What’s for dinner?

 eightocci:

rice is hard to find at 2 of 3 groceries i went to. should have bought more instant brown rice boxes at aldi. well anyway i got jasmine rice to make. plan to clean up rice cooker and make it with coconut milk. wish me luck?!

My family always has a stockpile of different types of rice handy (not from panic buying!) and of those I personally love jasmine rice. I've never tried cooking it with coconut milk before tho. It sounds yummy and hope it turns out well!

I'm having troubles finding any kind of baking ingredients. Looked for baking powder and yeast to make pancakes and bread but no such luck. For dinner tonight I finished all the small portions of leftovers in the fridge (rice, potato and banana pepper curry and dhal curry).   

 daydreaming:

My family always has a stockpile of different types of rice handy (not from panic buying!) and of those I personally love jasmine rice. I've never tried cooking it with coconut milk before tho. It sounds yummy and hope it turns out well!

I'm having troubles finding any kind of baking ingredients. Looked for baking powder and yeast to make pancakes and bread but no such luck. For dinner tonight I finished all the small portions of leftovers in the fridge (rice, potato and banana pepper curry and dhal curry).   

Our stores have been out of flour, baking powder, and yeast, too. 

You can make a single action baking powder at home, it will help biscuits rise but maybe not as much as double action.  If you have the ingredients you might give it a try.  The key is you have to put your biscuits immediately into a pre-heated oven as the rising action is time limited.

HOMEMADE BAKING POWDER (Single action)

2 tsp cream of tartar

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cornstarch or arrowroot (optional-mainly to keep mixture from clumping)

Whisk ingredients together until fully incorporated.

You can also look for recipes that use substitutions for the baking powder.  If you have baking soda you can try using it with buttermilk or sour milk (milk plus a little  vinegar-I've used this as a substitution for buttermilk before) as the liquid in your recipe.

Here's a link to making  HOMEMADE YEAST:

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/31/21199708/yeast-diy-baking-covid-19-shortage-make-it-yourself-bread

I haven't tried it but it might be a source of information.

Good luck!  :)

 JoanneSmith:

I too make buttermilk fr milk and white vinegar regularly 1tbsp  to 1 cup milk.  Let sit so curdles in about 10 min, then use for your recipe. Lemon juice can be used instead of vinegar too.

You can also make your own sourdough starter and use that for all kinds of stuff with just the starter in lieu of yeast.   Like pizza dough for example. Just takes Flour and water in a warm place in your house for a few days. It takes a bit of time to get your first round of starter, but worth it.  It can be a real hassle making sour dough bread but making the starter for it it easy and less time waiting for full blown starter needed for the bread.  Lots of videotutorials and recipes here:  culturesforhealth.com 

Of course one needs flour for all of the above!   I too am having a hard time getting flour in last two trips to store.  Stalking has taken on a whole new dimension when trying to figure out the day your grocery store gets deliveries!

Baker stalker-I like it!

@The Butterfly @JoanneSmith Thank you for your suggestions! I don't have cream of tartar but the baking soda with buttermilk method sounds very doable. Sourdough was what I wanted to try so those links were very helpful! 

For dinner today I had originally planned to make a salad but then had a huge craving for Chinese food. Ended up making beef with broccoli (using a recipe from The Woks of Life)  and it turned out really well. Had it with rice and a side of potstickers. 

My weird quarantine meal of the week is a soup.  Go figure!  :D  

I was going to make "Cream" of Cauliflower Soup yesterday, but had a lot of celery and parsley that needed to be used as they were looking about a day away from being pitched.  So into the pot with the cauliflower and onion went more celery than I would ever put into any recipe, maybe eight or ten trimmed stalks (I'm not crazy about celery-dh likes it) and almost a whole bunch of parsley.    In went some spices, salt, and pepper, and some chicken bouillon and enough water to cover.  After everything was nice and tender I put it though the blender.  Out came a sage green color velvety smooth soup.  After I ladled the soup into bowls I took some finely crushed pistachios and laid them on top around the edges.  It was a pretty bowl of soup even though I still wasn't convinced of the taste but my worries were unfounded (this time).  It was quite tasty and healthy.  :)

Today a generous friend found bleach in a store and bought me a bottle.  Another store where she had ordered food accidentally gave her two bags of potatoes instead of one.  I got a text this morning that said for me to check my porch.  There was the bottle of bleach and a bag of potatoes.  I tell this story because I want to give a shout out to kindness in these crazy times.(•ө•)♡

Tonight I made potato soup.  I try to adhere to the plant way as much as I can so instead of milk and cream in the soup I searched for something else to thicken the soup without making it wallpaper paste.  I wanted to try something other than cornstarch, flour or arrowroot. I blended a portion of it, but that didn't give me the consistency I wanted.  I still wanted some small chunks of potatoes and carrots and the other veggies.  Then I remembered that I had bought a small bag of instant potatoes in my "just in case" stash.  I used some of those flakes and they thickened the soup nicely and it enhanced the potato flavor.  Nothing can truly complete with milk and cream in old-fashioned potato soup but sometimes a woman's gotta do what a woman's gotta do.   Jalapeño salt and a pinch of cayenne gave it a nice kick.  ;)

pizza

 JoanneSmith:

@Schmetterling (The butterfly),  Another thickener I use often is red lentils.  They absorb 4x their quantity of liquid and are relatively unnoticeable in soups since after 30 min or so they disappear/turn into mush.  But in that time will thicken whatever u put them in. 2tbsps - 1/4 cup goes a long way.  

Speaking of cauliflower soup, often I throw in one chopped skinned small potato to thicken that as well. 

I love red lentils. :)  Red Lentil Soup is one of my favorites.  I've also used them in quick rice dishes with veggies to boost protein and fiber.    I'm down to my last little bit.  They are super hard to find now and the grocery stores around here rarely carried them before the pandemic.  I nearly always had to order them on-line.  Amazon finally had some available that I wouldn't have to sell my house to buy.  I had to buy a very big bag so I may be coming on here for more suggestions in how to use them.  :)

I will have to try your suggestion next time I make cauliflower soup.  I usually blend my soup and serve with reserved flowerets that I have browned in olive oil on top, sometimes  green onions, or a drizzle of green "pesto" of whatever I have on hand.  

udon