Monday, 17 August 2020

The Quarantine Food Diaries: master list

Is it possible to cook something different for dinner every night? How many things do I know how to cook, anyway? These weren't questions I deliberately set out to answer, but after a few weeks of cooking every single day, the Quarantine Food Challenge was on, whether I meant it or not!

(The answers, it turns out, are: yes, with a couple of exceptions (because eating something different every night would also mean only eating your favourite things once, so Lee's preferred pasta bol and ham-and-pineapple pizza have made a number of appearances); and "more than I knew how to cook before, and counting"...)

Here, then, is the growing list of all the things we have eaten for dinner since lockdown record-keeping began:

  1. Ham and pineapple pizza. Of course. (Usually with a veggie section for me: onion, peppers, sweetcorn, pineapple and olives.) x 4
  2. Oyako donburi
  3. Lemon and lime chicken
  4. Thai Panang curry with fried tofu and pineapple
  5. Kung pao chicken and spring onion pancakes 
  6. Dutch kale stamppot with smoked sausage (thanks Gerard!)
  7. Hainanese chicken rice (thanks Thorfinn!)
  8. Chicken ramen with gyoza
  9. Broccoli and cauliflower cheese casserole
  10. Indoor picnic with roasted cauliflower, squash and quinoa salad
  11. Pineapple chicken 
  12. Pasta bolognese (x 3)
  13. Baked potatoes with cheese and bolognese sauce
  14. Fried rice and yuzu cabbage salad
  15. Pork (or seabass) piccata with mash and peas
  16. Teriyaki chicken with sesame kale and cabbage salad
  17. Gammon roast with vegetables (x2)
  18. Coconut-crusted pork (or salmon) with pineapple salsa 
  19. Beef and bacon stew
  20. Crispy chicken with Japanese curry and salad
  21. Mujadara (thanks Bronwyn)
  22. Beef and bacon pie
  23. BBQ chicken mini-drumsticks and salad
  24. Homemade burger and potato wedges
  25. Pizza with chorizo, ham, pineapple and olives
  26. Bacon-wrapped chicken stuffed with mozzarella cheese
  27. Vegetable bhuna curry (using up a jar of leftover sauce)
  28. Soup and toasties
  29. Chicken romanesco pasta (thanks Tom and Ali!)
  30. Toasted buns with ricotta cheese and tomato salad
  31. Gammon with broccoli cheese
  32. Halloumi, tomato, cucumber and olive salad
  33. Beef and ale rendang 
  34. Chicken schnitzel
  35. Rendang pie
  36. Sweet & sour tofu
  37. Flatbreads, hummus and salad
  38. Crispy orange beef
  39. Chana masala (thanks Alasdair) with swede
  40. Tofu red curry with sesame beans
  41. Vegetarian chilli and rice
  42. Halloumi, pea and edamame salad with mint and butter msemen
  43. "Corned gammon" hash (thanks Nic & Cat!)
  44. Chicken and gammon pie
  45. Spiced lentil stew with grilled chicken
  46. Chorizo and white bean stew
  47. Chicken and prawn noodle soup
  48. Bol pizza
  49. Pineapple beef & prawn stir-fry
  50. Miso-glazed grilled pork (or salmon)
  51. Paella
  52. Bol and béchamel pasta bake
  53. Pasta salad with spring vegetables (leeks, peas, asparagus)
  54. Satay chicken 
  55. Tomato and vegetable soup
  56. Pita breads with halloumi and salad
  57. Veggie tamale pie
  58. Falafel burgers and chickpea soup
  59. Tapas - patatas bravas, prawn-stuffed peppers, smoked salmon, prawns, chorizo, olives
  60. Vegetable coconut curry with Korean sticky potatoes
  61. Creamy tomato and pea pasta 
  62. Vegetarian cottage pie 
  63. Ham, pea and dill cakes
  64. Vegetable pie
  65. Tomato, olive and potato bake 
  66. Chicken with olive and lemon sauce and roasted grapes
  67. Polenta vegetable tart
  68. Pan-fried chicken with haggis
  69. Roast beef and yorkshire pudding
  70. Thai beef salad
  71. Tuna nicoise salad 
  72. Butcher's burgers (x2)
  73. Grilled gammon steak (or seabass) with roasted pineapple
  74. Kofta curry (thanks Tom!) and gobi masala with peshwari naan
  75. Steak dinner
  76. Roast pork shoulder with crackling
  77. Black pepper beef & bok-choy stirfry with beansprouts and spinach barchan
  78. Mango and avocado salad with grilled chicken
  79. Nasu dengaku; fennel, endive, orange and avocado salad
  80. Haggis supper with neeps, tatties and whisky-pepper sauce
  81. Steak teriyaki with sesame greens
  82. Roasted fennel and endives with blue cheese
  83. Aubergine, mushroom and snow pea stir-fry; sweetcorn soup with noodles; spicy zucchini
  84. Chicken (or zucchini) parmigiana
  85. Meat-lover's pizza (ham, chorizo, meatballs, and bacon with pineapple)
  86. Chicken katsu curry
  87. Farmfoods crispy duck 
  88. Instant white curry mee
  89. Steak fajitas
  90. Tonkotsu ramen
  91. Gammon and pineapple wrap
  92. Okonomiyaki
  93. Chicken paprika, filetitos and patatas bravas (thanks Nic and Cat!)
  94. Beef bulgogi bibimbap
  95. Pork fillet with honey sauce
  96. Pork noodle stir-fry
  97. Tofu and squash green curry
  98. Slow-cooker beef, olive and tomato stew with dumplings
  99. Vegetable katsu with zaru soba
  100. Chicken with pineapple and sweet ginger stir-fry
  101. Chorizo and pepper pasta
  102. Beef and tomato pie with mash
  103. Vegetable chilli burritos
  104. Cheese and split pea curry, spiced cabbage and tomato
  105. Steak with whisky-pepper sauce and potato wedges
  106. Chicken with hot pepper sauce (a Lee special!)
  107. Fish (or chicken nuggets) and chips
  108. Pulled pork buns and caulibroc cheese
  109. Caulibroc burger-with-the-lot
  110. Sweet soy pulled-pork noodles
  111. Chorizo-cheese panini
  112. Spaghetti on toast
  113. Ham and chips with salad
  114. Tom yum soup 
  115. Miso-marinated pan-seared duck with pickled ginger, soy-sesame veg and green tea soba
  116. Nachos with chipotle beans
  117. Cauliflower curry katsu cheese bake
  118. Gammon and chips / lentil & beetroot salad
  119. Coconut curry noodle soup
  120. Sausage and apple bake (thanks Tom and Ali!)
  121. Beef hor-fun noodles
  122. Slow-roasted chicken and potatoes
  123. Crispy siew-yoke pork belly, drunken chicken and rice
  124. Chicken, fennel and mushroom tagliatelle
  125. Tiger salad with crispy pork belly
  126. Hoi-sin pork belly pizza
  127. Tofu bibimbap
  128. Bacon and pepper pasta bake

Sunday, 12 April 2020

QFD Week 4 (6-12 April): A system emerges

By now, we were getting into the routine of producing two meals a day, but the mental juggling act of keeping on top of best-before dates, leftovers, half-empty tins needing to be used and fridge/freezer space was taking up a good deal of processing power. The solution: in lieu of a whiteboard, sheets of A4 paper taped to the kitchen cabinets, containing meal planning notes, freezer inventory, lists of things to be used and by when, and ideas for upcoming meals.

Monday's dinner: kale stamppot as suggested by my Dutch friend Gerard: basically sausage, mash and kale.

Tuesday was chicken rice day: a Proper Food Project! Using Thorfinn's famous method, with the added tweaks of frying the rice in the chicken fat and cooking it in the stock, yielded very satisfactory results plus plenty of leftover chicken and stock.

Wednesday was pizza again, using the yeast culture that had been happily bubbling away in the fridge, with an occasional 1:1 flour and water feed.

On Thursday, leftover pizza dough became focaccia to go with minestrone for lunch; adding miso paste to the leftover chicken stock produced a soup for ramen noodles, topped with more sliced chicken and gyoza.

Then it was Good Friday, so I mixed up an experimental batch of hot cross buns using my yeast culture and adding egg, butter and spices together with a packet of fruit&nut trail mix. Dinner was broccoli and cauliflower cheese plus roasted vegetables.

Saturday: Hot cross buns were a success! As it was a sunny day, we decided to have a living room picnic featuring grilled halloumi, a roasted vegetable and quinoa salad and various deli-style goodies.

Sunday featured the becoming-traditional cooked breakfast, and a quick sticky pineapple chicken for dinner.

Sunday, 5 April 2020

QFD: Week 3. "In which we take a suitcase to the supermarket..."

Essentials such as food shopping only, they said. Try to limit shopping trips to once per week. There was a debate over whether more than one member of a household should go to the shops. But with two of us, we thought, we could stock up on a month's worth of food and not have to leave the house until May! Hence the suitcase...

The Royal Mile, deserted
AAA....
The shopping trip itself was a slightly hair-raising experience, since at this point very few people were taking seriously the lockdown and especially the social distancing measures. We returned both physically worn out by hauling half our bodyweight in shopping across cobbled streets, and psychologically exhausted from playing Pac-Man up and down the supermarket aisles. Next time, grocery delivery!





Having survived this harrowing venture out of doors, the next day (I have no memory of what we ate after coming home from shopping...) merited some comfort cooking: specifically, a Thai Panang curry with fried tofu and pineapple -- spicy, sweet, rich and full of vegetables -- and a fresh crunchy salad with chilli, lime and garlic dressing. Plus the only rice we'd been able to buy at the Chinese supermarket was Thai sticky, so this fit the bill.




Leftover sticky rice became cheesy rice cakes with nuoc cham sauce and salad for lunch the following day; and as local businesses shut their doors and turned to the online market, home delivery G&T started to become A Thing...

Weekend lockdown breakfasts also quickly became established as a thing: when you're spending every day at home, it's nice to have something to mark out the weekend. 

I really like spring onion pancakes but almost never order them in restaurants, because there's usually something more exciting I want to eat instead. Knowing in theory how to make them was one thing, but it took lockdown to give me the time and inspiration actually to try. Fortunately they were very easy! (Understanding a bit of the science behind hot-water vs cold-water dough and the limits of lamination was useful as well.)
I was also interested to try out this version of Kung Pao Chicken from NoRecipes.com. Verdict: tasty, but the dark soy was a touch overpowering. One to keep experimenting with!

And finally, because there's nothing like a good plate of leftovers: kung pao fried rice with salad and that classic SE Asian street food bonus topping of a fried egg!

Tuesday, 31 March 2020

The Quarantine Food Diaries: Weeks 1-2, "And so it begins..."

The last photo from the Before Times
I was on the last leg of a Maldives liveaboard when everything started shutting down around the world. The day we returned to port, 15 March, was the day the Maldives shut to new incoming travellers; arriving visitors were refused entry and put back on flights home; instead of disembarking and heading to town for the day, we were asked to remain on board until departure and then go straight to the airport; and instead of readying the boat for the next week's group of passengers, the crew prepared to stand down operations.

The conference I had been heading back to in Cambridge had been cancelled two days earlier; by the time I landed in London on 16 March and waited for the flight I'd booked back to Edinburgh instead, all my events that week had been cancelled. 

By the end of the following week, everything was cancelled.

Zooming each other from different rooms

Looking back, those early days of the lockdown are slightly blurred, unreal. Although the official UK lockdown didn't begin until 23 March, it was clear that we were in a state of emergency. The University closed its doors the day I got back, with working from home the new standard. We learned to use Zoom, set up virtual social events with friends and calls with family, somewhat tickled by the strangeness of it all even though we were taking it Very Seriously. We counted our toilet rolls, fortunate in having just received a large order; and made plans to keep ourselves fit and strong without having to leave the house. 
Toilet paper stocktake complete!

The lockdown diver's weights workout

And, of course, I cooked.

Being home for long enough to cook properly, as well as being forced to cook through not being able to go out or order takeaway, was something of a novelty. I cleaned the kitchen, defrosted the freezer and finally sorted out the store cupboards into some sort of sensible order -- the value of having a clean, tidy and workable space rapidly grows when you are using the space several times a day every day, rather than once every few weeks. 


What did I cook? For the first couple of weeks, I don't really remember. It wasn't particularly important at first; we had various things to use up. No takeaway though, so I decided to try making pizza. The sachets of yeast in the cupboard were best-before dated variously from 2013 to 2017, and the last time I'd tried to use one, the dough had simply sat there and done nothing for two days before going in the bin. Wise to this, I tested them by mixing with warm water and sugar; it took three packets before one finally "doubled in size and became frothy".

Yeast and flour shortages were already rife in the shops, so I figured I had better keep some of this batch going. Treating it like a starter, I kept back some of the dough, mixed in extra water and flour, and popped it back in the fridge...



... where it led to early experiments with crumpets and focaccia, amongst other things. (The same culture is still alive in the fridge today, over four months later.)

Working our way through the odds and ends accumulated in the fridge, freezer and cupboards, I came up with some inventive combinations: a "lemon and lime" chicken made with the end of a jar of Rose's lime marmalade, kaffir lime leaves and frozen peas, the last green vegetable available to us. I also appealed to friends on Facebook, not because I didn't know how or what to cook, but because I wanted to cook what they were cooking -- to eat the same foods they were eating, even if we couldn't eat together. Some 133 comments later, I had a long list...

Lemon-lime chicken

Lentil soup, from Catherine
Un-photogenic but tasty!

And thus we muddled on randomly for the first two weeks, virtuously using up our old supplies and planning towards a more organised shopping day. The lockdown had begun...

Oyako-don, as suggested by Jayne










Thursday, 31 August 2017

Griller warfare, Or, The woes of a new kitchen

One of the terrible jokes I remember from my childhood involves a nearsighted old lady who walks into a pet shop by mistake for a kitchen store, and asks to buy an infra-red griller. The pet shop salesman replies solemnly that they are out of stock on those, but he can offer her an ultraviolet chimpanzee...

So, why grillers? Well, in March, after more than a year of peregrinage, we finally moved to our new flat in Edinburgh. This meant a tremendous amount of sorting, discarding, packing, transporting and unpacking, including deciding what from the kitchen should come with us and what should really have been thrown out years ago.

It also meant a new kitchen. The new kitchen is equipped with a fridge that is less than half the size of our previous one, a range hood and exhaust fan neither of which work properly, and the induction stove from hell. The combination of the latter two factors resulted, the first dozen times I tried to cook bacon, in the flat filling with smoke and the alarm going off. Worse still, none of my large pots, deep skillets or my wok would work on the stove.

The net effect of this has been that my cooking has changed considerably. Stir-fries are right out; simmering anything on low heat is a dubious prospect, to say nothing of the pan size problem, so stews and curries are likewise off the menu. In place of these, however, the oven and griller (infrared or otherwise) are getting a good workout, as a way of putting a nice browning on things without burning them to all hell and causing the fire brigade to come. Roasted vegetables tossed with some sort of dressing are pretty much my go-to weeknight dinner, when it's just me.

Of course, it usually isn't just me, and most people don't share my love of roasted broccoli and brussels sprouts. So how does one entertain, when one's usual methods of cooking and repertoire of dishes have gone out the window? Clearly, one invents a new dish, and then proceeds to make it Every Single Time people come over. I estimate I've cooked this every week for the last month, but when it's so easy and delicious, it's hard to stop! The sweet-tart juices of the grilled tomatoes contribute to a natural dressing for the slightly-charred beans, contrasting with the salty feta and the fresh mint, with some crunch from the toasted almonds, and the whole thing comes together in less than 10 minutes. Plus it looks great with all the contrasting colours, textures and shapes. You can't do that with an ultraviolet chimpanzee...

Grilled green bean, tomato, feta and mint salad
1 packet (200g?) green beans, top'n'tailed
1 packet (200g?) cherry tomatoes
olive oil, salt, pepper
zest and juice of a lemon
balsamic syrup (optional)
good handful fresh mint, chopped
50 g feta cheese, crumbled
small handful roasted almonds, chopped

Heat up the grill (broiler, if you're American). Spread the beans on a tray, throw the tomatoes on top, drizzle with olive oil, and toss with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Place under the grill for a few minutes, until the vegetables begin to brown and char on one side. Turn so the brown bits are down and grill for a couple more minutes, until beans are cooked and the tomatoes are just popping their skins. Transfer to a plate, season with more pepper, zest the lemon over the pile and squeeze the juice on top, drizzle with more good olive oil and balsamic syrup (adds more depth to the sweet-tart flavour, but if you're Lee and don't like vinegar, it can be left out), scatter the mint and feta on top, give it a light toss to combine those flavours and then finish with roasted almonds. Done making!

Saturday, 22 October 2016

Bottomless Brunch, DC style


One of the institutions I quickly got on board with while living in DC was weekend brunch. Many places offer excellent "bottomless" deals, whereby you pay a fixed price for the joy of being able to linger over brunch for hours, nibbling at little plates of deliciousness and sipping interesting drinks. I quickly got into a routine of working for a few hours in the morning, then taking my laptop out for a brunch date and a couple more hours of writing, followed by a stroll round a gallery or park while digesting -- or sometimes just back home for a nap!

One of the places I enjoyed was Masa 14, not far from me on 14th just south of U St. The combination of outdoor deck on a still-sunny autumn day, tasty small plates featuring fusion flavours, and a great selection of Asian-inspired cocktails, was just what I needed to finish the paper I was working on!

I didn't order this pork belly and spicy slaw pressed sandwich, but it was very delicious nonetheless.
A couple of bites of sushi roll and a florentine-style egg with mushrooms, together with a lemony lager cocktail -- surprisingly good!

 
Smoked salmon salad and a lychee bellini.
Roasted cauliflower is always delicious; the steamed bun was also very good. I didn't order the plantain either; it just arrived. A banana by any other name...




Monday, 10 October 2016

Underground, Overground: a visit to Toki



Toki Underground is high on the DC food scene hotlist, but over on the NE side it's a bit out of my usual territory. Arriving into Union Station after a trip to Baltimore, though, I headed up to Union Market and found it closed, and by then I was far enough over that a trip across to 12th St NE was only a few more blocks.


I arrived about 4:30 (opening time is 5pm) so stopped in the pub, or rather The Pug, next door. Despite the name, Toki Underground is actually upstairs -- I expected it to be in the basement!

While waiting I read a few reviews and realised it was just as well I was early, since this place is insanely popular. Some of the reviews mentioned a line forming outside prior to opening! This being a Monday it must have been a bit quieter; no line but when I headed up at 5:15 the place was already filling up.


The bar top features quirky pachinko decor, while cocktails are mixed right in front of you.


This take on an Old-Fashioned, the Toki Monster, featured a little garnish of candied, char-grilled butabara.


These gyoza in a tangy soy glaze were toothsome and tasty.


I opted for the kimchi ramen, which were surprisingly spicy with a rich, creamy broth. 

I may not be in Japan any more, but I can still eat ramen!