ND Food & Travel Posts

Meals

Baked Feta Beans

https://www.tiktok.com/@carina.wolff/video/7245727285603585322

While Googling recipes for various Rancho Gordo beans, a TikTok appeared where you bake 'the TikTok pasta' (feta, olive oil, and tomatoes) but with beans instead of pasta. You still have the labor of soaking and boiling the beans before starting this process. Also beans have a limited amount of yum. Sprinkled in peas before serving, since I had some leftover from another recipe.
Not a fail, not a favorite.

Cheesecake Factory Spicy Chipotle Chicken Pasta

https://moribyan.com/cheesecake-factory-spicy-chipotle-chicken-pasta/

This was tasty. It's a lot of heavy cream. The canned chipotle (whole or paste) will be useful for many recipes.
For the marinated chicken, I cooked a package of shawarma chicken from Trader Joe's. It's really good and saves time.

Crispy Calabrian Chili Pepper Potatoes & Yogurt

I've had Calabrian chili hoping to someday make assassin's spaghetti, and finally opened the jar for this recipe. It was pleasantly easy to toss the potatoes with olive oil and chili (though this to mushing them). The crispier parts of the potato skin made me feel like I was eating a spicy bacon dish.

This and the Turkish eggs are a pleasant surprise because I've never liked yogurt.

Got fancy Cyprus olive oil from Whole Foods.

Lahori Paneer Korma

https://jyokitchen607760324.wordpress.com/2018/02/16/paneer-lahori-restaurant-style-paneer-lahori/

Inspired by this Instagram post, went and found a more static recipe: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C8Tpgf5h06y/

Good paneer curry, nothing super stand-out.

Levain Bakery Chocolate Chip Crush Cookies

https://www.modernhoney.com/levain-bakery-chocolate-chip-crush-cookies/

A half-recipe was enough for five cookies in my book. My mods: extra cornstarch to make up for all-purpose flour, a sprinkle of espresso powder, probably should try again with two types of chips. The cookies are characteristically thick and gooey after 10 minutes in the oven.

Marbled Ube Cookies

https://constellationinspiration.com/2022/05/marbled-ube-cookies.html

On my dessert recipe todos for a while - sugar cookies with ube powder. These turned out pretty good! I don't have the paste, but the ube portion was a little thicker and gooeyer. For some reason I thought swirl cookies were going to be a skill issue, but it was easy!

Naleśniki (Polish crepes with sweet cheese filling)

https://www.everyday-delicious.com/nalesniki-recipe/

Inspired by Beryl's video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bBZqBwL1ec

After the first crepe, these came out really good. I used Whole Foods farmers cheese. It wasn't clear how long to pan-fry the crepes at the end to cook the filling, but I just gave them an extra level of browning.

Asides

Not really a full recipe, but I've been making the halal cart rice from https://moribyan.com/halal-cart-chicken-and-rice/ ; went well with lamb kofta meatballs.

My extra-antioxidant purple GMO tomatoes from Norfolk Healthy Produce are growing little seedlings! I should also try to grow the butterfly pea, which is used to color nasi kerabu and other Southeast Asian dishes.

I finally got into Rancho Gordo's bean subscription and received a box. This was WAY more beans than one person can cook and eat in 3 months. I had to cancel future deliveries.

Looking for the right recipe for a cacao + chili blend powder that I got.

Kitchen Goals Update

After trying huazontles in Puebla, Mexico, I'm going to make a goal to find them at a Mexican grocery here in Chicago.

I'm making good use of the bulk lentils, brown rice, and quinoa in my kitchen. Still a lot to try going forward.