2020: Week 36

August 31, 2020 – September 6, 2020

Bucket List Items Accomplished

Crochet. I found this single crochet stitch video from the Crochet Guru quite helpful.
Make corn tortillas
Eat plant based/vegan for a week. I finished on Saturday.
Make yogurt
Make chilaquiles
Go river tubing. I finally went down the Cowichan River. I rented a tube and it took about two and a half luxurious, relaxing hours. I went by myself and enjoyed listening to an audiobook while I floated along.
Make pakoras
Make biryani

Things I Enjoyed this Week

I want to continue posting the new words I find in the wild from books or podcasts.
1. Physalis – ground cherry or gooseberry, small orange fruit surrounded by a papery lantern
2. Desultory – lacking consistency or a plan, unfocused, without purpose, occurring randomly
3. Oubliette – a secret dungeon accessed only by a trapdoor in the ceiling
4. Mithridatism – self administering small quantities of poison to build immunity

I watched no Oscar Best Picture Winners.

I taught myself no new constellations this week.

Meal Prep and New Recipes Tried

I finished up my plant based week. I started last Saturday. I started up using some animal products again on Saturday after finishing a week. I also cooked a lot of new recipes and had so much fun doing it.

I made Vegan Chickpea Flour Pancakes from Running on Real Food. I bought a big bag of besan (chickpea flour) to prepare for some Indian cooking I wanted to do. I don’t know if the flavour of the chickpea flour really works well in pancakes. To me, it has an earthy flavour that lends itself better to savoury accompaniments. The pancakes were filling and satisfying though. I cooked some frozen blueberries down with lemon juice to pour overtop.
I made Socca, a chickpea flour flatbread from Nice, France, with this recipe from the Kitchn. I did half of the recipe in the bottom of a loaf tin, and it worked beautifully. The flavour melded really well with refried beans.
I made Corn Tortillas using this easy guide from Simply Recipes. It was so much easier than I thought it would be, and they are much more delicious and flavourful than store-bought. I don’t have a tortilla press, so I just rolled each ball out between waxed paper. They were irregular around the edges, but still tasted great and would make fine wraps. Once you get going, you can roll each new one while the previous one cooks.
I used my homemade corn tortillas to make Chilaquiles using a combo of this Chilaquiles recipe from Mexico in my Kitchen and this Chilaquiles recipe from My Latina Table. I used red salsa, added thinly sliced red onion, cilantro, avocado, and a fried egg. I balked at buying $8 cotija, but it would have definitely been a nice addition.
I made yogurt without a yogurt maker by roughly following this recipe for Homemade Yogurt in Mason Jars from Food in Jars. I made a couple of modifications. I kept the milk in the dutch oven I used to heat the milk instead of transfering to jars, and since I don’t have a cooler, I wrapped my covered dutch oven in a couple of towels and left it in a cold oven overnight.
I used my yogurt to make some Chia Seed Puddings. I used the ratios from this Giada de Laurentiis recipe on the Food Network, except I used frozen blueberries throughout instead of strawberries on top and didn’t sweeten or add almonds.
Baked Pakoras from Kind Earth’s recipe were so simple and crisped up nicely without being fried.
Gosht ki Biryani (Lamb Biryani) from Maunika Gowardhan’s recipe was fairly simple. The lamb just requires a long simmering time before being layered and baked.
I made Spicy Tofu Sofritas following Pinch of Yum’s recipe. The flavours in this are so good. I will have this on shredded lettuce with refried beans, roasted red peppers, diced or cherry tomatoes, red cabbage, avocado, and corn.