Tonight's dinner 🍜🍽️: Spaghetti alla Puttanesca, a classic Italian dish of pasta in a tomato, olive, caper and anchovy sauce. Incredible amounts of flavour for very little effort.
Tonight's dinner 🍜🍽️: Quinotto de Camarones - a Chilean dish of quinoa cooked like a risotto, topped with shrimp. Rich and creamy, definitely a good thing to do with quinoa.
Tonight's dinner 🍽️🍜: Pupusas with curtido. Salvadoran corn cakes stuffed with cheese, chilli and refried black beans with pickled cabbage, onion and carrot. I found these hard to make, but they tasted good!
Oh my god, the Triple-Oatmeal Cookies from BraveTart by Stella Parks are incredible. Crunchy, chewy, soft and crisp all at the same time. Buttery, toasty oaty flavour, with pops of cranberry sharpness. Amazing.
Tonight's dinner 🍜🍽️: Omelette Jurassienne. A classic Swiss omelette with bacon, potato, onion, tomato and gruyère cheese. I used the recipe from Larousse Gastronomique. I definitely need more practice cooking omelettes, but looks aside, this was delicious and very filling!
Tonight's dinner 🍽️🍜: Napolitan, a retro Japanese/Italian fusion dish of spaghetti in a ketchup-based sauce, with sausage, onion, mushroom and green bell pepper. Genuinely really nice and very fast to throw together. I'd make it again. I followed this recipe: www.justonecookbook.com/ketchup-spag...
Tonight's dinner 🍜🍽️: Metemgee, a Guyanese vegetable stew in a coconut milk broth served with duff (dumplings) and boiled eggs. Really tasty and just the right level of spice. I used this recipe: metemgee.com/metem/
CW: Spider
I keep seeing this little guy running around my flat. He's surprisingly fast for a little spider (around 1cm) and also really charismatic. I think this is textrix denticulata, the toothed weaver (but I might be wrong).
The first tomato soup I've ever made 🍽️🍜. Based on www.bonappetit.com/recipe/roast..., but I drizzled basil oil over mine, didn't do croutons and also kept it a bit chunky rather than blending it.
Tonight's dinner 🍜🍽️: Lobscouse, a meat and root vegetable stew. This version is from the UK, but in many ways it's the archetypical northern European stew. I had this with some braised red cabbage. Not a pretty dish, but really satisfying.
Tonight's dinner 🍽️🍜: Kibbeh bil Sanieh, a levantine baked-lamb dish. Served with yoghurt and salad. I followed this Syrian recipe - motherwouldknow.com/syrian-baked...
Tonight's dinner 🍜🍽️: Jarlsbergtorsk - a Norwegian dish of cod topped with leek, tomato and jarlsberg cheese. Served with dilled potatoes. Cheese and fish isn't always a great combination, but this was lovely and really easy to make.
Tonight's dinner 🍽️🍜: Ika Mata, a dish of raw fish (I used tuna), marinated in citrus juice and served in coconut milk with diced vegetables. The version I made is from the Cook Islands, but there's similar dishes made all over the Pacific. I used this recipe: www.cuisine.co.nz/recipe/ika-m...
Tonight's dinner 🍜🍽️: Hawawshi, a filled pita from Egypt, with pickled tomatoes and twice-cooked fries. I was lazy and didn't make my own pitas. The combination with the tomatoes was lovely, but I think any pickles would work.
Tonight's dinner 🍜🍽️: Fläskpannkaka, an oven-baked pancake with bacon from Sweden. Really filling and tasty. Traditionally served with lingonberry jam, but that's not easily available here so I went with apple sauce instead.
Tonight's dinner 🍽️🍜: Ema Datshi (chillies with cheese) with Tingmo (steamed bread) from Bhutan. I used feta in place of traditional Bhutanese cheese. The steamed bread is really fun. Recipes from www.bongeats.com/recipe/ema-d...
I've been nicotine-free for a week. Quitting vaping has been really horrible, but every day has been a bit easier than the last and now I can even believe in the possibility of joy again, so things are definitely on the up. Still really tired and yet unable to sleep well, though.
Tonight's dinner 🍜🍽️: Bacalhau à Brás, a Portuguese dish of potato, salt cod and eggs, garnished with parsley and olives. Something very pleasingly brunchy about this.
Tonight's dinner 🍽️🍜: Agatogo, a vegetable stew with plantain from Rwanda. It took me ages to try plantains because I really hate bananas, but it turns out I really like them. I think this is the first time I've had them in a stew though.
Tonight's dinner 🍜🍽️: Zwiebelkuche - onion tart from Alsace. Recipe from www.adeline-cuisine.fr/recettes/tar.... I was lazy and used store-bought pastry, which didn't turn out as crisp as my homemade pastry would have, but the tart is really delicious.
Tonight's dinner 🍽️🍜: Yóu pō chě miàn (hand-pulled noodles), with steamed choy sum. There's something really satisfying about making your own noodles. Recipe from redhousespice.com/biang-biang-...
It's been a tough couple of weeks. A cyst I've had on the back of my shoulder for years suddenly got infected and didn't respond to antibiotics. On Monday my GP referred me over to A&E (or ER if you're American) to get an urgent incision and drainage on it.
