Cooking under Quarantine: "What's in this freezer bag?!"

Cafe Society
21

That’s uncharacteristically nice of them! We made their Roasted Tomato and White Bean Stew last night, and it was excellent.

I needed to substitute quartered kumatoes for cherry tomatoes and I had no fresh parsley, so I added a teaspoon of dried to the tomato and thyme before roasting. I also grated some Pecorino over my serving, which perked everything up nicely. It’s a vegetarian dinner — vegan if you skip the cheese — so I roasted a sausage as a side dish.

Try it! Hell, try ALL the Times recipes, most of them are wonderful.

22

I’m making their Oyakodon (Japanese chicken and egg rice bowl) tonight. Also recommended, as long as you don’t mind mother-and-child reunion.

23

Yeah, no shit. I saved a large number of recipes to the “My Recipe Box” for quite some time under my subscription. Then the fuckers suddenly said “Now it’s going to cost you extra on top of your subscription to access it or even see any of our precious recipes.” My response to that was a hearty “fuck you”. I emailed my friend who is a copy editor for the NYT and bitched at him, but he basically shrugged and said “what can you do?”

I’m making the Black Bean Bake tonight, and I’m busily copying recipes to my Word cookbook before they lock us out again.

24

I wanted to bake something without using any of our eggs or dairy, so I baked a wacky cake. It is quite good. The next time I make one, I will mix it in a bowl. Mixing it in the baking pan is awkward.

25

Too late to edit - If you try the wacky cake recipe I posted from Epicurious, start checking for doneness at about 25 minutes. It is done when the top bounces back to the touch and doesn’t look jiggly. The toothpick test doesn’t work with this cake.

I used self rising flour and omitted the salt and baking soda.

26

Trying to figure out what to do beside the obvious with a tin of brownies (fancy $$ designer brownies) I threw in the freezer (well wrapped) but won’t last much longer. We go them from a client for Xmas last year.

27

Go to the N.Y. Times app (free!) and look up the shortbread cookies with chocolate. They are fucking INTENSE. I’ve made them four times now, at the Ukulele Lady’s insistence.

28

We made a beautiful yellow curry with shrimp and served it over rice. It was delicious, except for the lack of cilantro. No cilantro in the house and none up yet in the garden. Take me now, jesus, I don’t need this shit.

29

Powdered coriander may do in a pinch.

I think today is Napa cabbage something something and dried mung bean dal. Mrs susan was inline at the “senior hour” at our grocery for the better portion of an hour and a half. She reports no oatmeal or shelf-stable milk.

30

Bah!

actually, I wish I’d thought of that last night. I know we have some. Dammit

31

We are old folks so it’s important to stay in. I’ve been baking bread. That turned out to be a plus. Best bread I’ve had in years. Had some milk that soured. No problem, it works great in bread. Also managed some coffee cake for breakfast.

The local meat counters are bare but I did find ham hocks. I had a couple of pounds of dried Lima beans to cook with them - yum.

So far so good, but I believe it will get worse.

32

I stopped by our friends’ farm market on my way home from work to pick up whatever produce looked good. When I walked in, my friend held up her hand and ran into the walk-in cooler. She had a huge box prepared for us with all sorts of produce, meat, noodles, home-canned goods, etc.

She’d made up a few box s like this for friends. When I tried to pay she refused. She’d been very busy, selling out of things like eggs and milk. I’ve done all sorts of things to help them over the years, she said she was happy to be able to feed us.

I don’t cry. I came close today.

33

Since the Wal-Mart manager didn’t see this coming*, the TP aisle has been empty for weeks.

But the manager of the (relatively tiny) Piggly-Wiggly (“The Pig”), 20 miles north, was smarter. He borrowed a flatbed truck and a few friends, and did a road trip to Milwaukee (about 3 hours drive one way), where he loaded 18 pallets of TP, probably from a wholesaler. He can now boast that he has better stock than the Wal-Mart store.

AFAIK, he didn’t jack the sale price up. You can’t do that in a small town.

  • Isn’t anticipating demand the job of a manager? Guess not!
34

Sure you can, but it will come back and bite you in the ass. A local chain drugstore has plenty of generic paper towels, a four pack is just $14.95. A friend bought a four pack just so he’d have proof of the gouging. He is telling everybody he knows, and it seems to be working because I’m now hearing about it from people he doesn’t know.

35

That’s sorta what I meant, Kayaker. In a small town, your customer is likely to be the proprietor of another store that you frequent, and you can’t hide behind anonymity.

36

I don’t know if I should bless or curse you. Just printed out (I prefer paper as it’s easier
for me to make notes, especially since the first thing I have to do is put metric measurements on everything) dozens of recipes.

And this is one of them. Also the white version. There are few stores where I can buy canned black beans, so I won’t be able to buy them for a while. The white beans I’ll be able to buy as soon as the nearest store can keep them in stock.

I figured out that my freezer only had coconut chocolate brownies, pasta e fagioli (without pasta), pumpkin flesh prepared for recipes, cranberries and cookies. Not much for meals, so I’ve been working on stocking my freezer.

37

A few days ago I made a stew out of 17 random ingredients in the fridge/pantry/freezer and it was so good I wrote down how I did it. Not that I’ll ever make it again exactly the same way, but I would definitely use it as an inspiration for another turkey-chickpea dish:

Olive oil
Onions, chopped (2 med)
Zucchini, chopped (1 med)
Shishito peppers, seeded and chopped (about 4)
Vegetarian bouillon cubes - 3
Turkey, ground – 1 Kirkland package
Breadfruit, chopped (about 1/3 to ½ a medium breadfruit, steamed)
Corn (about 1 can)
Spinach, chopped (about ½ a small bag, or 1 pkg)
Celery flakes (about 1/8 cup)
Shitake mushrooms, soaked and chopped (about 8)
Pepperoncini, chopped (about 5)
Tomato, chopped (can with liquid)
Chickpeas, drained (1 can)
Adobo seasoning (1/8 cup)
Cumin( 1/8 cup)
Pesto (large spoonful – probably about 1/8 cup)
Basil (1-2 Tbs)
Thyme (1-2 Tbs)

Heat olive oil in cast iron pan. Add onions, zucchini, shishito, and bouillon cubes and saute.

While mix is sauteing, put corn through thyme in crockpot. Include the liquid from soaking the mushrooms.

Add ground turkey to cast iron pot when vegetables are translucent. Continue to cook until turkey is cooked, breaking up large chunks as needed. Add onion-turkey mix to crockpot.

Add a little more olive oil if needed to cast iron. Add breadfruit and saute, scraping up any browned bits.

When breadfruit cubes are cooked, add to crockpot with all scrapings.

Cook in crockpot on high for 3-4 hours. After an hour, taste for salt and seasonings. Add salt, adobo, cumin, basil, thyme or other seasonings if needed. Consider adding white pepper, juice from pepperoncini, and/or bacon salt if flavor needs a push. (Was fine without any added flavorings when made as written).

38

Somebody around here mentioned the SuperCook recipe generator - tell it what you have and it’ll churn out recipes. My earlier, primitive method was to merely google on <ingredient1> <ingredient2> <ingredientX> ( instant pot) RECIPES and see what magically appeared. If <ingredientX> is mystery meat or something, just call it MEAT and behold the suggestions.

39

Ran low on comestibles, besides some fruit that are in limbo between fresh and spoiled, all I had on hand was a one-pound bag of Mahatma brand dry brown rice that the food pantry gave me months ago. This also gave me no more excuse to try out the Instant Pot my mother brought me. (I focus more on lentils and quinoa, and I have been too lazy to research if the former is compatible with the cooker).

I liberally added canola oil and curry powder. Pretty pleased with it.

It expanded much more than I though it would too, so It’ll last me most of the day.

40

Today I’ll freeze the excess of what I cooked this week (really, how may mung bean-based meals can a girl eat in a row?) and make and freeze stock from the scraps. The I’ll pull out a frozen mystery stew.

To create more social distancing at home, perhaps I’ll eat kimchee all day.