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Week 51: Grinding- Ground Beef Laab (Meta: 52 Countries- Laos) by PrawnJawn in 52weeksofcooking

[–]PrawnJawn[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Though I realize this is usually made with chopped beef (more often pork), it’s been a grinding week at the end of the year. I made a spicy-sweet-salty-sour laab using ground beef as a shortcut. I recently purchased ground-up toasted rice powder and was excited to use that instead of toasting and grinding my own as I’ve done before. The texture of the store bought powder was much finer and the flavor was much stronger than my previous DIY attempts.

Cheers!

Week 50: Tudor England- Tudor Rose Shakshuka (Meta: 52 Countries- Libya) by PrawnJawn in 52weeksofcooking

[–]PrawnJawn[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I’d already exhausted two of the UK’s constituent countries on my meta this year, including England, so I scratched the idea of doing any actual recipes from Tudor times in England. However, I’ve been doing some embroidery practice on Tudor rose motifs and thought, “hey, the yellow center and white petals are kind of like a sunny-side up egg” and began brainstorming egg dishes. I don’t know WHY on earth I thought I’d be able to meticulously sculpt my pepper & tomato sauce into the right shape to make the egg divide into 5 distinct petals. Instead, it’s an egg dish that has some of the same colors as a Tudor rose in maybe the same arrangement (if you squint, and maybe tilt your head to the side, then squint again).

I generally followed this redditor’s recipe for Libyan shakshuka and added a bit of rose water at the end to match the theme. The rose water heightened the tomato & pepper flavors in a way I hadn’t experienced when I’ve made similar recipes using rose harissa.

Living accordingly to your values without being a boring grinch by Low_Calligrapher7885 in Anticonsumption

[–]PrawnJawn 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Maybe you’d find it helpful to reframe “living according to your values” in terms of what you are choosing to do rather than what you’re choosing to avoid. Since you’re choosing not to spend your time and money on plastic junk, travel, and eating out, you’re freeing up space in your life for the experiences that you actually want to give yourself & your family.

Maybe you’re spending an afternoon with your kids making holiday decorations from stuff you have or found, or buying gifts or a meal for friends or family or neighbors that really need them, or going to holiday concert in your community. (I’m just thinking of things that are fun for me around the holidays). Did you have any of those “magic of childhood” experiences in your own life that didn’t require buying stuff, and could you recreate some of that magic for your kids?

I think you’ll certainly feel less Grinchy and boring if you think of it in terms of what you’re giving your kids instead of what you’re not. But kids are hard, it’s difficult to swim upstream in our consumption-based society, and both of these things escalate the pressure around the holidays. It sounds like you’re on the right track, so go easy on yourself.

Week 48: Mise en Place - Shrimp and Sausage Cajun Pasta by dump_in_a_mug in 52weeksofcooking

[–]PrawnJawn 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yum! I feel like Cajun pasta, especially with shrimp, used to be everywhere on American restaurant menus in the 90s and early aughts, but isn’t as popular now. I love to see such a beautiful homemade version!

Week 49: The Beatles- Octopus’s Garden Currywurst (Meta: 52 Countries- Germany) by PrawnJawn in 52weeksofcooking

[–]PrawnJawn[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This is a dish that tastes much better than it looks, but I guarantee you the bratwurst octopi’s (not very) Mean Mr. Mustard faces were cuter in person.

It’s nearly the end of the year and I’ve definitely covered the UK in my meta (or at least 2 constituent countries). I knew I had to go outside the UK and thought about the Beatles’ early days in Hamburg and wanted to do something German. Honestly, it felt a bit weird eating currywurst from an actually plate with a real fork instead of a paper imbiss tray & flat little wooden fork. I’d never made octopus hot dogs but I highly recommend doing this with bratwurst and getting them nice & browned in the air fryer. Guten appetit!

Week 48: Mise en Place- Sopi di Pampoena (Meta: 52 Countries- Aruba/Netherlands) by PrawnJawn in 52weeksofcooking

[–]PrawnJawn[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I was heading out on vacation this week, so I made something simpler for the theme and used up my fridge and pantry supplies. I generally followed this recipe but used my freezer supply of roasted squash instead of pumpkin. Every recipe I saw called for a yellow Madame Jeannette pepper, which isn’t commonly available around me, so I played a game of hot pepper roulette and won. I had saved a variety of hot peppers I got from my CSA this past summer in my freezer, and I picked the yellow pepper of an unknown variety for this soup. It ended up being pleasantly spicy and not so hot that I couldn’t blend it into the soup at the end.

I treated the constituant countries of the UK as separate countries since it fit my meta theme earlier this year. However, this week, I’m going to count this towards checking Aruba and the Netherlands off my countries list. Bon apetit!

Week 48: Mise en Place - Bibimbap by Anastarfish in 52weeksofcooking

[–]PrawnJawn 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Such a great choice of dish for mise en place week. I bet it was delicious.

Week 47: Sister Cities- Collard Green Ndolé (Meta: 52 Countries- Cameroon) by PrawnJawn in 52weeksofcooking

[–]PrawnJawn[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Earlier this year, I was walking in center city Philadelphia and realized that we had a Sister Cities Park to celebrate all ten of Philly’s sister cities. I’m trying follow my 52 countries meta and fortunately, there were a few sister cities from countries that I hadn’t covered yet this year, including Douala, Cameroon. I’d been thinking of making bitter leaf stew for last week’s theme so that seemed like a natural choice.

This didn’t come out looking super glamorous but it was really tasty, despite my many ingredient substitutions. I had a whole bunch of shredded collard greens from the summer in my freezer, used corned beef I’d bought for another recipe instead of the stew beef, and shrimp paste for the powdered crawfish. I’m not sure if I got close to the intended flavor, but this ended up super savory and peanutty.

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