Quarantine cooking, Week 8

[starlady]

I called my father the other day and we spent a solid ten minutes kvetching about how much the process of making decisions/cooking/washing dishes has been wearing us down lately. I normally cook most of my meals at home, but as a friend recently said, that difference between "most" and "all" gets pretty killer after a while. I really miss spontaneous lunch while out running errands. I have temporarily solved this problem by ordering a box from La Cocina which should feed me for a good four days this week. 

Recipes

• Wookie cookies – It was Star Wars Day last week and these cookies are very good. I used light brown sugar, but you will get more of a Wookie aesthetic by using dark brown sugar, by upping the cinnamon to 1.5 or even 2tsp (depending on the strength of your cinnamon), and most importantly by replacing some or all of the chocolate chips with chopped bar chocolate. Chocolate chips contain stabilizers which mean they retain their shape after baking; chopped bar chocolate melds into the dough in a really wonderful way. I personally would use a dark milk and a bittersweet chocolate in these cookies in happier times of not buying whatever is on the shelf. Additional baking notes: you will get much better results for every cookie, especially chocolate chip cookies, if you age the dough for 2-24 hours in the fridge (or the freezer). Aging the dough helps it absorb some of the moisture and meld the flavors, and cookies will also spread less when you bake them, a nice side bonus. Finally, once you take the cookies out, cool them on the tray for two minutes before transferring to a rack to cool completely.
• Savory Oatmeal – So I didn't fully realize that steel cut oats is not just rolled oats chopped up. I adapted this recipe for rolled oats and it was good, particularly since I didn't want to make decisions that night. I have now purchased actual steel cut oats and I look forward to repeating the recipe with them in the future.
• Charred Eggplant and Walnut Pesto Salad – I basically live on this recipe in the summer, and it's starting to be summer-ish here. This time I made it with penne, and I am pleased to report that penne also works just fine. I also finally shelled the random whole walnuts I had in my cabinet, and they were very good. 

Comments

[sovay]

I normally cook most of my meals at home, but as a friend recently said, that difference between "most" and "all" gets pretty killer after a while.

Amen.

I am glad you have managed to get yourself a break.

[cofax7]

Steel cut oats are the best. If you want to make UK-style porridge, you need both steel-cut and rolled oats. And with steel-cut oats you can make risotto!

[jhameia]

Ooof, yeah I cannot brain, even on regular days, to make ALL food decisions, so I made sandwiches or fried rice on the weekend to eat every day, and have assorted frozen foods and instant noodles lying around for precisely that reason. I'm always very impressed by people who eat different meals as much as possible!!