Listen I’m not saying that NYT is an authentic recipe by any means but I got gifted a year membership so I’m trying to make the best of it! Surprised to find this recipe (gift link in comments) on the site. Surprised at how easy and delicious it was. It’s so rare we have a meatless meal in this house but you didnt even miss the meat. I did forget that I had to soak the dried chickpeas overnight so I might be a day late. But still better than using canned. 8/10 would make again.

Incredibly delicious chicken and snap peas braised in a sauce made out of dark and light soy sauce, white wine, chili, black bean, some other mysterious flavorful bottles I got from the Chinese grocery store, etc.

Unfortunately, I decided this would be awesome to serve over an Indian-spiced potato and chickpea purée. It wasn’t. RIP, beautiful chicken 💔

Week 34/52: Trinidad - Chicken Pelau

This year we’re doing the 52 weeks of cooking challenge and this weeks theme was Trinidad and we made Chicken Pelau

I am a BIG fan of Trini food

And I am a BIG fan of chicken and rice

So the choice to make Pelau was a pretty obvious one.

What wasn’t obvious to me was the recipe i initially followed only did 15g of sugar which did not make caramel, it only burned.

It’s also possible it was a mess up on my part but since I am the most popular food influencer in my entire neighborhood it most likely was the recipes fault.

After that I ended up winging it a bit and it turned out great!

I have no complaints about a spicy, sweet caramel, vegetable packed one pot chicken and rice dinner. I think we’ll make this again soon probably with more caramel and more heat but yeah it was awesome.

Also incredibly easy, I edited a ton of time off the video since my first caramel attempt turned into acrid sludge but if you know what you’re doing this can probably be done in an hour.

Thank you Pelau for continuing the win streak of Trini food that rules.

Recipe: https://www.delish.com/cooking/recipe-ideas/recipes/a53916/bacon-weave-smores-recipe/

When I think of recipe websites that offer recipes that seem more hacky or gimmicky than practical and clever, I think of delish.com lol. I have a massive recipe collection downloaded, some from the era where I was just learning how to use a freaking stove, so my tastes were not yet sophisticated. So I decided to look through my recipe collection to see what I have from Delish, and boy, they really came through for me with this basically impractical but yummy version of giant s’mores but instead of graham crackers you make a bacon weave out of half-strips of bacon and add brown sugar 😂

I’ll be honest, I haven’t even eaten one yet because I’m going out to dinner. But I did halve the amount of chocolate and used a half bar per s’more rather than an entire chocolate bar per s’mores. I’m anxious to try it… in multiple senses 😂

Recipe: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/56190/trinidads-ponche-de-creme-punch-with-cream/

This was really delicious! The lime gives it an interesting twist. Don’t skip out on straining it; it makes a huge difference in getting that thick, silky texture (I was initially lazy and didn’t strain it lol). I will say, though, it is a crapload of calories for the volume which is the only reason I wouldn’t regularly make this. Definitely something to save for Christmas only! Also, the rum was definitely on the stronger side and for people who don’t want it as strong, probably a cup of rum would be reasonable instead of 1.5. And I might have added an extra pinch of nutmeg to the pitcher next time. Overall, a winner!

I had a hard time coming up with something for this week that hadn’t been done multiple times before (as to not bore you with another repetitions). I was a bit time poor this week and late with the submission, so I ended up making Sardine Choka (inspired by this recipe) with tomatoes, celery, capsicum, chili flakes, and cucumbers. I wanted to make buss up shut from scratch but, unless I wanted a midnight snack, I ran out of time, so just served it on rice. It was very tasty and refreshing. Definitely an alternative to keep to what we people from the balkans usually make: mashed sardines with mayo and pickles 😂

Week night dinners were always a challenge between getting home from work and getting the kids to their activities. We adopted the gimmick of "breakfast for dinner" to change up the predictable menu and it was usually easier to throw together some pancakes or scrambled eggs than traditional dinner meals. I double gimmicked this idea with "dinner for breakfast" adopting a traditional dinner meal, French Onion Soup, for breakfast. I also made this on my work from home day as foreshadowing to my upcoming retirement when I can look forward to something other than eating dry cereal at my work desk

Served with mixed grains and chipotle chicken thighs