“We double-parked. We put the sunroof down and started playing whatever that Bruno Mars song is about getting married. The Glee version popped up, and I was like, “We can’t do this … I don’t know what they want as a wedding song, but I know it’s not this.”
Recipe suggestions for long weeks staying in
Not knowing what was ahead, and also wanting to be responsible about staying home as much as possible, last weekend I planned out three weeks worth of meals I could make from from one grocery run. There was a big emphasis on shelf-stable ingredients, naturally, and the kinds of vegetables that are fine hanging out in the fridge for a week or two until you’re ready for them.
I also found I’d steered toward things with pretty punchy flavor profiles, lots of umami and heat and brine, that were still at their core some pretty classic comfort foods. This was the mix I was after; maybe it will be for you too.
All recipes vegetarian—if you adapt any to vegan, gluten- or dairy-free let me know and I’ll update with alterations for others with those dietary needs!
Which I call pierogi potstickers because I like an alliterative. Making dumplings takes some time but lol we got that right now, and here’s the cool part: after you boil them all up, you can lay out a few servings in a single layer on a baking sheet, pop them in your freezer for an hour to set up without freezing TO each other, then dump them all in a bag. Now you’ve got a stockpile of potstickers in the freezer, that you can just thaw and proceed to fry up in a pan for any potsticker emergency.
My recipe notes: You can definitely fit a tablespoon of filling in each one, don’t know where they’re getting this ½ teaspoon idea from. Two different kinds of cheese seemed finicky to me, and when I first made these for an Oscar party (ah, remember gatherings) I already had a goat cheese thing on the table, so subbed 1 cup grated fontina for all the cheese, and it was super great so I still use it. Japanese miso can be used instead of the Chinese fermented bean paste the recipe calls for, and I usually drizzle them with a Thai hot chili oil, so it’s a really pan-Asian thing I’ve got going on here. On a Polish potato base. ~Fusion~
Yotam Ottolenghi’s Ultimate Winter Couscous [Can also be found in his cookbook Plenty]
A nice way to keep using up the cilantro you bought for the wontons! But also not really all that essential for this particular dish, which already has a ton of flavor going on with the warm spices as well as harissa and preserved lemon, so could definitely be skipped if you’re not going to have it on hand. And that’s really the only tenuously perishable ingredient—the carrots, parsnips, etc you can store for weeks before cooking them.
My recipe notes: This time I substituted one large sweet potato for the squash, because I have finally acknowledged that I am a person who just does not care for squash. I also always dump in a whole can of chickpeas instead of this “1 cup” business.
Now in contrast to cilantro, I find parsley to be a very hardy fresh herb, especially if I clip off the leafy parts and store them loosely in a container in the fridge. I’ve gotten weeks of fresh parsley this way, which is very handy for puttanesca, the salty-rich pantry staple pasta queen. Maybe you can’t go out but you can still have A CAPER!
My recipe notes: I just use a whole 15 oz can of tomatoes. I believe you may be sensing a theme with me and canned goods.
***
Happy cooking, folks! If you have any kitchen questions, just let me know. And, if you are lucky enough to have the means right now and would like a way to help others eat well too during this crisis, consider donating to José Andrés’ team of food first responders at World Central Kitchen.
Coronupdate #2
Sometimes I just get struck by the surrealism. The strangeness of the entire world skidding to a halt; the strangeness of even being one world now, All-One like a Dr. Bronner’s soap label. All our astronomically advanced tech and this global economy you’d think would stop for no one and no thing, and then along comes a new little virus and collective humankind just goes oh noooooo, not those guys that’s our weakness!! And just like that you live in a completely different society, in a different era of history. It’s astonishing.
My best friend is a mental health care provider at a VA in Massachusetts, and in a letter to them all from the doctor in charge of Veterans Affairs, he discussed how part of their job is also to aid civilians in times of national crisis. Or as he put it, with this simple and homey word choice that got stuck in her head all day, “help support a worried American public.”
I love this, because that’s it, both aspects of it: we’re all worried, but it’s making us more familial, more one. You can see it just in what people are putting online during this time, things more quaint and unpolished and lo-fi and lovable. Capitalism is momentarily suspended, and so that ~content~ gloss is coming off, along with its attendant distance. Public figures and artists are just recording things in their living rooms, at their kitchen tables, not run through the usual fine comb to make it a Product, something marketable. Fumbles and interruptions are left in with a laugh, and with each of these we grow closer.
When I was in college they brought a speaker in to talk to us about the cult of effortless perfection, this social lie so many of us buy into where we pretend to one another that we Just Woke Up Like This. Covid-19 seems to be stripping away that facade, through the very same internet where it had been just flourishing prior. People everywhere are now revealing the true nature of humans, which is that we just ARE little lo-fi creatures. We’re all soft and dorky and worried right now, and the mods are asleep, so post Sam Neill washing all his shoes.
That quote from brecht that’s like “Will there be singing in the dark times? Yes, there will be singing, about Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat.”
“The officials have alerted us to ensure we have a month’s worth of necessities. Zelda and I have stocked up on red wine, whiskey, rum, vermouth, absinthe, white wine, sherry, gin, and lord, if we need it, brandy. Please pray for us.”
—
F. Scott Fitzgerald, from a 1920 letter (written under quarantine in the south of France during the outbreak of Spanish influenza)
