Week 46 - Seeds

I wasn't thrilled when I saw that the Week 46 challenge was seeds, because a lot of seeds are still choking hazards for little kids. But after reading some discussion about it and learning that beans are in fact seeds, I decided to try a new recipe for a bean-based salad from Once Upon a Chef.

The seeds part of the challenge was met with kidney beans, black beans, and chickpeas. I also topped the salad with some avocado. Although not using the seed itself, it does have a very large seed in the middle, so somewhat on theme!

Even though it was fall, I'm often looking for salads to lighten things up, and this one definitely worked for that. I would make this again!

Week 44 - Native American/Indigenous American

We've finished the Alaska section of the AtWCC (although, of course, I haven't written any of it here yet, since we still have to post all of Afghanistan and Alabama), but this was not the post I wanted to write to kick off the series. This dish was technically the last thing I made for the Alaska part of the AtWCC and also the last thing we tried from the 2021 cooking challenge, but it was a bit of a disastrous experiment and did not end either on a high note!

One of the things that I was most intrigued by for our Alaska exploration was a dish called akutaq, sort of like a Native Alaskan ice cream. In Alaskan tradition (more on Wikipedia), it seems like this was made with whipped fat (like from moose or walruses) mixed with meat (like dried fish) and berries, making it a very hearty meal, and was also sometimes made with fresh snow. These days, the fat is often substituted with vegetable shortening or Crisco, making it more accessible for those of us not in Alaska and also those of us who might not want to work with actual animal fat. Even with that change, I'll admit that I was a little nervous about making this and just ingesting that much pure fat, which is probably why I kept procrastinating and it ended up being the last thing we made for Alaska.

I followed the recipe from Spoon University, and it sounded so easy. Liquify the shortening (but don't let it get too hot), dissolve the sugar, add water to thicken it up, fold in the berries, and then put it into a container to freeze. I didn't think any of the steps would take too long, so the first thing I did was to take out a bag of frozen berries and chop them up a little bit. I didn't want whole frozen berries in case they were too hard for B to eat, so I thought that smaller pieces would work better and still contribute the same flavors.

Next up was taking out the shortening and then dissolving the sugar. Except... the sugar didn't dissolve, and the internet seems divided on whether it actually should dissolve in pure fat if you're doing something other than creaming it (which this was too liquid to do). I don't know all the science behind it, but what I do know is that ours did not dissolve whatsoever. I resigned myself to having crunchier sugar parts, which wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, and moved on to the water step, which didn't really thicken up anything.

I kept trying and trying to make it act the way the recipe said it should, but it didn't, so I eventually gave up and decided to fold in the berries and hoped it would just freeze in some form or another. Except... the berries by that point, since it had taken so long to try to dissolve the sugar and thicken up the mixture, were all melted and full of fruit juice, and then for some reason, adding the cold berries into the mixture took it from somewhat creamy and smooth to weird and curdle-like. I just threw the whole thing into a container hoping the freezer would sort it out, knowing it could be more icy than creamy with the higher liquid content. Even though it looked like berry quinoa once I got it into the container, I thought maybe, just maybe, it would be fine.

We put it in the freezer, and we were supposed to eat it later that day, but we were full. Then we were supposed to eat it the next day, but never got around to it. Were we just afraid of how it might taste and subconsciously finding every excuse possible? Maybe. We finally tried it the next day, and let's just say the freezer did not fix it. Those clumps that looked like quinoa? They were like little lumps of fat sweetened by berries, and although the overall taste wasn't awful, the texture was just too hard for us to get past to eat more than a few bites. Even A, who pretty much eats everything and has far less textural aversions than I do, just couldn't do it, and while I hate throwing food out, this was just not going to work.

We'd had a pretty great experience on our Alaska journey to that point, so it was kind of disappointing to end on such a low note, but I had to remind myself that not all cooking experiments work. I think lately I've just been going into it expecting to add everything to our family cookbook, forgetting that we do encounter quite a few failures. Often, I'll try again (my attempt to bake mozzarella sticks over and over again, for example), but I think we might just let this one go this time.

Week 36 - Yeasted

Oops, fell behind on these recaps again. Where did February go?!

Anyway, back to challenge week 36, yeasted. I made a lot of bread in 2020. I'd say, thanks to some cooking classes, it was the year I actually learned how to make bread versus following a recipe. When this challenge rolled around, it had been a while since I last made bread, so I hoped that it was like riding a bike and I'd remember what to do.

I decided on a garlic parmesan herb bread from The Stay at Home Chef, and started off by setting up the yeast. Only... not much happened. Our yeast had been in the fridge for a while, since we bought a giant bag instead of packets (it was all we could get at the time since everyone was making bread at that stage of the pandemic), so it was definitely possible that the yeast was dead. Or maybe the water was too hot. I tried again with a packet that was definitely not expired. It was better, but I was still worried that it wasn't going to turn out right, since the yeast still didn't feel as "responsive" as in the past.

In the end, the bread turned out fine. I still don't know if anything will top how I felt after the sage bread I made back in 2020 where I was shocked that I actually pulled that off. This one made two small loaves, but it didn't rise quite as much as I thought it would. Still tasty though, and it went well with our roasted asparagus, zucchini, and clam strips. Maybe I just need to bake more bread to remember what to do!

Week 35 - Kenyan

I love the challenge weeks that focus on different countries or regions of the world, because they can really push me out of my comfort zone to try something new (sort of like the whole AtWCC). I had zero familiarity with Kenyan food when this challenge came around other than a tilapia dish I made in a cooking class, so I blindly searched around until I found something that sounded both doable and delicious. I decided to try something called irio, following a recipe from Eat Well Abi. The site notes that the word irio means food and originates from the Kikuyu and Meru tribes in Kenya, and that the same dish of mashed food is sometimes called mukimo.

Irio is basically potatoes mashed with corn and green beans, and this recipe also added caramelized onions (instead of fried), which I love. It was pretty straightforward to make. We ate it along with some chicken tenders and grape tomatoes. I'm sure that's not traditional, but we always try to make sure we have some familiar foods on the plate for B when we try something new.

This was a really hearty and filling dish, and I think I would make this again, maybe next time alongside some other Kenyan dishes. I don't know how long it's going to take to get to Kenya since we're still doing countries starting with A, but someday!

Week 34 - Peaches

Peaches sounds like an easy challenge, but I had a tough time with this one. I didn't want to buy actual peaches, because I sometimes get a contact allergy to the skin, so I wasn't sure of the best way to go. Peach jam? Canned peaches? Honestly, I just wasn't feeling very inspired when it came time to plan this one. Eventually I settled on using the peach fruit cups we already had, because why buy something new for a challenge you don't even really want to do?

I ended up making a peach salsa with the peach fruit cups, some Roma tomatoes, a big green pepper, half a red onion, a big pile of cilantro, and some lime juice. Fair amount of prep, but easy to do. We ate it with some cheeseburgers and bagels (I know, not the combination you were expecting), and it worked for a summer dinner.

The salsa itself was fine. It didn't have much peach flavor, but they weren't fresh peaches and there wasn't that much peach compared to some of the other flavors. I probably wouldn't make it again (at least, not like this).

Week 28 - Danish

So many recipes sounded good for Danish week, but after much deliberation, I decided on meatballs (frikadeller, based on a recipe from Scandi Kitchen) paired with mashed potatoes (specifically, brændende kærlighed, which were topped with onions and bacon and based on a Nordic Food Living recipe; I will probably just refer to them as the mashed potatoes from here on, since I don't know the keyboard command for the æ letter).

I love meatballs, all different variations, but this was my first time eating or making Danish meatballs. According to the Scandi Kitchen site, meatballs are so common that they're eaten about once a week, warm with boiled potatoes (with parsley and butter, sounds delicious), gravy, and pickled cucumbers, or cold with potato salad, on sandwiches, and other ways. We had them with mashed potatoes and green beans, so not any of the "typical" ways, which means we might just need to make them again "properly" whenever we get to the Danish section of the AtWCC. (Or maybe I'm just looking for an excuse to make meatballs again, because I love meatballs.)

The original recipe for the meatballs was made with veal and pork, but since I don't really cook much red meat at home, I just went with a really fatty ground pork. I also made some other substitutions, like flax eggs, oat milk instead of whole, Better than Bouillon instead of a stock cube, panko breadcrumbs instead of fresh. The most interesting ingredient to me was the addition of sparkling water. I had never put those in meatballs before, and I was curious to see how it would change the texture.

Alongside the meatballs, we also made the mashed potatoes, which were fairly straightforward and just topped with onions and bacon. Can't really go wrong with that combination.

We really enjoyed this meal. We've had much more exposure to Swedish meatballs, but these Danish meatballs were delicious. I would definitely make these again, and I think they're going to be on the list for revisiting whenever we decide to focus on Denmark for the AtWCC. Maybe we'll do them both warm and cold!

Week 27 - Floral

Wow, where did the past couple of weeks go? I thought I'd be done with these challenge recaps for 2021 by now, but seem to have lost steam after the big end-of-year push. Time to get back into it!

The floral challenge took place back in July, but it turned out to be the last challenge I completed for the year (on the last day!). I intended to make it earlier, but I had decided on lemon lavender donuts based on a recipe from Short Girl Tall Order, and first, I needed to get a donut pan. (We actually got some silicone donut baking cups, but same thing.) Then, I had to get pastry flour, which wasn't always available during our online shopping (and isn't sold at places like Trader Joe's). Once I finally had that, I just never seemed to find the time or energy to actually make them until right up against the deadline.

Had extra batter after filling the cups so made "cake"

Making the donuts didn't turn out quite how I expected either. (New Year's Eve seemed like a cooking day full of mishaps anyway - just wait until the Week 44 post.) I followed all the instructions, but the batter was super thin and runny, thinner than most of my pancake batter. That didn't seem quite right, and I wasn't sure how it would hold together, so I added more pastry flour to it until it thickened up. I put the batter into the cups, and shockingly, they did turn into actual donuts, but they still fell apart pretty easily. I'm not sure what I did wrong.

Little B couldn't even wait for them to be glazed before eating one

I made the glaze and added more powdered sugar to make it thicker, but even after dunking the donuts in the glaze on all sides, you can't even see it on there. It was definitely there, and they were sticky from the glaze, but this is not what glazed donuts should look like (in my opinion). Again, not sure what I did wrong.

Invisibly glazed

I don't think the problem is the recipe since it turned out some great-looking donuts there, but my first adventure baking donuts didn't turn out too well. I haven't given up completely and will try again another time, but for now, maybe I'll just stick with cookies. Even though I was disappointed with my final product, it wasn't all bad though. It was the primary thing B ate for New Year's Eve night, and he really seemed to like them, so I'm still glad I made them.

Week 26 - Folding

Remember the TikTok quesadilla that went viral last year? (I originally wrote earlier this year, but it's not 2021 anymore.) The one where you put something in each of the four quadrants and then folded it over to make the perfect quesadilla? Once that started appearing everywhere, so did variations on the quesadilla, including folded kimbap, which was what I decided to make for the folding challenge last summer.

I decided to make ours with sticky rice, sliced cucumbers, spam (which I think I cooked with a glaze similar to the one for spam musubi, but don't know for sure because this was back in July and I didn't take any notes), and some jarred kimchi.

I followed the same method for cutting and then folding the kimbap, but it didn't turn out that evenly spread out or photogenic. There were several bites of just seaweed or seaweed and one other ingredient. Once I got to the part where it was all together, it did taste good, but it wasn't quite as easy as I was expecting it to be. Honestly, I think I'd rather just throw all the ingredients over some rice in a bowl, and would probably do that instead of this folded version next time.

Week 25 - Italian

Choosing an Italian recipe was so hard! I wanted to make something I hadn't made before, and I also didn't really want to make pasta, so after some looking around, I decided on arancini. I found a recipe for air fryer arancini at Cadry's Kitchen, and that sounded like the perfect plan.

The first step was to make the risotto, which I did in the Instant Pot the day before and then refrigerated. Our version was a mushroom and pea risotto. The risotto was formed into balls, rolled in seasoned panko, and then fried up in the air fryer.

We made this over six months ago, and I didn't take any notes, but I think I remember liking this and wondering about all the different variations we could make. Thankful for other people testing these things out in the air fryer so I don't have to deep fry!

Week 24 - Inspired by a Restaurant

We love trying restaurant food, so this was a really difficult challenge week! I started out by perusing a bunch of different restaurant cookbooks, but there were so many things that sounded amazing but were also possibly too difficult to prepare, and I was also just getting so overwhelmed by choice. I don't know how I ended up there, probably browsing internet round-ups of copycat recipes, but eventually I ended up deciding on Outback Steakhouse.

I'm not really a regular at Outback (only been a handful of times), but I do love their bloomin' onion, so that was an obvious selection (to be made in the air fryer, following a recipe from Blue Jean Chef). To pair with it, I decided on Alice Springs chicken that I found a copycat recipe for on Culinary Hill. I don't think I've ever had Alice Springs chicken at Outback, but checking my photo archive, I do see an appetizer of Alice Springs chicken quesadillas, all the same elements but in quesadilla form. The recipe sounded so good though, that even if I hadn't had it before, I couldn't resist trying it.

Doesn't look nearly as good as an actual Outback plate, and kind of looks like an unrecognizable mess, but tasty!

First up, the bloomin' onion. The hardest part here was making the cuts correctly, because it was super important not to cut through the root. Unfortunately the onion I got didn't have a very big root at all, so pieces were falling off everywhere despite my best efforts, and since the root wasn't that big, I didn't have a great handle on it for dredging and it was a little clumpy. Ultimately, I just air fried the "bloomed" part that I had along with all the extra onion pieces (which I also dredged a bit). It did taste pretty good, and since the dredging on the separate onion pieces was a little more uniform, those actually were even better. I think I would try this experiment again, but only if I could find the right onion.

Sorry for the out of order photos, but can't figure out how to edit that through Google Photos on the computer...

While the bloomin' onion didn't turn out quite as well as I was hoping, the Alice Springs chicken - chicken marinated in mustard, honey, mayo, and lemon juice, and topped with mushrooms, bacon, and cheese - was delicious. I followed the recipe fairly closely (other than using vegan mayo and not having parsley), and we were pretty happy with how this turned out. Not as pretty on the plate as the real thing, but I probably added more toppings than the restaurant does, since it was all for us. It tasted so good that I think I now know what I'm getting if I ever go back to Outback (no idea what their allergy handling is like).

Even if this meal didn't look the greatest on the plate, it was really tasty. I'm glad that this challenge week ended up going in this unexpected direction, and I would consider another Outback kitchen adventure sometime!

Week 14 - Forbidden Fruit

When the Week 14 theme came up as forbidden fruit, I wasn't really sure what to do with that. Using the strict definition of forbidden fruit, something desired because it's not allowed, didn't really work, since there isn't much that isn't "allowed" in our kitchen. We don't cook with eggs for food allergy reasons, so I wasn't going to make something with those. I choose not to cook much red meat or to deep fry in our kitchen, but that's a choice, not something forbidden. I ended up deciding to interpret this as "guilty pleasure" instead, something that I want a lot but don't make that often because I'm trying to be mindful of my health. Using that lens, I decided to make some cheddar bay biscuits (yes, I made them for a previous challenge, but it was a good excuse to have them again) and paired them with some shrimp chowder.

When the theme notes finally came out, they did have some other possibilities for how to interpret forbidden fruit. It could be something your spouse hates but you like, but there isn't much A dislikes eating that I enjoy. It could be actual fruit, like apples from the garden of Eden (or grapes or figs) or a sometimes-forbidden fruit like durian. I didn't feel like redoing the challenge for one of those interpretations, and the biscuits really are a guilty pleasure, so that was good enough for us!

Week 32 - Armenian

Armenian restaurants aren't very common where we are, and I think in our lifetimes, we've only been to two Armenian restaurants total (one in Chicago and one in Tarzana), but I knew fairly quickly what I wanted to make for Armenian week - lahmajoun!

Lahmajoun, also spelled out lahmacun, lahmajun, consists of thin dough topped with, according to Wikipedia, "minced meat, minced vegetables, and herbs, including onions, garlic, tomatoes, red peppers, and parsley, flavored with spices such as chili pepper and paprika, and then baked." We've had it before from Turkish places, and had a lahmajun wrap at the Armenian deli in Tarzana which was amazing. After doing some searching, I found a recipe for a "shortcut" version of lahmajoun at The Armenian Kitchen, and that sounded like exactly what we needed.

The shortcut here was using flour tortillas as the base of the lahmajoun instead of making your own dough. What a genius idea to save time! I mostly followed the recipe, except that I substituted Impossible Burger for the meat and didn't use a food processor for the vegetables (so it did take a little bit longer). They did take a little while to cook since we only have one oven and you could only make so many at a time, but it was still quicker than a lot of our other dinners.

We loved these! We ate them with some tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, and parsley on the side, and I was so happy to have found an easy recipe to make something I've liked eating in the past. Will definitely make these again!

Week 37 - Shells

Clearly I didn't finish the posts for the 52 week cooking challenge for 2020 before the end of the year. I really tried, but December just got so unexpectedly busy. I did finish all the challenges though, even if I did do two of them on the last day of the year. Finishing these posts is priority #1, because otherwise it will get really confusing once I start posting for the 2021 challenge. Priority #2 will be finally telling the AtWCC story, because that is long overdue and at least half the posts were already written ages ago!

The Week 37 challenge theme was shells. This one was a little challenging for me, because I didn't really want to make shellfish with shells on, taco shells seemed too hard and crispy for a small toddler, and pasta shells just didn't feel that challenge-worthy. But in the end, I decided to go with some medium-sized pasta shells. because I do love the shape, pasta is an easy dinner to put together, and it still meant I was making a recipe new to us.

I made chicken fajita pasta using the recipe from Closet Cooking, and it turned out delicious. The ingredients were:

- 1 package of pasta shells

- olive oil

- 1/2 packet of taco seasoning

- 1 onion

- 3 bell peppers

- large spoonful of garlic

- 1.5 cups of chicken broth

- 1 can diced tomatoes

- 1/2 cup sour cream

- 1/3 bunch of cilantro, chopped

- shredded Mexican cheese

My arms were tired the day I made this, and I was kind of tired of stirring, so we ended up just putting the sour cream on top of our bowls and mixing it in ourselves. It did taste better with the sour cream than without, but it worked.

If I made this again, I would probably mix the entire thing together as intended, but for the challenge, it was good enough.

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!