Author: cochrancj

I am an American expat who loves to explore the world through the plate and is always curious to learn more.

Quarantine Kitchen

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Well, given recent global events, it seems my ‘I need to cook down my pantry’ jones of a few weeks ago was right on target.

In this time of quarantine, I think many of you are feeling the same (whether out of physical or mental necessity) and I’m curious to see what’s in y’all’s pantries! Some friends have gone the fresh food route; in my house, if you ask an ex Navy guy and a (semi) Southern girl to stock up, we’re grabbing natural disaster food. Barracks food. Things you can survive on with little to no access to electricity. If you can boil water, bam, there’s dinner.

As such, the state of our pantry is kind of hilarious and definitely looks like 2 kids live in the house (hey, we both reverted to the last time either of us really *needed* to do a hurricane/barracks shop). 2 kids who love chips, macaroni & cheese, pot noodles, whiskey (#adultpriorities), beef jerky and tuna. Dinner tuna, snack tuna – you name it, we have protein for 2 weeks.

Luckily, grownup-me also grabbed some frozen veggies, rice and pasta. Yay for adulting. Let’s not emerge from quarantine 9-bigillion pounds.

Aside from the teenager house party food, we’ve been (attempting to) eat fairly well (ish. There was extra Ramdon, and pot noodles were had last weekend. See also: chips).

Things I’ve been making lately:

  • My Japanese tuna rice bowls
  • Fried rice with a little quinoa thrown in for extra protein
  • Our normal Monday “burger” night featuring Beyond Burgers and whatever weirdo combination of toppings I can think of (last week was a semi-spicy semi-sweet mustard with sauerkraut and a fried egg and it was glorious)
  • Pasta with a quick sauce of thinned-out tomato paste and a bunch of spices + chili tuna + frozen edamame and spinach + nutritional yeast and lots of pepper
  • Pot noodles with garlic powder drenched steak nibbles and frozen spinach
  • A huge batch of Japanese curry with potatoes, onions and carrots
  • Popcorn with nutritional yeast, furikake or masala spice & spritzes of garlic oil to make the toppings stick better
  • Bread! Bread always makes DH happy, so I started experimenting with that
  • Breakfast eggy tortillas
  • Pasta with chili tuna, zucchini sautéed in garlic butter, a crapton of red chili flakes & black pepper, and nutritional yeast
  • A riff on a recipe for Belter Red Kibble I found to knock out a pantry hanger-on (recipe coming!)
  • Tuna fried rice that was amaze (recipe coming!)

Chili Tuna Fried Rice

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This pantry-friendly fried rice is quick enough for a weeknight meal (for when the world gets back to working outside the home), and makes a great lunch the next day if there are leftovers.

Gluten-free, pescatarian

Chili Tuna Fried Rice

1.5 cups leftover cooked rice (I used sushi rice)

1/3 cup frozen shelled edamame

1/3 cup frozen cut green beans

2 Tbsp. neutral oil

2 eggs

1/4 cup coconut aminos

1 Tbsp. fish sauce

1 Tbsp. sambal olek

1 green onion, sliced

1/2 can chili tuna in oil, drained

Add your neutral oil to a large pan over high heat. When it shimmers, add the frozen veggies and green onion. Stir fry until no longer frozen and starting to look cooked.

Add the rice and tuna. Continue to stir fry until the veggies begin to brown.

Make a well in the center of the rice mixture and crack the eggs in. Let sit until the bottom is firm, then scrape up, folding into the rice mix.

Add the coconut aminos, fish sauce and sambal. Stir quickly to combine.

As written, serves 2 for dinner

March 26, 2020

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The babes

March 25, 2020

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Taking in some fresh air over lunch

March 24, 2020

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New growth!

March 23, 2020

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The view from my (yoga) mat this morning

March 22, 2020

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😆 quarantine like teenagers

March 21, 2020

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1 sad pup that we aren’t making the turn to Aunties’

Chapaguri/Ramdon (aka that ramen noodle dish from the movie Parasite)

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Sorry I’ve been AWOL from recipe posting lately – I’ve put my pantry cleanse on hold (or actually have restocked it even fuller in recent weeks), and have been making nothing terribly new or inspiring. Tasty things from staples, but not exactly balanced Internet-friendly dishes.

When it was in theaters, DH and I saw Parasite – which was fantastic – and were just as curious as to what the mixed ramen noodle dish with steak was. We heard it was delicious, and were having friends over for game night – so we decided to make a whole Korean-themed meal.

For sides, we had 4 banchan (vegetable side dishes): spicy cucumbers, sauteed spinach, lightly blanched and seasoned bean sprouts and kimchi. This dish was our main, and the recipe is only slightly augmented from the official recipe(s) listed here. When I made this a second time for just the two of us, I couldn’t help but add a little seasoning to the steak and some green veg.

Chapaghetti (green), Neoguri (red)
Mmmmmm …

Ram-don (Chapaguri)

1 package Chapaghetti

1 package Neoguri (combo pack for the two on Amazon)

200g good steak

2 tsp. neutral oil

2 tsp. butter

1/2c. frozen spinach

2 green onions

Salt, pepper, garlic powder

Boil a large pot of water.

While the water is working, add the neutral oil to a pan over medium-high heat. Add the steak bits, hit with salt, pepper & garlic powder and sautee until your desired doneness is reached.

While the steak and water are working, thinly slice your green onions.

About halfway through cooking, add the sliced green onions and hit a second time with seasoning.

Add the butter and toss until melted. Set aside.

Add the noodles and dehydrated veggies from both packages to the boiling water.

Boil 4:30, adding the frozen spinach in the last minute or so.

Strain, keeping enough water so the mixture is nice and wet still – not swimming, but not dry. The directions say to keep 150ml, but my American non-metric self had no idea what this looked like with noodles so I guessed.

Turn off the heat and add the strained noodles back to the pot. Add the seasoning packet from the green package (the green packet that looks like beef bouillon). Add the oil from the green package and half the spicy looking seasoning (all if you like spicy) from the red package. Stir to combine.

Divide between 2 bowls (can easily stretch to 3 or even 4 if you serve with banchan), and top with steak.

Serves 2 – 3

March 20, 2020

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While walking the dogs: hmmm, that’s weird – looks like rain. 10 mins later: torrential downpour with added hail bonus