somewhere to compensate, but maybe we'll try it again whenever we get to our exploration of New Jersey foods!

Week 23 - Picnic Food

We don't really do a lot of picnics, but when I think about picnics, one thing that comes to mind is pasta salad. I've made pasta salads before, so I thought for the challenge, I'd try a new recipe, which led me to one from Spend with Pennies.

I made our pasta salad with grape tomatoes, bell peppers, red onions, pepperoni, olives, and mozzarella cheese, and chickpea rotini. It was a great combination that worked well for the warm weather, and the recipe made a lot of salad, so we had plenty of leftovers!

Week 50 - Turmeric

I love adding turmeric to dishes, so my goal for the Week 50 challenge was to just try a new recipe. I pulled up a recipe from BBC Good Food for turmeric ginger coconut fish curry, and it sounded delicious, so went with that.

We adapted the recipe a little bit, skipping the sugar snap peas but adding Japanese sweet potatoes, using tilapia instead of cod, and skipping the spice so that B would be more comfortable eating it. The curry was delicious. A thought it could have used a little salt, but I was okay with the flavors, mostly because we were using a just-opened, fresh bag of garam masala, so the spices were so potent. B skipped everything but the peas, but I still count this recipe as a win!

Week 18 - Lime

Lime was the Week 18 challenge, and while there were many savory options for lime, I was just in the mood for cookies. I found a recipe for vegan coconut lime sugar cookies on Short Girl Tall Order, and they looked so amazing that I knew that was the one to try. I skipped the glaze to make my life easier, but the cookies were so good that I didn't miss it at all.

I mostly followed the recipe, other than skipping the icing and not measuring some of the ingredients, which made our ingredient list look like this:

- 1 stick vegan butter (softened)

- just under 1/2 cup of sugar + about 2 tbsp of sugar for rolling

- a few tbsp of shredded dried coconut

- zest of 1 lime

- pinch of salt

- juice of 2 limes (about 2 tbsp)

- 1 tbsp ground flaxseed

- 1 cup + 3 tbsp all-purpose flour

- 1/4 tsp baking powder

- 1/4 tsp baking soda

When baking, I do usually try to stick more closely to the recipe, so first was creaming the butter together with the sugar, dried coconut, and lime zest.

Next was adding the lime juice and ground flaxseed, and once those were mixed together, adding the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, baking soda, pinch of salt) to form a batter.

That went into the fridge to chill for a bit. It was supposed to be 30-60 minutes, but I exercised and then took a shower, and that whole process took over an hour. It was a bit too cold to work with when I pulled it out, so we let it warm up 10 minutes or so. It was a little crumbly when I started to form the cookie balls, but got easier to work with as time went on.

I made our cookies with a 2 tbsp scoop so we could get more cookies, and ended up with about 15 of them. They all got rolled in sugar before going onto the parchment-lined baking sheet. Our sugar cookies always end up looking brown since the sugar we have on hand is usually turbinado sugar.

They baked for 11 minutes in the oven at 350 degrees, then a quick tap on the counter and sitting on the baking sheet for a little longer before moving to the cooling rack. It was only supposed to be 10 minutes, but I lost track of time since I was making dinner and forgot them for a bit. They were still fine and not overdone!

The cookies were delicious and perfect for the lime challenge. That first bite had a really strong flavor of lime. We all loved them, and I would make these again.

Week 19 - Ecuadorian

As part of the AtWCC, I'm hoping to make some form of bread (or explore bread in some other way if I'm not making it myself for whatever reason) for each location. When the Ecuadorian challenge came up, the recipe I was most interested in at the time was for pan de yuca, a chewy, cheesy bread, so it looked like I found my bread for Ecuador! I found a recipe on Laylita, and the challenge was set. Although we'd never had pan de yuca at an Ecuadorian spot before, it sounded similar to the Brazilian pao de queijo that we love, so I was hoping this would come out well.

For the challenge, I made a full batch and tried to follow the recipe closely, although I did do a couple of ingredient modifications, using a mix of fontina, asiago, and parmesan instead of grated mozzarella, and substituting flax eggs for the "regular" eggs. I chose to prepare it by hand instead of using a food processor, and it was fairly easy. You basically mix all the ingredients together until smooth, adding a little bit of warm water if dry, form the dough into balls, and then chill them in the fridge for about half an hour. I baked them for about 5-8 minutes, and then broiled them.

I pulled them out from the broiler when they started looking more brown than golden, but unfortunately the insides were still a little gummy. I wasn't sure if it was how I made them or an effect of using flax eggs instead, but I was a little disappointed. They were definitely edible and had a nice crunch to the outside, but the inside just didn't feel right texturally to me.

I tried the recipe again a few months later, only making a partial batch this time (quartered most measurements). I tried to make them the exact same way, but with other things going on, I left them baking a little longer before broiling them, and then maybe broiled them a little longer too. They were more golden than the last time, and this time, the insides were just what I was hoping they would be, not gummy at all. Unfortunately, I don't know if I know exactly how long I baked them for, so I'm not sure if I'll be able to replicate it. I kind of just lucked into it because I was doing other things. I guess I'll just have to give them another try and take notes next time!

Week 17 - One Bite

A challenge theme like "one bite" is a bit tough, because what exactly qualifies as one bite? The size of one bite for each member of our family is so different, so I decided that anything small enough for finger food should work, and found a recipe for spicy mini meatloafs on the Impossible Burger website.

I mostly followed the recipe, with the following changes:

- did the vegan variation with flax egg instead of regular egg

- adjusted seasonings using garlic powder, oregano, paprika instead of oregano, thyme, basil, or other fresh herbs

- swapped sambal oelek for sriracha bc I had a lot and didn't (and still don't) know what else to do with it

- used less brown sugar

- used a mini muffin pan

The mini meatloafs were delicious! Not one bite for me, but they could be one bite for someone because they were small enough. We ate them with some green beans and Ritz crackers, and it was a very satisfying meal.

Week 16 - Hunan/Xiang

The theme for Week 16 was Hunan/Xiang, so no surprise, this challenge entry is also doubling as one for the AtWCC for China. This was a hard week for me to pick a dish. Hunan food is known for being spicy - very spicy - and very spicy is not something you can really do with a young toddler. On top of that, there is a particular spice or chili pepper that gives A a bad stomachache, and we haven't yet identified which that is, so another reason to avoid the spice! Thankfully, there were a few non-spicy Hunan dishes to pick from, but really not as many as I was hoping to choose from.

I ended up making pearl meatballs with sticky rice from The Woks of Life, mostly sticking with the recipe but with some modifications like using ground pork instead of hand-chopping it, and leaving out the water chestnuts (because we couldn't find any in the store, even though we think these would have tasted great in it). The ingredients we used were:

- 3/4 cup short grain sweet rice

- 1 lb ground pork

- about 2 tsp minced ginger

- 1 bunch of scallions

- 3 tbsp cold water

- 2 tbsp Shaoxing wine

- 2 tsp cornstarch

- ground white pepper

- 1 tbsp sesame oil

- sea salt

- 1/2 tsp sugar

On the side, we had some baby bok choy and oyster mushroom caps, as well as rice, for a nice, balanced meal. Really wish we could have found those water chestnuts in time though!

I followed the recipe fairly closely for how to make these, because I'd never made anything like them before, and I was very concerned that the rice was still going to be hard and crunchy after steaming. The basic steps were to soak the glutinous rice for a few hours, combine the meatball ingredients, refrigerate the meat mixture, and then after the chilling step, form the meatballs and roll them in the rice. Then they steamed for about 20 minutes. Unlike the original recipe, we used a stainless steel steamer instead of a bamboo steamer, but that seemed to work fine.

The meatballs were really good! The rice was soft and not the least bit crunchy. I did make the meatballs a little too big and would adjust that next time, but they were really flavorful and the rice was an interesting addition that worked. I would definitely make these again.

Week 21 - Eggs

I was not very excited for the Week 21 eggs challenge. We don't cook with eggs anymore because of B's food allergy, so I decided I was just going to do something that would usually contain eggs, and then make it without it.

These carrot coconut pancakes were based on a recipe from Minimalist Baker, and they were really good. A little more work than our usual pancakes because I had to grate some carrots in the morning, but nice to get some vegetables in with our brunch!

Week 11 - Hard to Pronounce

The hard to pronounce challenge week was a difficult one to decide on. I found myself trying to find some of the most complicated to pronounce dishes I could (something like Herrgottsbescheißerle), and hoping that one of them would be something I would want to make. I just kept finding more and more, so I paused and decided to go for a simpler route - how do you pronounce gyro?

Growing up, my family always pronounced it jai-ro (like gyroscope), and it wasn't until adulthood that I heard it pronounced yee-ro. There are so many pronunciations out there, so it definitely qualified for hard to pronounce week! I followed the chicken gyro recipe on Damn Delicious, subbing store-bought tzatziki for homemade for convenience, and we had some delicious sandwiches. We've made it again since then, since it's a great weeknight/school night meal, as a lot of the work can be done in advance.

The first time we went for the full spread - lettuce, tomato, onion, tzatziki, and wraps (they were out of pita). The second time was a little simpler - just pita, tomatoes, and tzatziki - but still very tasty. This is such an easy and tasty way to make grilled chicken, so we'll probably be seeing it in our rotation more.

Week 13 - Stuffed

The stuffed challenge popped up right around the time I had signed up for a cooking class to make Paraguayan empanadas, so it was a perfect fit! I didn't have time to get the pre-packaged empanada discs from the store before making them, so I made my own dough, which was more work but still seemed to come out okay. As usual, I was completely incapable of rolling them into circles or any remotely symmetrical shapes, so A had to take over that task.

I made the filling vegetarian, using black beans, corn, green peppers, red peppers, onions, and scallions, and then put them in the air fryer for about 8-10 minutes at 375 degrees. They turned out pretty well despite not being deep fried, but I think if I made these again, I'd get the pre-made discs to make our lives easier.

Week 12 - Banana

Pineapple is a pretty controversial ingredient on pizza here (we like it), so I can only imagine how people would react if shops started putting bananas on pizza. I was skeptical, but banana curry pizza is so popular on Swedish pizza menus that I felt like we had to give it a try for the banana challenge. I've made banana curry before (for the bananas challenge in 2015 and a few times after that), which was delicious, so I hoped this would be similarly delicious.

I didn't really follow a specific recipe for this, but just read a bunch of different ones (my favorites were these two) and then put together my own version. The ingredients for our version of banana curry pizza were:

- 1 lb of pizza dough

- 1/2 jar (about 7 oz) of pizza sauce

- most of a bag of pizza blend shredded cheese

- 3 slices of black forest ham, torn into pieces [would do more next time]

- 1/2 red onion, thinly sliced

- 2 bananas, sliced

- curry powder

- avocado oil spray

The steps for making the pizza were:

1. Prep - slice onions, slice bananas.

2. Line baking sheet with parchment paper, and spray parchment paper with oil spray.

3. Stretch pizza dough to fit baking sheet. [This was harder than I remembered because it was so elastic and I kept stretching holes in it. I think I need a pizza-making class to learn how to do this properly.]

4. Add toppings in the following order, spreading as evenly as possible over the pizza dough: pizza sauce, pizza cheese (about half of it), ham, red onions, banana, curry powder, rest of the cheese.

5. Bake at 450 degrees for about 20 minutes, until crust is starting to brown and cheese is bubbling.

The pizza was fantastic. We all loved it, and the combination of the bananas, curry, ham, cheese, and sauce just worked. I would definitely make that again. In doing this research, I read that Swedish pizzerias generally have over 50 varieties, so I'm excited to see what other tasty pizzas they've come up with. I can see us making a lot of pizzas for the AtWCC, which I'm sure would be fine with B since he loves pizza so much. I have my eye on a kebab pizza that sounds amazing, so maybe that one will be next!

Week 10 - Foam

Foam in the food context makes me think of two things: modernist cooking (not really my thing) and Top Chef (so many foams), so I had no idea what I was going to do for this challenge. I considered skipping it until I read on Modernist Bread that proofed dough was a closed-cell foam, bread was an open-cell foam, and fully baked bread was a set foam. I didn't know there were so many types of foam, but with that newfound knowledge, it was pretty easy to choose bread for this challenge.

I was doing a cooking class around this time where focaccia was on the menu, so I made focaccia for the foam challenge. Not sharing the recipe since it's not mine or publicly available, but it was a great class where we made focaccia, caprese salad, and wedding soup. A bit of a late night making three dishes at once in our not-very-big kitchen, but it was delicious!

Week 48 - Ketchup

Have you ever heard of banana ketchup? I didn't know much about it until this ketchup theme came up, because apparently a lot of people really dislike tomato ketchup and needed alternatives. (Didn't know that either!) It's very popular in the Philippines, which made it not only a good choice for the ketchup challenge but also for another entry for the Philippines in our AtWCC.

I followed the recipe at Curious Cuisiniere for making the ketchup, and it was super easy. Onion, garlic, ginger, a couple of mashed bananas, tomato paste, brown sugar, white vinegar, water, and cayenne. Some time on the stove to thicken, then a little cooling, and then blend it all up. Banana ketchup! Super easy.

I didn't really know what to use the banana ketchup for, but on Curious Cuisiniere, they suggested tortang giniling, a Filipino beef omelette, which they also had a recipe for. If you've been reading here for a while, you might think that wasn't going to happen since I don't really cook much red meat at home, plus B has an egg allergy, but we made it work with Impossible Burger and Just Egg, two vegan products that I'm incredibly grateful exist.

In addition to those, the omelette included onion, garlic, diced tomatoes, and some vegetables. It was supposed to be peas, but in prepping the meal, I discovered we were actually out of frozen peas (forgot to update our freezer inventory!), so we ended up using a corn, carrot, and asparagus medley, from which I picked out all the stalks of asparagus because they wouldn't have matched texturally. Next time, hopefully we can use peas as intended.

The banana ketchup was delicious. It added similar flavors to tomato ketchup, but much sweeter and less acidic. It was fantastic with the omelettes. The plate usually also contains some garlic fried rice, but I didn't have time to make that. I tried to fake it by putting some minced garlic over rice, but not the same. Hopefully whenever we make this next (and we do intend to make it again), we can not only remember to get some peas, but also make some yummy garlic fried rice. I love discovering new meals from these challenges, and this was something we'd never had before in our visits to Filipino restaurants. I used up the rest of the banana ketchup making Filipino spaghetti, but that's a post for another time!