What have you been eating, drinking, and cooking?

One of my favorite quick and cheap recipes are spinach and white bean quesadillas from Budget byes. It's really easy to make, has an amazing taste, amenable to throwing in stuff, and I double the recipe and cook it all in the oven cut down on time/effort and to have lots of left overs. Honestly, I probably rely on Budget Bytes a bit too much when it comes to ideas for meals, but they almost always hit the mark for me.

We had some friends over for a bonfire just this past weekend (it is winter here and we live in a fire ecosystem, so this is a very busy season for burning off dead/dry vegetation on our heavily treed property), and we did some assorted roasting. I am a vegetarian, so I had a lot of roasted vegetables: zucchini, mushrooms, pumpkin, potatoes, sweetcorn, sunchokes, leeks, garlic cloves, and so on.

Cooking on a fire is a confusing experience for me. When I roast veggies in the oven, I know exactly what the temperature is and how long I need to cook it, and the oven and the roasting dish ensure reasonably even heat. When I roast veggies on a fire, I wrap them in foil, throw them on the coals, and then pull them off after some arbitrary period of time (this time, we went with 30-40 minutes), and I spend the whole time worried that it will be a bust — especially when we have friends over, and messing it up means a lot of people's dinners are ruined. The veggies inevitably come out unevenly cooked, and yet they are so much more tasty and satisfying than any veggies I've ever had out of an oven. Everyone raves over them.

I have been eating some leftovers this week (stir fry veggies from before the bonfire, and leftover roasted veggies from the bonfire), and it is striking how strongly I prefer the latter. It makes me suspect there must have been a strong selection pressure in our ancestry to enjoy fire-cooked food.

I suppose the smoke must impart a desirable flavor, and yet when I purchase prepared food, I strongly dislike it if it has been imparted with a "smokey" flavor. I'm not sure exactly what this "smokey" flavor is, but it seems to be very different from the smoke that comes from our annual winter fires.

Recently I've been making a lot of dishes with tahini. Do not sleep on this condiment! It is super healthy (sesame contains lots of vitamins, minerals, and healthy fats), but more importantly, it is super tasty. Earthy, nutty, with a touch of bitterness and a thick texture similar to peanut butter. It's easy to incorporate into lots of different foods. Thin it out with lemon juice or yogurt or maple syrup to make a salad dressing. Spread it on a sandwich instead of mayonnaise. Use it instead of nut butter in baked goods. And of course there are the traditional recipes, like hummus, falafel, baba ganoush, halva, etc.

My most frequent use for it is simply with rice and meat - an extremely easy to make combination. Here's an sample recipe (all quantities essentially to taste):

• Cook some brown rice/wild rice (rice cookers ftw)
• Sautee some chicken (alternatively, a good place to use leftover proteins)
• Mix rice with:
  • Tahini
  • Garlic Oil
  • Coriander
  • Cumin
  • Salt and Pepper
• Plate with pickled/brined vegetables (cucumber pickles, olives, pickled beets, etc.)
• If you prefer to use fresh vegetables, a drizzle of balsamic vinegar or lemon juice can also help cut through the fat (if you use a lot of tahini or a fatty meat)

I find that the earthy qualities of brown rice, tahini, and cumin are really great together. The above recipe is super easy to modify too, and it's generally a great way to use leftover protein, vegetables, as well as to try out new herbs or spices.

This weekend I signed up for the Serious Eats daily emails, so today I'm slow-cooking pork for carnitas tacos with salsa verde. Kenji has me cooking 3 lbs of pork butt, so that's going to work for multiple meals for the family; the pork freezes well according to the recipe (haven't got there yet) but my mouth is watering at the thought of taco-Tuesday.

Also making baba ganouj because eggplants looked so tempting in Trader Joe's. Not as a side for the tacos though!

I’ve been eating like crap lately honestly, due to some financial restraints it’s been mostly ramen, Pizza rolls and frozen pizzas. To drink I’ve been staying away from soda and go with bottled water and the occasional energy drink if I need a pick me up throughout the day.

I have to go on a liquid diet soon-ish so I'm trying to eat all the things I like chewing until then! Recently, I made a spinach lasagna, subbing in roasted zucchini slices for noodles, to use up what we got in our CSA box. Truly did not miss the noodles at all! It had very good structural integrity. I think the key to avoid making it a soupy mess was to salt the zucchini slices for about an hour, rinse and pat off the excess water, then roast in the oven on a wire rack until they looked super desiccated but not burnt.

I've been craving this lentil curry recipe. I'd previously made curries using cashew nuts but I am a lazy cook and thought it was a PITA. It never occurred to me that I could just use unsweetened cashew butter instead of dealing with actual nuts until I saw this recipe. Works great!

Recetnly, I've been vibing with toum, so I have been cooking chicken shawarma and Lebanese kafta. I got a new Thai mortar and pestle, and its been fun grinding the spice blends.

We mostly cook at home, and my wife especially loves trying new recipes. I'm much simpler, I eat roughly the same lunch every day for instance. So since she was out of town this past week, we made a giant pot of cauliflower and chick pea tikka masala and I've been eating a serving of that each night. Absolutely delicious, especially with the extra spice I added to it.

Here's a family favorite.

Broccoli Cheese Casserole

3-4 skinless boneless chicken breasts (this is what comes in a normal package): You can also just buy a broiled chicken if they have them at the commissary. Traditional style: then just shred it (pull off with a fork into skinny shredded pieces)

1 pkg. frozen broccoli

2 cans cream of chicken soup
1 cup mayonnaise
1 Tablespoon lemon juice
2 tsp. curry powder
1 to 2 cups of sharp cheddar--shredded
So if you do the skinless, boneless chicken: Thaw it and then boil it for about 20 minutes until thoroughly cooked. Let cool, then cut into small chunks.

Preheat oven to 350.
Microwave broccoli until thoroughly cooked (about 5 minutes). Drain off liquid.

Mix together soup, mayo, lemon juice, and curry. Taste it and adjust lemon and curry to your taste. In 9 x 13 pan, layer chicken, then broccoli, then mixed ingredients. Don't mix together; just put on top. Top with cheddar cheese. Bake for 30 minutes.

Serve with or over rice.

I rendered duck fat today. Been keeping the skins from the last two ducks we bought and decided to finally get around to rendering the fat out.

I had dragonfruit for the first time; I just picked it up because it looked cool. Turns out it is also quite salubrious.

I have the good fortune of living in a city where access to farmer's markets are subsidized by the city and really accessible to all. As such, access to seasonal vegetables is great and I tend to make this pasta primavera recipe from Kenji Lopez Alt. I just throw in whatever I can find at the market (green beans and asparagus are really great right now) and pick up full fat greek yogurt if I don't feel like going the full creme fraiche route. Just a real easy way to feature spring/early summer veg.

I took a trip to LA recently and decided to visit Trejo's Tacos in Santa Monica for the novelty. The food was actually pretty good, and I liked the seasonal beer (Hell or High Mango) a lot!

i've been on a simple weightloss program. For breakfast it's just eggs and bacon with a whole wheat English muffin. (pluss coffee, but i don't count that)

For Lunch and Dinner it's just Spinach, Brown Rice and Chicken, with water. Not too exciting, but Chicken and Brown rice is pretty adaptable, so there are lots of fun ways to flavor it up to keep it from becoming samey. A friend of mine turned me onto Miso recently, and i've been having a lot of fun experimenting with that as a seasoning for chicken.

I got very into Indian cooking during the pandemic, and last night I made a Kala (brown) Chana dish that I’m quite fond of (btw, that website is an absolute gem for authentic recipes).

Kala Chana is quite different from your average chickpea, significantly tougher (a long soak and a pressure cooker are a must) and nuttier in flavor, but they’re absolutely delicious— particularly in a good gravy :)

I'm big on braises. Sear the outside of a piece of meat, then simmer it in a sauce/broth for a few hours until it is falling apart. I started with some of the traditional european recipes like coq au vin, which gave me the confidence to try my favorite mexican/tex-mex dish (carne guisada). That led to me trying some other mexican dishes using those tecniques, and helped me develop an awesome "Texas Red" chili recipe (no beans or tomatoes needed). So far I've tired:

• Coq Au Vin
• Osso Bucco
• Boeuf Bourguignon
• Flemmish Stew
• Guinness Stew
• Carne Guisada
• Chile Verde
• Puerco con Chile Colorado
• Carne con Calabacita y Elote
• "Texas Red" Chili (con carne)

Plus a couple of "I have a chuck roast and random veggies, let's do this" braises.

I've somehow gotten on a Mexican food kick. It started with make-ahead breakfast burritos and now I'm making enchiladas, caritas, and taco fixings all this last week.

Please send help.

Japanese curry! I love it.

Bread! I found a super simple recipe (four ingredients, little given direction) and I've been playing around with it every other day or so as i run out for about two weeks now. So far I think I've gotten it down to a simple and repeatable pattern, and it's a damn good bread, if I don't say so myself.

• 4 cups flour
• 2 cups lukewarm water
• 2 tsp yeast
• 1 tsp salt

1. mix half cup water + yeast
2. add flour, salt, and the rest of the water
3. knead, dusting with more flour until no longer sticky; rest 1 hour
4. knead again; rest another hour
5. bake at 230

Shakshuka! This recipe serves 4 with less than $6 worth of ingredients, healthy, and best of all it doesn’t taste like cardboard, it’s SO good and full of flavor! I have this multiple times a week and can’t get enough.

YouTube recipe to follow along

Ingredients (with Orange County, California prices per serving from Costco and Walmart as of 5/29/2023)

Olive oil ($0.40)

1 yellow onion ($0.85)

1 green bell pepper ($0.72)

1 serrano pepper ($0.15)

Paprika (<$0.05)

Cumin (<$0.05)

Minced Garlic ($0.10)

1 - 28oz can of whole peeled tomatoes ($1.43)

(Optional) 1 can of chickpeas

Salt (<$0.05)

4 eggs ($0.66) [24 eggs at Costco for $3.99]

Black Pepper (<$0.05)

Cilantro ($0.50)

Feta cheese ($0.40)

Toasted bread ($0.36 can be any carb of your choice)

Total cost for 4 servings: $5.77 ($1.44 per serving! I have the receipts to prove it!)

Cooking instructions:

-chop the onions, bell pepper, and hot pepper and sauté with paprika and cumin in olive oil for around 5 minutes in medium-high heat.

-once sautéed, add some garlic and after about 2 minutes, add the whole can of tomatoes. You can crush them while they cook with a wooden spoon. Keep stirring and taste it to add salt and seasoning to taste.

-Here is where you can add the chickpeas if you’d like. After around 10-15 minutes, check to see if you can move the sauce and see the bottom of the pan without it being too watery. Once the sauce has thickened, drop heat to low

-create four pockets in the sauce where you will carefully crack the 4 eggs. Add salt and pepper on the eggs and cover with a lid for 5-7 minutes

-once egg whites are cooked and yolk is still runny, add feta cheese, cilantro and it’s ready to eat! If it’s too spicy, you can drizzle a bit of honey.

I hope you guys like it! Please reach out if you have any questions.

*Prices will vary depending on where you shop and what year you are seeing this recipe in.

I just made this recipe for Burst Cherry Tomato and Miso Pasta for dinner. The freezer still had a few pounds of last summer's cherry tomatoes from the garden, and I wanted to clean up for this year's produce.

The recipe turned out great, with a couple of modifications. I only had red miso, which worked perfectly since I omitted anchovies to keep the recipe vegetarian. I also pincé-ed a couple of tablespoons of tomato paste with the garlic and peppers, to compensate for the inclusion of some yellow cherry tomatoes. The results (don't skip the crunchy black sesame seed and panko topping) have all the umami you could possibly desire. Spouse said he couldn't think of any meat ingredient that would make it taste better.

I also got the ingredients for tomorrow's dinner: Cacio e Pepe Broccolini with Crispy White Beans and Burrata.

I recently discovered Vermont Curry, an absolutely delightful Japanese curry mix that somehow tastes even better than my erstwhile favorite, S&B Foods' Golden Curry. Last night I whipped up a boiling potful of carrots, onions, green onions, broccoli, and yellow and red new potatoes, along with about a pound and a half of boneless chicken thighs. I call this my not-guilty guilty pleasure, because while it is made with a mix, it's also (relatively) healthy, and makes enough leftovers for at least 4 or 5 dinners throughout the week (depending on how hungry I get!)

Add just a bit of jasmine rice to go alongside it and you've got yourself a delicious stew any time of year :)