At Home || Cooking
Oh my goodness! The world has become a crazy place. I’m sure the last days have been surreal to you and your families. I know it has been for us. We are on day 13 of our quarantine and have been anxiety baking, cooking, reading, watching movies and organizing. I slowly got over our change from fun Spring Break plans to a quarantined scenario. Cooking is what really has helped me get through the uncertainty. There is something quietly meditative and fullfilling about prepping, chopping, and cooking as you offer your family comforting meals and time together at the table. I have a few great recipes I recently found that I have been been making on repeat. I will share those with you below.
This is my daughter’s first week of online school and, so far, everything seems to be going well. The sun has decided to come out these last few days, which has been a welcome gift, since it has been raining for about three weeks straight. Because I have a bit more time these days I hope to get back to blogging a bit as therapy and I hope it offers you a bit of entertainment as well. If there is anything you want to see during the coming weeks please let me know. I will be happy to oblige.
For this first blog post I wanted to focus on sharing a few recipes that we have found great comfort in these days. As well as share with you a few cookbooks that I’m leaning on and some cooking gadgets I’m loving right now. So, basically, I’m focusing on the kitchen today.
If you love bolognese sauce you will love this recipe. I love it over pasta or also in a lasagna as well. This beet and dill salmon with potatoes was delicious. With the beets the salmon turns the prettiest pink! These chickpea burgers have also been a great hit. You can always make a double batch and freeze them for days you are less inspired to cook. And this is the easiest and yummiest roasted chicken you will ever make.
If you have never made bread at home, now is the time to try it. I found this easy and fool proof recipe that made the most delicious and beautiful loaf ever. We had this for dinner one night with wine, cheese and apples. It was a hit. Plan ahead for this one because the dough needs to rise between 12 and 18 hours- so worth it and so fulfilling. In times like these it brings me comfort to know I can bake my own bread, something you can live off of for weeks should we have to (I know it’s a dramatic thought, but we are living under some dramatic circumstances). Buy bread flour and yeast next time you go to the market! You will thank me.
Since I bought too many bananas (blame the anxiety) we have also been making tons of banana bread muffins. We wrap them individually and freeze them and can have them for breakfast whenever we have the craving. The recipe is actually for a loaf but we converted to muffins by changing the cooking time to 25 minutes. When it gives you a choice of ingredients we chose: olive oil, greek yogurt, wheat flour, honey and mini chocolate chips. And they came out divine! So you can see these are healthy too. A perfect breakfast for the kids before distance learning school days.
And now for a few sweet recipes. You probably have a great chocolate cookie recipe already. But this one is really divine! You have to plan ahead because the dough must be refrigerated at least 24 hours before baking. What we did, that proved to be a great idea, is before refrigerating the dough for 24 hours we formed golf sized balls and left them in a container in the refrigerator. When it was time to bake we just baked the few we were going to eat and froze the rest of the dough. Now we just do single servings by warming up the oven when we want a cookie, pour some salt on top and in it goes. Nothing beats a warm cookie straight from the oven!
Whenever I make this flourless chocolate cake for my friends they love it because it is so delicious and light- and it is surprinsingly easy. Now I make it just for us and so we get larger serving. Win/Win! But I do hope I get to host my friends soon and make this for them.
Here is some cooking equipment that has made cooking easier and my life in quarantine better- If you don’t already own a silicone sheet to bake cookies or roast veggies, you need this asap. I have a couple of them and wonder how I ever lived without them before. They come in different shapes and for different types of food. Take a look here. They are resuable, so you don’t have to worry about parchment paper or buttering the tray. Everything comes off like a charm. Also, I never owned a dutch oven. They are expensive and I never made a recipe that required one, but when I saw the bread recipe I shared with you above I knew I had to get one. I found a beautiful inexpensive version that worked gloriously from target. I’m so happy with it and it sure saved me a pretty penny. If I notice that I use it often I will look into getting a higher-end version later on. Also, I have been drinking so much hot water with lemon lately (my home remedy for avoiding the corona virus) but my electric tea kettle gave out so I upgraded to this beauty. Drinking tea is now a much chicer and exciting activity!
I have also been perusing my cookbooks and identifying recipes I always wanted to try and forgot about. Here are the ones I especially love: Ina Garten: Making it ahead, Ina Garten- Back to Basics, Forest Feast, Mimi Thor.
Let me know of any recipes you are swearing by these days that I should try. I would love expand my repertoire. And I should be back soon with other quarantine themed posts. Stay tuned and wishing you patience and perseverance in the meantime. XX
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