Cooking under Quarantine

On March 5th, my office asked all employees that could work from home to work from.  Within weeks with shelter in place announced, and schools/university closed, our family of four started our stay at home routine.

At the 3 months mark, I thought it will be fun to record what we have been cooking/eating and how making infrequent trips to the grocery store impacted our cooking. 

Looking at all the food photos for last 3 months, It was easy for me to categorize everything we cooked and ate into following categories

1. Comfort food, quick and simple -  This is the first category of dishes, each one we have likely cooked multiple times. These are the dishes I resorted to when I did not have time to plan in advance and needed to quickly get something on the table. Many of these dishes are using ingredients I usually keep a good stock of in the pantry.

From top (L to R) - Pesto pasta with tomatoes, Noodles with Tofu and vegetables, Pasta Puttanesca, Beans and Rice with salsa, guacamole, roasted brussel sprouts, Another pasta dish with greens and got cheese, Veg. coconut curry with noodles and tofu, Kimchi fried rice with tofu slabs and stir fried sugar peas, Open face quesadilla made in oven with greens and cheese and a side of guacamole, Mapo tofu using the best mapo tofu sauce. 

From Top (L to R) - Chickpea-Harissa stew with salad, Lemon rice with roasted potato, greens and yogurt, Spinach dal (split peas) and rice, more spinach dal (lentils) and rice, Dal with roasted potatoes spinach and raita, Chickpea stew with pasta, Roti with chickpea flour curry and carrot spinach side, Another chickpea-harissa stew, Saag paneer and rice

 2. Dishes that need some planning or that one special ingredient - Here are dishes I cooked because I had the specific ingredient needed for the dish. Since I keep a stock of Nori, making avocado sushi for a quick lunch was easy way to also use fresh avocados. After trying ravioli couple of times with regular sauce, making dinner out of fried ravioli with marinara sauce was lot of fun. Some of these recipes need more time to prepare or cook, so being at home helped with the prep ahead. Ex. getting Pizza dough ready a day ahead for a slow rise in the fridge or getting all the components ready for the Lasagna.

From Top to bottom (L to R): Avocado Sushi, Fried ravioli with marinara sauce, Thai red curry because I got the Thai red curry paste, Hassleback cheesy potato, Veg dumplings, Cheese pizza, Spinach lasagna, Veg balls in Manchurian sauce.

From Top to bottom (L to R): Tortilla soup, Beans/cheese and vegetable enchilada, Stir fried asparagus for dinner?

3. Weekend brunches aka a "mix of this and that"- Most of the focus for cooking over the weekend was to put something interesting for brunch. I needed to use what was on hand and also use anything that was going to go bad, if not used. It created a mix of this and that. Some days, I was able to make Bahn Mi or Idlies with all the required fixings and on other days, I just created a variety of small unrelated things and called it Tapa style brunch.

From top to bottom (L to R): Tofu Bahn mi (substituted sandwich rolls for baguette), Pav Bhaji, Open face mixed veg (>50% potatoes) toast with cucumber relish and mango, Grilled cheese with roasted broccoli and avocado, Avocado toast with roasted potato, Bada pav with cilantro chutney and tomato chutney, Crepes, Pita with hummus and roasted vegetables and a side of tomato beet soup

From top to bottom (L to R): Idli with sambhar and coconut chutney, Pongal with raita, Samosas with Kala chana, Aaloo paratha with tomato chutney and raita, Poha and vegetables frittata, Assorted roasted vegetables along with soup and crepes, Herb falafel with cilantro chutney, tahini and a vegetable croquet

From top to bottom (L to R): Papdi chat, Rava dosa, Pani puri, Sabudana khichadi with chutney, also avocado toast and melon

4. Weekend cooking projects - This class of cooking involved preparing dishes that take time and attention. Being stuck in the house with nowhere to go, these projects provided me with enough distraction for the weekend. I took on making bread, desserts, cookies, savory snack items that lasted us through the week.  Having bread and food to snack on also minimized urgent grocery store runs.

From top to bottom (L to R) Crusty bread, Sandwich bread wheat, Baos, Sliced crusty bread, Sandwich bread oats, Baked oatmeal, Pita bread,  Sandwich bread white. 

Snacks for chai breaks from top to bottom (L to R): Mathari aka indian crackers, Bakharwadi which is a savory pinwheel with coconut and spice filling, Chakli that spiral crunchy goodness using rice and chickpea flour, samosas, Jam thumbprint cookies, Fried masala peanuts

For snacking - chocolate chip cookies, Peanut brown sugar balls, Sweet fried plantain (a dish from Ghana), Rice crispy treats, Popcorn with butter and/or olive oil.

A cake a week is a great goal! From top to bottom (L to R): Strawberry cake so good that the first one disappeared an hour after I made it, Lemon cake little shaken up in taking out yet very tasty, Pistachio cake, Date and walnut cake, Chocolate cake, Nimoura a delicious Lebanese semolina cake, Olive oil and Ghee cake or as I like to call it Chai cake

5. Delivery, takeout or pre-made: I kept a decent stock of frozen dumplings, ramen/Maggie and other noodle varieties that could be cooked in minutes. Kids were usually helping themselves to these options for lunch.

Many of the restaurants stayed open for delivery or take out throughout the lockdown so we made  a point to get a meal (and sometimes two) from a restaurant every week. Those were the happiest of the days when we all waited for the food to arrive and gathered around the table enthusiastically. We waited impatiently as food containers were taken out from the bags with minimal touch, throwing all outer layers as if they are infected and wiping down outside of the container as much as possible. 

Unfortunately, i don't have many pictures of takeout food because we were in a hurry to devour the food and stopping to take photos felt a waste of time. 

All in all, it was a lot of cooking even for me, somebody who was cooking on a daily basis even before the quarantine. I probably experimented with as many new recipes in the 3 months of the quarantine as I would typically in the whole year!