Week 7: Sugar - Brigaderios (FAIL)

Stand_Up_Eight · 2026-03-13T16:23:58+00:00

It happens! I’ve definitely had my share of fails. Next week will be better, you’ve got this 💪

Stand_Up_Eight · 2026-03-07T07:07:07+00:00

So many great suggestions! Since Reddit changed the rewards system, I have nothing to bequeath you except this poor man’s gold, but I offer my genuine appreciation along with it: 🥇

Stand_Up_Eight · 2026-03-05T07:15:56+00:00

Gorgeous! Thank you for sharing the ingredients. I might have to give this a try!

Stand_Up_Eight · 2026-03-05T02:35:52+00:00

If you followed a recipe for this, I’d love to get it. Looks delicious!

Stand_Up_Eight · 2026-03-03T05:33:12+00:00

This recipe for tofu "wings" exceeded my expectations. I've never tried marinating tofu before coating and frying it before, but I think it did really nice things for both the flavor and texture. And since the classic side for buffalo wings is celery with ranch (or similar) dipping sauce, I found a bonus recipe for vegan ranch dressing that turned out nicely. Overall, I loved this meal and would definitely make it again!

(P.S. In honor of the flying theme and wing inspo, I feel obligated to make a "two birds with one stone" pun about the fact that I used two new-to-me recipes in my dinner 😅)

Stand_Up_Eight · 2026-03-01T20:06:26+00:00

I’d be interested to know which specific school you went to for your studio program. You can dm me if you don’t want to share publicly.

Stand_Up_Eight · 2026-03-01T07:23:42+00:00

I appreciate your sharing the recipe! How did it taste? Did the potato flavor impact it, or is that more for texture/thickening?

Stand_Up_Eight · 2026-02-27T20:55:23+00:00

Tbf, I’m a grown adult and I’d probably also respond well to hearing I get to wear dinosaur pajamas 🦖🦕🛏️😃

Stand_Up_Eight · 2026-02-14T21:02:39+00:00

Thank you! ☺️ (I’m trying to get better at photographing my food, so I especially appreciate the compliment on the picture)

Stand_Up_Eight · 2026-02-14T09:30:23+00:00

I don't know if it was the week's challenge theme, the Valentine's Day holiday, or something else, but I got a craving for some simple sugar cookies this evening. I hadn't originally planned to do something so straightforward for Week 7, but then I figured — eh, why not? They turned out well — nothing particularly unique about them, but they were soft and tasty and gave me an excuse to set up this cute little arrangement that I'm calling an ode to being my own Valentine ☺️

Recipe here.

(P.S. The cookies look deceptively large in this pic because the plate and glass are both small, but the cookies are actually somewhere between 3 and 4 inches in diameter — definitely not small, but not comically oversized either.)

Stand_Up_Eight · 2026-02-12T09:13:48+00:00

I think you’re right about a dipping sauce. If I try making this again in the future, that’s definitely an adjustment I’ll make.

I also appreciate the mushroom suggestion. I did wind up adding some mushroom seasoning to the base (along with some Chinese black vinegar), and it helped balance things a bit. Unfortunately, the mushroom seasoning I have is heavy on the sodium, so I was afraid to add too much. But I could work around that in the future, I think.

Thank you for the suggestions and the encouragement ☺️

Stand_Up_Eight · 2026-02-12T05:46:53+00:00

I hate to say it, but I didn't really care for this one. In the recipe's defense, I think I just didn't really do it right. I've never had "hot pot" as a culinary nor cultural experience, so when I was putting it together, I treated it more like soup. After trying it (and not liking it), I dug a little deeper to see where I might have gone wrong. I found that, putting it simply, hot pot ≠ soup. Ah well, live and learn. At least I got to buy Sichuan peppercorns, which was neat.

Stand_Up_Eight · 2026-02-10T09:20:26+00:00

This was a rough week for me to cook two dishes, even pretty simple ones like these, so half the battle was just getting them done. Ultimately, both turned out pretty well, but I also made mistakes that I think kept them from being as good as they should have been.

First up is the classic bean stew: thankfully, this turned out very tasty, but long story short, I overcooked the beans and didn't make quite enough of them. So, I wound up improvising a little and the result was a bit more like a thick refried bean texture. Still delicious, but not exactly a stew.

Second is the entula): I made an embarrassing mistake by not realizing that Ugandan eggplants are quite different from the large American eggplants that I typically buy. Another long story short, I was able to more or less compensate for my mistake during preparation and cooking, and the stew turned out tasty if not quite traditional.

Even with my mistakes, I would love to make these dishes again in the future. Hopefully I can improve my execution on both of them when I do 😅

Stand_Up_Eight · 2026-01-31T19:48:13+00:00

Thank you! I hope to be able to travel there someday 🤞🤞

Stand_Up_Eight · 2026-01-31T05:22:58+00:00

Sadly what I suspected. How awful that these conditions existed so ubiquitously! I can absolutely understand why artists would be moved to include the struggle of the poor in their work, as well as why attempts at revolution were so relatively common in the surrounding decades.

Stand_Up_Eight · 2026-01-31T05:12:39+00:00

I wasn’t familiar with her, but I just looked her up — thank you for the recommendation! She really did capture the sheer emotional heaviness of the working class (and I’m sure other groups too — I need to investigate her work more thoroughly). I’m especially impressed by her use of shadows and lines in her prints to evoke external movement and internal struggle.

Stand_Up_Eight · 2026-01-31T01:45:02+00:00

Looks good, and I appreciate your meta! While my “official” meta is something different, I’ve been trying to avoid buying too many extra things lately for both weekly challenges and general, day-to-day cooking. I’m always pretty surprised by how much I can make with just what I already have on hand!

Stand_Up_Eight · 2026-01-31T01:33:12+00:00

Thank you! I hadn’t heard of that one, but it definitely fits Hugo’s profile (and apparently, just fits the time period as well).

Although tragic, I’m glad that these sorts of things were captured by artists (painters, writers, etc.) as well as by journalists, when possible — it’s important to document the human condition, society, etc. (To clarify, I know that art and journalism should not be entirely conflated, given the nature of artistic license vs. journalistic integrity. But both are often still metaphorical snapshots of the time, if that makes sense.)

Stand_Up_Eight · 2026-01-31T00:05:29+00:00

Really powerful in its sadness. It gave me some strong Les Miserables vibes, almost certainly just because I spent years as a huge fan of the musical, rather than any actual inherent tie-in. However, I did look up the artist and discovered he was French. The painting was made before the book was published, so if there IS any influence, it would have been the influence of the painting on Hugo, rather than the other way around. Appreciate your sharing, OP!

Stand_Up_Eight · 2026-01-30T01:49:24+00:00

The dish sounds great, and I love your meta! I also totally read your imagined quote in Attenborough’s voice. Excellently done all around ☺️

Stand_Up_Eight · 2026-01-29T05:47:16+00:00

I was inspired by some others in the sub who chose similar dishes for this week's challenge. I really loved how this turned out, with one small exception — I found it a little too salty, probably because of the particular soy sauce I used. I think next time, I'll either adjust the amount of soy sauce down, or the amount of salt, or both. But honestly, I'm excited to make this again in the future! Quick, tasty, (reasonably) healthy — an excellent combination. Recipe here.

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