Week Ten: Back to Basics & a Birthday Bash
Sunday 4/16/23
Random grazing
We had an unusually busy and social weekend that culminated in eating ice cream sandwiches with a visiting friend at 4:30pm, and after we put the baby to bed, Anne and I got totally absorbed in making collages with some old magazines our friend had brought over. Neither of us were terribly hungry at dinnertime (see above re: ice cream sandwiches), so we ended up randomly snacking. I had leftover pork fried rice and Anne had a bowl of cereal and some edamame. I did not take photographs of this meal, but here’s the collage I made.
Tomorrow I’ll get back to basics and conduct a fridge and freezer inventory to see what I can plan some meals around. But it was fun to take the night off from being a responsible grown-up and just have some low-stakes creative time.
Monday 4/17/23
Red lentil curry with carrots, potatoes and peanuts
As promised, I did a kitchen inventory today and planned some meals around my current holdings. After last week’s Easter feast and many, many pork-based dishes as we tried to use up the roast, I decided to go back to basics and keep things on the simpler, lighter side this week.
When I’m going back to basics, this lentil curry is the first thing I think of. It meets my FETCH criteria (Filling, Easy, Tasty, Cheap and Healthy), and it’s a dish I’ve made so often that I don’t need a recipe anymore. I started cooking lentils by using Mark Bittman’s basic dal recipe from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, and I’ve learned over the years how to craft a lentil curry that is just to my liking.
I sauté diced onion and tomato paste in hot olive oil, add one cup of rinsed red lentils, and toss in a bunch of spices—usually curry, turmeric, chili powder, black pepper, and this Berbere Ethiopian spice blend, of which I’m a big fan. Then I add some chopped starchy vegetables. I love carrot and potato, but sweet potato is a fun addition too. And I always keep a jar of roasted salted peanuts on hand, because I love the consistency they get after simmering in the stew. I’ve never tried the famous Southern combo of peanuts in Coke, but I imagine there’s a similar alchemy at play.
Depending on my mood, I search my pantry for something else to add: a can of chickpeas, diced tomatoes, or even pumpkin puree. Sometimes I throw in some diced tofu if I have some in the fridge. Then I cover the lentils with a few cups of water, bring to a boil, and let it simmer for 20-30 minutes, until the lentils turn soft and the veggies are cooked through. I taste it throughout, and adjust the seasoning. Towards the end of cooking, I stir in a can of coconut milk (full-fat, always), and when it’s done, I add the juice of one whole lemon. And more peanuts at the end for crunch.
Tuesday 4/18/23
Bucatini with sautéed shrimp and tomatoes
Bucatini! I had never cooked this type of pasta before, basically a thicker, hollow spaghetti noodle. Not only is bucatini fun to say, it was very good, with a nice bite to it.
I had planned to make a different, slightly more involved meal tonight, and then I got tired and wanted to do something simple. Of course, once I got in the kitchen, I made it slightly more complicated and it ended up being just as much work as the other meal would’ve been, but I got to cook something fun and eat a delicious dinner, so it’s a win all around.
I sautéed some shrimp with chopped garlic and threw in a bunch of halved grape tomatoes, then deglazed the pan with fresh lemon juice and a splash of reserved pasta water (the starch helps bind everything together). I tossed the noodles in this bright, citrusy sauce and topped it with fresh Parmesan.
Wednesday 4/19/23
Spring roll noodle salad
My sister Abbey recently told me about a salad she invented, which she called a “deconstructed spring roll salad.” Salad greens, vermicelli, shaved carrots, diced red peppers, edamame, mango, basil, and peanuts, with a dipping-sauce-inspired dressing of hoisin, peanut butter, rice wine vinegar and lime juice. I knew I had to try it and report back to my loyal readers.
So I gave it a shot. My version didn’t live up to the full potential of the original recipe for a few reasons. Most crucially, I didn’t have the right kind of salad greens for it (baby spinach and kale blend would not have been the right move) and I didn’t feel like going back to the store, so I just omitted greens completely, and there was no satisfying crunch to offset the richness of the dressing. The dressing was so good, though: bright and tangy with lime, creamy from the peanut butter, with a hit of umami from the hoisin. When I make this again, I will definitely use thinly sliced cabbage as the base. And I will use shrimp sautéed in sesame oil, as Abbey suggested, instead of going rogue and adding diced tofu as my protein (which was fine, it just wasn’t delicious). I guess I just didn’t want to have shrimp two nights in a row, but why not? Maybe I’ve been so concerned with making dinner FETCH that I forgot about the importance of YOLO.
This dinner reminded me of similar creative dishes from a cookbook called Salads Are More Than Leaves, a gorgeous cookbook that features hearty and delicious salads. Highly recommend. See if your library has it! When I realized I could check out cookbooks from my library instead of buying them, it was a game changer: all the inspiration with none of the commitment.
Thursday 4/20/23
Birthday sushi and strawberry shortcake
Today is Anne’s birthday! So we ordered sushi from Ozu, a few blocks away. Sushi is not the most filling of all meals, and I was really yearning for a fresh, crunchy salad after yesterday’s entry, so I chopped up some cabbage, carrots and cucumber to have alongside our takeout, and whipped up this sesame ginger dressing.
The sushi was great. We ordered charred edamame, salmon nigiri, a spicy tuna roll (my personal fave) and a roll with salmon, tuna, yellowtail and cucumber, which the Ozu menu called a “Crazy Roll,” but honestly, there wasn’t anything too crazy going on. I mean, it didn’t have wasabi mayo or mysterious “crunch flakes” or deep-fried cream cheese, just some straightforward, sensible fish and rice. Everything was flavorful and fresh.
Personally, I think birthday desserts are a BIG DEAL. Anne is less of a dessert person than I am, and generally prefers something light and fresh, so I made strawberry shortcake. And by “made,” I mean I sliced up some strawberries over a Sara Lee poundcake. I did make real whipped cream, though, and stuck a candle in it. Happy birthday, Anne!
Friday 4/21/23
Big Salad
Returning to a tried-and-true favorite. Tonight’s Big Salad was chopped baby spinach and kale, with carrots, cucumbers, grape tomatoes, avocado, boiled eggs, and toasted pistachios. I made my favorite lemon vinaigrette, but I wanted to tone down the citrusy bite a touch, so I added two teaspoons of tahini at the end, which rounded the edges of the flavor.
Remember way back in Week Six when I blithely waved off Anne’s question about whether I’d ever run out of things to say about Big Salad? Well, as hubris has felled many a Greek hero, so too has it felled me. I honestly can’t think of anything else to say about this salad. Maybe I’m just tired from a long, fun day; we took the baby to Liberty State Park for a picnic this afternoon, and we had fun eating cheese and crackers, and excitedly pointing out nearby Ellis Island (me) and excitedly scoping out the bike trails (Anne) and contentedly ignoring the playground equipment to dig in the mulch beneath it (the baby).
Anne did say, while eating this salad, “I could eat this salad forever,” and that felt like very high praise. It was a good salad!
Saturday 4/22/23
Stir fry with broccoli, cabbage, pepper, tofu, and pork dumplings
Well! Tonight’s dinner was… eventful. Not only did I ruin a perfectly good batch of pork dumplings and burn a pan of tofu, filling the kitchen with smoke, I also managed to catch a dish towel on fire (but just a little bit on fire). This is a recipe I’ve made dozens of times! What the heck went wrong?
I think it all started when I had the pan too hot for frying the tofu. I can be an impatient cook, which is probably why I’m not great at baking. The cornstarch-coated tofu started to brown and stick to the pan, and little crumbly bits broke away and turned black. That would’ve been fine, except after removing the tofu from the pan, I didn’t clear out the little burnt pieces before preparing to stir-fry the veggies in the same pan (I can also be a slightly lazy cook, when tired).
So I added sliced garlic and ginger paste to hot oil in the still too-hot pan. This is when the burning party really got going, and the kitchen air got smoky, and I called on Anne to help me turn on all the fans and open the windows before the smoke detector could wake the baby.
Instead of letting the pan cool and cleaning out the burnt mess to start over (see above re: laziness), I decided to switch to cooking the veggies in the wok, which I find tricky and almost never use. It’s much smaller than my favorite pan, so tossing the veggies as they cooked was a clumsy affair, and a good amount of cabbage spilled over the sides. Plus, the crowded pan meant that the veggies steamed, instead of getting to that nice tender-crunchy-seared point that I usually aim for.
Don’t even ask what happened with the dumplings. I’ll just say that the whole debacle strengthened my conviction never to trust the microwave with a job more serious than reheating a bowl of soup.
Ultimately, though, all was well. The smoke alarm didn’t go off, the baby slumbered on, and we ended up with a hot dinner that was more than palatable. And in a happy accident, the charred bits of garlic in deeply caramelized ginger paste made for extraordinary snacking, right out of the burnt pan.
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Thanks for reading this week’s Dinner Diary! Here’s the link to last week in case you missed it.
And a big, heartfelt thank you to everyone who has donated to my birthday fundraiser for City Harvest. Thanks to my generous readers, we are more than halfway to our goal of raising $300 before May 7th! I’m stoked! You can feast your eyes on our beautiful progress here, and you can also check if your employer offers the benefit of matching your gift.
Have a great week, everyone! May your stir-frying be uneventful, and your sushi rolls reasonable.
XO,
Hannah