Category: Lunch

Roasted Eggplant with Sesame and Green Onion

.Reading time 2 minutes.

This dish evolved from an eggplant recipe that we made from one of the Ottolenghi cookbooks. It basically called for steaming the crap out of a sliced eggplant, and then seasoning it with a Japanese-style dressing. We made it (or some variation of it) quite a few times because it was tasty, easy to put together. It made for a nice side dish for dinner (e.g. along with rice and pickled vegetables) and leftovers were a good addition to lunch the next day. Lately though, we’ve been using our oven a lot for meal prep and it only made sense to recreate this dish with roasted eggplant. We also ended up making some adjustments to the dressing to suit our preference and married it a Chinese-style ginger-scallion sauce.

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Cabbage Squares

.Reading time 3 minutes.

This recipe is a lovechild between okonomiyaki and potato kugel (though it leans more toward the latter than the former).

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Secret Butternut Mac & Cheese

.Reading time 3 minutes.

This meal came about as the intersection of two lines of thought. We wanted to try out the old fashioned (original) macaroni and cheese recipe, as featured on the Netflix series High on the Hog (recommended, by the way!). And, I’d been wanting to try adding butternut squash to macaroni and cheese ever since we ended up with way too many (is there such a thing) squash last fall. Earlier this week we finally got around to trying a mix of the two…we cooked the macaroni in equal parts milk and water (4 cups and 4 cups), then used the leftover cooking liquid (about a litre) to make the sauce with a roux: melted 5 Tbsp (75g) butter and softened some diced garlic and onions in it; added 1/4 cup (34g) flour and cooked it for about a minute, seasoned with salt and paprika; slowly added the reserved cooking liquid (we were able to use all the liquid from cooking the pasta, so the water and milk didn’t have to go to waste) and brought everything to a boil; added about 2 cups (300g) cubed butternut squash and let simmer for about 45 minutes. After that we added some cheese (shredded, mixed cheddar, about 1 cup) and stirred to combine with the macaroni. We added hot dogs (obviously), divided it into 3 baking dishes (good portions for 2 people), and topped with breadcrumbs and extra cheese before baking (and freezing for later).

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No Knead (Personal Pan) Pizza

.Reading time 4 minutes.

Every year, I try to develop new recipes for the kiddies that can be easily duplicated in class as well as at home with minimal tools and equipment. Who doesn’t like pizza right? With a no-knead approach, they don’t have to worry about a lack of equipment at home or even know the basic bread theory (gluten development, DDT, …). They can just enjoy a pizza that can easily be duplicated at home for friends and family. Fun fact: I often get stories about students’ parents asking them to take care of dinner multiple nights a week after gaining some experience in my class. It brings a smile to my face every single time.

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Cold Noodles

.Reading time 3 minutes.
Old recipe from Megan’s grandma

Old recipes aren’t always the best, but there is an emotional quality to them that can’t be found anywhere else. They bring us closer to the past and allow us to relive special memories. Granted, just because you have grandma’s recipe, doesn’t mean you’ll be able to make it “just like grandma used to make”. In fact, a popular conspiracy theory on our end is that recipes from grandmas often “accidentally” omit some minor detail so that you can never get it quite right! Regardless, we enjoy re-discovering old recipes, especially ones dear to our hearts.

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