food I've been making: winter without a home base
I miss having my whole kitchen, but am doing the best with what I have
Living this year moving every month or two has really impacted my usual rhythm of life. For example, in past years, I’ve made jam in the summer stored it with other extra fruit it in the freezer. Which I realized I was missing when I really wanted some strawberry jam to go with my sopaipillas. In the past, I’ve also frozen roasted tomatoes, peppers, and tomatillos that I can pull out and make salsas, beans, pizzas, pastas, grain bowls whatever else. The things I save in my freezer are usually so full of flavor and make me feel cozy and accomplished on a snowy day.
Gathering and buying things in-season and storing the excess is just part of my groove and I didn’t realize how important that pattern was to me until I was without it. Unfortunately, it relies on living in the same place year-round even for multiple years so is just not part of my diet this year.
Something that is a little more portable is making bread. Specifically, I’ve been making flat breads. I spent some time in Chile over the last few months and it’s actually summer there in December not winter (southern hemisphere), the thought of heating up the house was not ideal so I was making flatbread to eat with jam, avocado, tomato, and/or eggs (typical Chilean breakfast).
When I got back to the US and was falling back into my more nomadic habits, I realized flat bread was quite attuned to being without my full kitchen because I didn’t have any of my loaf pans or my dutch oven. I had my stainless steel 9x11 pans, but focaccia gets stale pretty quickly and you have to have a lot of oil for it to be really good. I also find focaccia is less versatile across meals. I LOVE an easy assembly meal, where I can prep components ahead of time but can easily heat parts up and put it together into a lovely meal that does not taste like leftovers.
flatbread moves
The flatbreads are a 70ish percent hydration yeasted dough (500g flour, 350g water, packet of yeast, and a spoon full of salt). I’ve been kneading by hand without my kitchen aid but that is fine. Rise 2ish hours, punch down, separate into balls, stretch into flat breads and cook in a pan on the stove. They refrigerate and freeze super well and I like to reheat them by getting them a little wet and toasting them in a pan on the stove. I promise they taste better than these pics, the lighting is just garbage.
So the flatbread applications:
As a wrap with chorizo, potatoes, cabbage salad, and salsa inspired by pambazos that the medical director at one of my rotation sites made me
On the side with a white bean and tomato soup topped with shredded onion and cabbage
Dipping in a yellow pea spread kind of like hummus topped with bacon
As a wrap with yellow pea spread, roasted veggies and an herby dressing
As a wrap with eggs and veggies
As a snack with a little oil and salt
As breakfast with some chocolate
As a wrap with an aloo gobi inspired filling
Spreads and dips for flatbreads
yellow pea
hummus
herbaceous dressings
roasted veggie spread
Sopaipillas, an all purpose Chilean fritter
Sopaipillas are fried little fritters made of squash, flour, salt, fat, and leavening that they make in Chile especially when the weather is rainy and cold. The rough ratios are 1 part squash puree, 2 parts flour, a few scoops of shortening or coconut oil, baking powder and salt. You combine into a dough, roll it out, cut into circles, and fry in hot oil. My most recent trip to Chile was during chilean summer so we didn’t make many sopaipillas.
However, when I got back to the US it was firmly winter and I was craving sopaipillas. Now, I was in the very rural upper penninsula and in the middle of a snow storm. I had the groceries I had and was not going out for more. I did not have baking powder so I used yeast. I’m also lazy so I just cut them into squares instead of circles and having to re-roll the dough a bunch of times.
Sopaipillas are an all purpose fritter because they are enjoyed savory and sweet. I like them with powdered sugar. The classic treatment for day-old sopaipillas is to simmer them in a sugar syrup. I also love sopaipillas with guacamole and/or pebre (Chilean spicy salsa).
Chaos breakfast/snack cookies
Once again on the theme of using what I have and not going to the grocery store because it’s cold, I have been making riffs on peanut butter oatmeal cookies. Base recipe of nut butter, an egg, sugar, and oats, then adding AP flour until the dough looks right. These ones had coconut in them too.
other
I almost always have a container of black beans with pepper onion and tomato ready to be eaten with rice, plantains, or chips, but I’ve really been missing my instant pot that I use to cook dry beans. Canned beans are so much more expensive than dried beans. I’m also missing my crock pot that I use to make beef broth to have for breakfast.
Also, as a result of not having my whole kitchen, I am eating out a little bit more, mostly for those long cooked rich soups, and dumplings.
