Cooking through 2020

Well...here it is. The first day of 2021. I have been struggling to keep up with regular blog posts. The thing with developing recipes is that they often do not always reach that "good enough to post" level. Or maybe the recipe was great, but I could not get a decent picture. Sometimes my recipes are too closely related to other cooks'/writers' recipes. Often I just want to stick to my tried and true favorites, when I need comfort. When it is exhausting to plan creative recipes. When I need to keep grocery bills affordable. I also ate a lot of takeout.

Like much of 2020, every holiday, each marker of time marching forward, seemed to pass me by. I kept up with my seasonal favorites—duck and stuffing on Thanksgiving, latkes and other fried treats for Hannukah, mulled wine for yule times. But each time the opportunity to post in time seemed to slip right by me. In many ways, I started this blog during quarantine because I am not able to share my cooking much anymore. Even so, I cooked some really amazing things, and my "resolution" for 2021 is to post the ones I developed for Kimchi and Kishke. Better late than never, eh?

A few of the best things I made from the past two months, my own recipes and interpretations:

gram flour gluten-free potato latkes

pakora-inspired pumpkin latkes

lemon and leek risotto

kabocha macaroni and cheese

mulled spiced honey with brandy

saffron-infused vodka

spiced cranberry sauce

gluten-free stuffing with chestnuts and kabocha squash

gluten-free Thai fried chicken

Sri-lankan style deviled pork with potatoes

rosemary leg of lamb with lamb fat roasted potatoes

Thai spicy green mango salad

pho bo (obviously I did not invent beef pho, but I got to a really good point with my broths)

Chinese wind sausage, jujube, and green onion omelet

creamy pumpkin soup