Food Pics of the Week (FPOTW): Home Cooking

Home Cooking (Casa de Kwablo)

Silver Spring, Maryland

I realized that I have not made a FPOTW of the entry in quite some time. This FPOTW entry will feature some of my homemade cooking with a side of drama/f*ckery.

I'm in a learning Spanish Meetup.com group, and one of our recent events was a potluck fiesta. I decided to take a Spanish tortilla for this event. I'll say that I (probably like most folks) get really nervous when trying out a new recipe especially for folks that I do not know too well. Also, the nerves were even more intense because I pretty much had one shot to make the Spanish tortilla. The funny thing: the husband who is a chef from Spain offered to make the Spanish tortilla for me, but I told him that I could make it myself. As some may already know, a Spanish tortilla essentially is a large egg omelette with potatoes and onions. Ok, that doesn't seem too difficult to prepare. Unfortunately, flipping the large omelette, which in my cases contained about 2.5 pounds of sliced potatoes, can be quite dramatic. For example, check out this Spanish tortilla fail.

My result:

Fortunately, I did not have a flip fail, but I didn't I put enough oil in the pan because I had a patch in the top layer.

 
 

My tortilla was a little darker compared to the ones that the Spanish husband makes, but it had the same color (more or less) of the one from the website where I found the recipes. So I'll take it as a win.

 
 

Not to toot my own horn, but I (and the husband) thought my tortilla was very delicious. Before actually reading through the recipe, I just assumed that you mixed some eggs, potatoes & onions and threw them into a pan, flip it, and cook the other side. However, there are a few tricks to the trade:

  • Letting the potato slices sit in water for at least 10 minutes.

  • Using a mandoline to slice the potatoes . . . fortunately, I did not lose any fingers using the mandoline.

  • (Tip from the husband): If you use an online recipe for a Spanish tortilla, you should add 1-3 additional eggs. I definitely will have to use this tip next time, because I like my tortilla to be a tad running.

  • Once you mix the eggs, onions and potatoes, the mixture sit for at least 15 minutes.

  • Trust yourself and try to flip without any hesitation.

Meetup Drama:

The organizer of the potluck fiesta indicated that he would let use know the location of the event via Meetup.com's messenger. I figured that made sense because I do not think that I would want have my address listed in a public group. The morning of the event, I was a bit concerned because a couple of the guest and I had not received the address. So, I sent the organizer a message through the app inquiring about the location of the event. I carried on making the tortilla throughout the morning. Long story short, I never received a response, and by 2pm, I was over it. I guess it kind of worked out for the best because earlier that morning a friend from NYC texted me to tell me that she was going to be in DC for the day and asked if I could meet up (no pun). Rather that attending the dumb potluck, I hung out with my friend that I had not seen since running NYC 2022's marathon.

FOOD PIC OF THE WEEK

Casa de Kwablo (aka our place)

New York (Harlem), New York

Hearty Chicken, Sweet Potato, and Apples from Beachbody on Demand

Recipe: Beachbody on Demand

It has taken some time, but I’m slowly getting back to my meal prep and 21 Day Fix routines. I have made this dish before, but this time, I stuck to the recipe and did not add extra veggies to the dish. Last time, adding broccoli removed some of the yummy flavors and made the dish bland and soggy especially for the reheat. I did adapt the recipe a bit by making a chili, ginger & honey glaze.

While I have been team 21-Day Fix, it has been a bit hard for me to get back into actually using the containers for portion control. I have a feeling that this will improve since I have forbidden myself from ordering delivery until after my New Orleans trip. Hopefully, this “punishment” will force me to meal prep more frequently.

The one thing that annoys me regarding Beachbody on Demand’s recipes: For some (errr most) of the dishes, the website does not indicate the serving sizes. For the various dishes, the website will provide the container equivalents (eg this dish is 1.5 red – protein and
1 yellow – carbs). However, this doesn’t really mean anything if I do not know how much of the dish (eg 1 cup or 0.5 cups) equals 1.5 red and 1 yellow.

This week’s meal prep:

I think that I’m going to make a pot roast (Beachbody on Demand) and add an extra helping of veggies by sautéing some kale or spinach (depending on what is available at Whole Foods or ignorant ass Fine Fare).

FOOD PIC OF THE WEEK

Home Cooking

I decided to make a big pot of Shakshuka. To be perfectly honest, I have no idea why I wanted to make this dish. I think that I wanted some form of breakfast for dinner.

While Shakshuka typically is a vegetarian dish, I decided to add some Italian sausage for sh*ts and giggles. I hope the Shakshuka and the Beachbody folks will not come after me for altering this recipe. In addition to the dish, I prepared a big tomato, cucumber, onion salad bowl.

Quarantine Home Cooking II

Because of COVID-19, I have not been able to check out local restaurants and be one of those people who takes pictures of his food before devouring it for the sake of posting on social media. Until I’m allowed to mingle with my fellow foodies, I’ll have to post food pics of things that we are making during our “new normal”. BTW, I had the term, new normal. Here goes.


Fish . . . It’s what’s for lunch

apr. 27.jpeg


Quarantine Home Cooking I

Because of COVID-19, I have not been able to check out local restaurants and be one of those people who takes pictures of his food before devouring it for the sake of posting on social media. Until I’m allowed to mingle with my fellow foodies, I’ll have to post food pics of things that we are making during our “new normal”. BTW, I hate the term, new normal. Here goes.

First up: Banana Nut Bread

IMG_3530.jpg

It seems that banana nut bread has been the COVID-19 go to these days. That said, we (and by “we” I mean my hubby) did not bake your ordinary banana nut bread, we threw in chocolate chips and M&Ms. I’ve already come to the realization that I will probably gain 10 pounds once this pandemic is over.

Stay safe and healthy out there.