New to Cooking, Be Kind!
Before posting what I've cooked this week, I'd like to preface something! As a 30-year-old, this was my first year of cooking for myself after moving out.
As an autistic person, I often grew up on comfort foods and routine. The past year I have been putting an effort into discovering new foods and trying new things. In the apartment I rent, I have no oven but that luckily, pans and air-fryer are able to do the job for most foods!
So, let's start the top 5 foods I made this week.
Stir-Fried Rice with Seitan and Mushrooms
My favourite meal of this week has been stir-fried rice.
I started out by cooking lentils, which I did not end up using as I'm bad at portioning and realised I already had too much food.
After I've cooked the lentils, I kept the lentil water to cook my brown rice. I find that it gives it an earthier flavour.
Whilst the rice was cooking, I put store-bought Seitan on the frying pan with some oil. Then, I added some zucchini, portobello mushroom, bell pepper, and a dash of curry spice.
Once the rice was cooked, I drained it lightly and threw it in the pan for a few more minutes.
I loved the result! The Seitan and Zucchini flavours really came through and it made me wonder why I haven't bought Seitan before!
Froġa tat-Tarja (Pasta Omelette)
My second highlight is something I prepare weekly: Froġa tat-Tarja. It's a Maltese recipe that loosely translates to Pasta Omelette.
I grew up with this being one of my favourite foods and I still try to do it in the same way (minus the eggs).
I start by cooking thin spaghetti (or sometimes angel hair pasta) in a pan. After it's cooked and rained, I heat up a frying pan.
Although usually one should add something that helps the pasta bind, I often forget and just place the pasta in the frying pan directly.
After three minutes on medium-high heat, I flip it and let it cook for another three minutes. I then let it cool a bit before I cut it into cute little squares and put a squirt of ketchup on each square.
I do make a mistake sometimes and as you can see, the surface may be fried but the inside is not bound together, making it harder to cut through. I'm not sure if it's because I'm missing binding agents like flax seeds or I would just need more time or heat in the cooking process
Homemade Falafel Balls
Chickpeas are one of my favourite foods! I often like to enjoy them with rice, but sometimes end up with leftover chickpeas since I cook them myself.
Leftover chickpeas or beans are great to make patties or falafel. I'll be honest, I usually throw in random stuff so I am not 100% sure I recall the correct items.
I heated few things i had in my fridge, primarily chickpeas, bell pepper and a carrot. Then, I put them in a food processor to blend with a splash of oatmilk to smoothen the mixture.
If you process the food for too long, it becomes looking like Hummus (kind of what happened to me). From there, I put in some flour to thicken it back. Then, again with more flour and some breadcrumbs, I rolled them into balls that stuck together and put them in the airfryer for around 15 minutes.
Then, I dashed some sweet and sour sauce over them and ate them for lunch! They were a little dense and dry, but actually that was great for my preferences!
Vegan Mac and Cheese with Mushroom Bits
I never grew up with Mac and Cheese, but often seen it in Americanised movies. As I want to start eating healthier, I started buying more nuts recently.
So I had the thought: what if I made my own mac and cheese using Cashews?
I googled briefly and started soaking raw cashews. After 10 minutes, I put them in a pan alongside carrots to start heating them up. Then, I placed them in a blender until they were crushed to smooth. As visible in the photo, the sauce was a little grainy and not as smooth, which again, is great cause I prefer things less liquid.
In the meantime, I started cooking the snail-looking pasta. Fun fact, in Spain this pasta is called Tiburón which translates to shark.
Once it was cooked, I drained the pasta and put the cashes and carrot cheese into a pan to simmer it and make it thicker.
Then, I put the pasta into the sauce and fried some portobello mushrooom. After few minutes whilst continually mixing, I served it into a plate, and yum, it was delicious!
Comfort Food: Burger and Fries
As you might have learned throughout this post, I love my comfort food. As much as I find cooking enjoyable, sometimes it feels great to treat myself to something that's quick and easy.
I simply put the store-brought fries (chips) and burger into an air fryer for 12 minutes, and in the meantime sliced tomato and cucumber for the burger.
I then have some zero-sugar ketchup and that's the simplest meal I've had throughout the week. No messes to clean!
Dealing with Leftovers
I really enjoyed using Seitan! I still have leftovers lentils and Seitan from the stir-fried rice.
My plan is to use them for two meals for next two dinners.
I'd like to replicate some of the stir-fried foods, but instead of rice, I could put them into a burrito wrap. The trickiest things for wraps is making them fully close and not unwrap. I'd like to perhaps turn the lentils into something a little more sauce-like.
The second meal I'd like to create is a stew based off the lentils and any leftover Seitan. Again, I'm not really sure how I would do that but I'm great at winging it!
I'm really loving my cooking journey. I know I don't cook too well, but it's sufficient for me. I'm eager to continue learning to cook better and hopefully one day feel confident in posting better looking photos and inviting friends over for dinner.