let the light lead you out
non-standard baked beans and a weeknight curry
Whether you’re for or against the abolition of spring forward/fall back, you have to admit it’s nice having the sun set past 6pm. Recently we took our bikes out for the first time since late October and rode to the grocery store, and then stood in line to buy a pint of Earnest Ice Cream (it was so good I regretted not buying two). Trees are starting to bud, the vegetable seeds I ordered arrived, and we raked compost from the bin into our garden patch, and it’s all feeling distinctly spring-like, even as we head into several days of chilly rain after almost a week warm and sunny enough to fling open the windows indoors. Maybe this explains why I haven’t been as excited about cooking potatoes or kale or carrots lately: I feel ready for the fresh produce of spring, even if I realistically know that it’s only just being planted now, not harvested. But in the meantime, here are a few things I managed to rustle up this week.
Even if I only ever used my instant pot to cook beans, I think it would still have been worth it, because dried beans are cheap, easy to store, and you can have them ready in about an hour— never having to forgo making something because I didn’t soak chickpeas or can’t go to the store for a can of kidney beans. A staple for me over the past year has been this easy, delicious pantry recipe: cheesy spicy black bean bake. It’s essentially a really basic, thick chili with melted cheese on top, but the smoked paprika flavour is what really makes me come back to it again and again.
As written I think ‘spicy’ is somewhat of a stretch (clearly the NYT reader base is largely white), but I usually up the chili flakes to about ¾ tsp and sometimes add a slosh of hot sauce, which also gives it a bit of acidity. The other changes I make to boost the flavour of this is a bit of finely chopped onion or shallot in the pan with the garlic, and using broth instead of water (usually a good choice in any savoury recipe). I like manchego best as the topping, and while it’s good with tortilla chips or rice like the recipe suggests, my personal favourite accompaniment is garlic toast.
I don’t think I have ever made pork chops before in my life, but I impulsively bought some when Two Rivers had them on sale awhile ago, and dug them out of my freezer to cook with this fantastic-sounding lemon caper sauce. You begin by browning the meat and setting it aside, and then making the sauce in the same pan. I halved the recipe for two pieces of meat, but did not reduce the amount of capers or lemon zest, and I think it was perfect this way; I loved the intense lemon flavour, and capers are a god-tier food element so a few more is generally well received. The recipe says the hot sauce is optional, but I disagree: I think it is essential!
We also had roasted potatoes and asparagus which went nicely with everything. The meat got a little overdone because I warmed it up in the pan for too long after finishing the sauce, but it was still tender enough, and honestly I would have eaten basically anything as a vessel for this delicious sauce. I’m sure the sauce would be good over chicken, whitefish, or something vegetarian like seitan or a bean patty— I know I am excitedly looking for to opportunities to make it again.
Before adding Priya Krishna’s Indian-ish to my cookbook collection, the coconut chana saag from Isa Does It was one I gravitated to often, because it felt rich and satisfying in a way many homemade curries up to that point did not, I think due to the coconut milk and the variety of spices used. I made it this week after having not made it in some time, in my ongoing battle to use up bunches of kale in different ways, but I implemented a couple of the methods in Indian-ish to try to increase the depth of flavour even more.
Instead of coconut oil I used ghee, which is presumably why most restaurant curries taste so good, and toasted whole cumin and fennel seeds in it before frying the onion, omitting the ground versions later in the recipe. Because I didn’t make rice this time, I kept the lid off the whole time after bringing the mixture to a simmer for a slightly thicker texture. I do recommend basmati with this, though— I just forgot to make rice. The chutney on top (mine is homemade from our massive apple harvest in the summer) adds a perfect contrasting hit of sweetness to finish.
I’ve been busy at work this week and thus finding my mental energy a bit low in my off hours, so I’ve been letting the freezer do some of the heavy lifting. I made alphabet soup on Monday with some buttermilk biscuits I’d cut and frozen to be baked at a later date. (Side note, I wish I could determine what makes alphabet soup, which is made of vegetables and pasta in tomato broth, enjoyable, but minestrone, which is made of vegetables and pasta in tomato broth, a chore to eat.) I also found some leftover pumpkin pie filling from the fall, and made a half batch of pastry dough to use it up. Unfortunately, it was a ‘10-inch crust’ amount of dough and an ‘8-inch tart’ amount of filling, so the pie sadly was a little scant (but still pie, so no complaints).
I also treated myself to a hot breakfast on Thursday (something I rarely have the time or desire to do) and made a hash of leftover roasted potatoes, grape tomatoes, mushrooms, basil, and provolone with a perfect over-easy egg on top. Hash is the best thing to make with leftover potatoes, because the cast iron will re-crisp them on the outside, it doesn’t matter if they get a little softer on the inside, and you can have potatoes for breakfast without having to spend 30 minutes par-boiling them and frying them from scratch.
Media:
If you’re reading this, chances are you too have experienced the decision fatigue associated with choosing what to cook, particularly during the pandemic when we’ve been spending so much more time at home. I liked this writer’s exploration of what that means, and how they cope with it. I agree that for me it’s not that cooking feels like work, it’s the deciding every day what to make, the trying to choose dishes that won’t require an extra trip to the store, the remembering that you bought cauliflower when you went shopping on Sunday and it’s now Wednesday and you have to think of a way to use it up. We haven’t gotten takeout, aside from a quick drive-through burger after a tiring Costco trip, in over three weeks, not because we’re trying to save money or don’t want anything, but because there’s always something that we could make at home. We’ve seemingly become unable to simply say “fuck it,” and go grab a pizza just because.
Prepping a few things ahead of time and deciding what to make during the week before you actually have to make it might seem obvious, but even if you don’t have a ‘meal prep day’ or the desire to plan an entire week’s worth of meals, just thinking ahead in small ways helps a lot. I do choose some of my meals in advance, and will often cook beans a few days before I want to use them so they’re ready in the fridge, make extra rice to go with a curry so I can quickly make fried rice the next day, or double a batch of pasta sauce so I can put some in the freezer for later. But even just making notes of what I should use when will help me in my decision process when it’s cooking time: for example, writing “Monday- broccoli” and “Tuesday- potatoes” on a sticky on the fridge. Having a jumping-off point feels a little less exhausting than staring into the fridge looking at ingredients and trying to mentally turn them into food.
Thanks for reading— if you enjoyed this newsletter, please share it with someone new! I like providing this to you for free, but it does still involve time and effort, and I greatly appreciate your support. This week I ask that if you can spare it, please donate to SWAN if you’re in Vancouver, Butterfly if you’re in Ontario, or Red Canary Song in the US. Finally, it seems Heinz is going to continue giving extremely cursed names to its sauce mashups whether we like it or not.