Food and Cooking

Recently, I wanted a white board to have a physical list of homemade healthy food available at home. We didn’t have the money for one so we bought some dry-erase markers and taped old paper bags onto the back of the glass of our rarely used china cabinet. I like having a big visible list in the kitchen so my husband and I could refrain from opening the fridge several times a day. I also like planning a day before or on the day of so I can gouge what we’re craving for and which ingredients we have available that day.

Forgive the handwriting but I listed down several foods and recipes that we enjoy and have been repeats in our diet. We also wanted it to be relatively cheap so we process and prep meals at home to save food. All of the meals and food items listed are vegan. So far, we’ve been saving up great and feeling better with relatively healthier eating :D

How do you plan your meals?

image description: A china cabinet with its glass doors used like a white board. Brown paper bags are taped behind the glass to make the text visible.

Does anyone have a good recipe for baked mac and cheese they'd be willing to share? I really love kenji's stove top recipe, so maybe a recipe that incorporates evaporated milk?

Blueberries, raspberries, and golden raspberries.

Falafel Recipe

• Dried Chickpeas (soaked overnight)
• Ras El Hanout
• Salt
• Pepper
• parsley (optional)

Grind the chickpeas in a food processor until fine but not pastey and let them sit in the fridge for about 15 min. Mix in the spices and optionally herbs. Bring your falafel into shape and deep fry.

[Image description: a blue bowl with fettuccini pasta with meatballs in an orange sauce, topped with grated parmesan and diced sage.]

Rough recipe:

-Start your pasta (I used fettuccine) and broil your meatballs. I was lazy and used pre-cooked meatballs from Costco that just need a little browning.

-Saute thinly sliced shallots in oil until they started to brown, added in diced garlic, pepper, and some dried Italian seasoning blend.

-Once those cooked to golden, I pushed them to the edge of my pan. I'm using a pan that's really too big for the burner, but by moving where the heat is at, it allows me to keep the onion/garlic mixture warm without cooking further. A normal recipe would say remove from pan, but I'm lazy and don't want to clean the extra dish.

-On the hot side of the pan, add a bunch of oil and a small can of tomato paste. Fry the paste in the oil until the excess water is driven out. You'll know it's ready when you start seeing little brown caramelization patches as you stir the paste.

-Start adding splashes of vodka to the paste, stirring and adding until the mixture has cooled enough that the alcohol isn't immediately boiling off.

-Turn the heat down and add chopped fresh sage, oregano, thyme, and a little bit of rosemary, and mix back in the onion/garlic.

-Add a splash of heavy cream until it reaches the right shade of orange.

-Once your pasta is al dente, add it to the pan and mix into the sauce. Add ladles of the pasta water to loosen the sauce as needed.

-Add the meatballs and serve, topped with grated parmesan and diced sage.

Tenderized pork tenderloin, double breaded with seasoned flour and saltine cracker crumbs.

[Image decription: A round, light-reddish-brown loaf of bread on a wire cooling rack. There is a split down the center of the bread where it expanded in the oven while baking, called an "ear". The top of the bread is lightly dusted with flour except in the split area.]

I started learning to bake about a year ago with bread. Lately I've mostly been making cookies and recently been learning to make pie, but I felt an itch to come back to the basics.

Recipe:

• 400g bread flour
• 260g warm water (65%)
• 2g instant or active dry yeast (about 1 teaspoon) (0.5%)
• 8g salt (2%)

This bread was made with a poolish, not sourdough starter. A poolish is a preferment, and gives you a flavor similar to sourdough without the need to care for a sourdough starter. Poolish is the traditional way to make french baguettes, so if you know that flavor you know what to expect from a poolish.

Make the poolish:

• Mix 200g flour, 200g water, and a pinch of yeast (seriously, a tiny amount). Cover and let stand at room temperature for 12 hours. After this time the poolish should be bubbly and smell nice and yeasty, maybe slightly alcoholic.

Make the dough:

• Pour the remaining 60g of water into the poolish and mix to loosen it up. Then add the remaining 200g flour and mix thoroughly to combine. Let sit for 20 minutes to autolyse - this hydrates the flour and makes it stronger.

• Add in the yeast and salt and mix to combine. At this stage it's easiest to mix with wet hands in a pinching motion to combine in the salt and yeast.

• Optionally, knead for about 5 minutes by hand or about 3-4 minutes by stand mixer with a bread hook attachment. If kneading by hand, be sure to have a dough scraper handy, it will be sticky. You can skip this step entirely. Kneading will make it rise better in the oven, if you skip it may be a flatter loaf.

• Cover and let the dough stand in a bowl for 15 minutes, then stretch and fold it. Repeat, including the wait time, until you've stretch/folded 4 times total.

• Cover the dough and refrigerate for around 24 hours or up to a few days.

• About 1 hour before you plan to bake, take the dough out and shape it into a taut ball. Then put it seam side down into either a proofing basket or a mixing bowl lined with a well-floured kitchen towel. Cover with a damp towel and let rise. The dough should grow around 50-66% in size. When you firmly poke it with a damp finger, the spot you poke should bounce back slightly but still leave an indent.

• Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Place a dutch oven or heavy lidded pot in the oven to preheat it as well.

• Flip the dough onto parchment paper and slash it on top with a razor blade or a serrated bread knife to give it a weak spot to expand while baking.

• Bake in the dutch oven, lid on, for 30 minutes. Then remove the lid and bake at least another 15 minutes, or longer if you want a darker crust.

• Let cool for at least an hour before slicing - this is actually important, the inside of your loaf needs to finish baking from the residual heat when you pull it out! If you slice early it will wind up gummy

• Enjoy!

What's your go-to, make ahead recipes that are pretty easy to get a week's worth made on a sunday? I'm looking for new recipes to try and get myself into a diet better than mcdonalds. I have access to an instant pot.

Green onions are actually ok for her to eat.

I've been making the same three bean chilli and lentil and chickpea dahl for years now and I'm trying to expand my repertoire for midweek meals.

I'm not an amazing cook so I like to make a big pot of something that I can freeze and eat over the course of a few weeks.

Looking forward to hearing your suggestions!

The Dahl

The three bean chilli recipe is easy AF:

Ingredients: 3x tins of different beans (I usually go for kidney, black beans and canneloni)

1x Tin sweetcorn

1 onion, chopped

2 Bell peppers, chopped

Jalapeños, chopped

Vegetable stock cube

Tin tomatoes

Cumin

Paprika

Hot chilli powder

Cayenne pepper

Salt & pepper

I throw the whole lot in a slow cooker. Then I fill one of the tins with water and throw that in too. Then leave on high for 4 hours.

I can't remember how much of the seasoning the original recipe said to put in. I measure that with my heart ♥

Excuse the rough plating.. It was absolutely delicious Recipe for two people: 200 gr pasta (short shapes are better) 150 gr ricotta fresh 2 medium courgettes Handful of walnut kernels 1 medium onion 1 clove of garlic Olive oil, salt, pepper, nutmeg Splash of milk (optional)

Sautée chopped onions and garlic in a couple of teaspoons of olive oil in a large deep pan until they are golden brown, add the cubed courgettes, pinch of salt, pepper and nutmeg and let cook on medium high heat for about 20 mins, until soft and possibly a bit caramelised. Cook the pasta in salted water until al dente (don't overcook). Chop the walnuts roughly. In a bowl or a blender put the ricotta, two thirds of the cooked courgettes and a splash of milk or pasta cooking water and mix. I used a hand held blender and it works very well, easier to clean. Put the mix back in the pan with the rest of the courgettes and stir and add the chopped walnuts. Once the pasta is cooked, drain it and add it to the pan and stir it in the creamy sauce for a couple of minutes on low heat. Serve hot with grated parmesan. Apparently this is also good cold for a summer pasta salad version, bit I have never tried it.

I tried to make Pad Thai several times now and it turned out okay, but never quite es good as at my local Vietnamese restaurant. Does anyone have a good recipe I can try? I am particularly interested in the sauce. Over the years I tried so many variations and was "alright" for the most part, but it never really felt exciting. Maybe I am missing something. Any ideas? Any favorite recipes you want to share?