I wanted to talk a little bit about the cooking “journey” that I’ve gone on since we moved to Germany. Before living here, I was generally a lazy cook. Lots of high-sodium pre-made meals for us, and lots of foods ordered in. I really didn’t eat veggies…I was scared of onions (since childhood!) and tomatoes (same deal). I didn’t eat peppers, and I certainly couldn’t handle spice. Black pepper made me blush. I’m half Indian (like…from India), so that’s pretty embarrassing. Meanwhile my Polish husband and Irish father consume vindaloo without breaking a sweat.
Since moving here, I’ve begun eating veggies like a mad woman. I can’t imagine my life without various forms of onion and tomato. I love beans. I adore pepper! Most importantly? SPICE. HEAT. I’ve begun ordering Indian food at medium instead of mild and cooking with chili powder/cayenne, as well as using red pepper flakes on almost all of my food! I’ve begun a love affair with sriracha. My favorite thing to make right now is Bang Bang Sauce. There’s always a container of it in the fridge now! For those interested, the recipe that I use is as follows:
- 1/2 cup mayo (you can use light, but I prefer it with the real thing)
- 2 TBSP Asian style sweet chili sauce
- 1 TBSP sriracha
- 2 tsp seasoned rice vinegar
Whisk it all together and voila! I put it on freaking EVERYTHING. My favorite thing to put it on is a nice baked potato, but we also love it on zoodles lightly sauteed, egg sandwiches, veggie burgers, chicken sandwiches…you name it. OH! TUNA! I mix it in with my tuna and throw it on a wheat sandwich thing and it’s the yummiest thing ever.
Because of this, my culinary world has opened up. I’ve really been freezer cooking a lot, using our freezer in the basement. Mainly chicken meals, because chicken freezes so well! I do bbq pulled chicken, sweet asian chili chicken, chicken chili. I’ve made chicken tikka masala in the crockpot twice now, which was fantastic! That one doesn’t freeze because of the yogurt/cream in it…but holy crap it’s delicious.
Another new discovery has been the airfryer. It’s HUGE. I mean this thing takes up a LOT of counterspace…but it’s priceless. We make french fries, chicken tenders, chicken patties and nuggets, mozzarella sticks, gyoza…basically anything you can think of, we make in it with ZERO oil! I love french fries (that’d be my Irish half taking over with the love of potatoes in every incarnation), and now I can have them whenever and all I need to account for is the nutritional value in the fries themselves and not the oil.
Looking forward, I’m not sure what new things I’d like to try cooking. I’d like to try my hand at more pasta dishes and sauces. Maybe some casseroles, because those are always so nice and easy for the days when my family runs me halfway to ragged. I’ll have to remember to snap some pics in the future to share here!
Arctophobic 