goal setting and fortyseven day countdown

 Maybe I function better when I have arbitrary food goals.

Hello, I am back for quarantinedmeals part 2.

I think it's time for me to venture out on my own. And by that I mean, live alone. A goal that always felt drastically cost prohibitive even as all my peers were finding their own little cozy caves. I think this timing couldn't have been better because I think I need my own space to struggle through therapy in, and I have 1.5mo to purge and organize my shit. And guess which category of my things feels most overwhelming to me?

You are correct. It's the food.

My ambitious goal is not eat out for the next 1.5mo (with the exception of one prearranged dinner), so that I can reduce my pantry stash by 1/2, completely eliminate my freezer stash, and fit all my fridge fermentation experiments in my traveling fridge bins. I guess with the exception of buying fresh produce from time to time.

But first some vegan inspiration from Little Saint. This baked chickpea pancake buried under squash, cilantro, vadouvan, pine nuts, some sort of yogurt-y sauce and rose petals is telling me to be stop neglecting my legumes drawer.

Megan also had a birthday this past weekend, which meant I used up the rest of a jar of passionfruit jam and some frozen passionfruit concentrate for these little passionfruit toast plant cell cakes [passionfruit cake, passionfruit curd, sourdough buttercream, plain colorful buttercream organelles].

We juiced a lot of things at work, which just meant that I took home a lot of veggie pulp to start a lot of jars of fermented things. Channeling NOMA in my attempt to use fermentation to elevate my seasonal self imposed restrictions.

-breaking in my pretty ceramic crock with simple sauerkraut :)

-lacto carrot (carrot, celery, onion)

-lacto allium (onion, leek, celery)

-tepache

-tepache with barley malt

-carrot and lime vinegar

-celery vinegar

The lacto sauces were ready, so I reduced carrot one down to a slightly thickened sauce with some sugar. And then I reduced the allium one down with tomato paste and a couple adobo chilies to make a simple thin pasta sauce that got thickened with a bit of pasta water.

Tonight we have Cascatelli pasta two ways: lacto allium adobo with scallions and sesame; and creamy tahini mushroom and leek with preserved lemon and dukkah. [But technically mushroom and leek tahini is for the weekend.]

emptied things:

passionfruit jam

passionfruit concentrate

sourdough buttercream

tahini

tomato paste

1 box pasta