It seems ridiculous to post about food at the moment given everything going on in our country right now, so before I get into it, I'm just going to acknowledge the collective pain we are going through, and recommend some resources that have helped me to learn more about the institutional racism that is rampant in the US: 13th, So You Want to Talk About Race, Evicted, and Just Mercy. Additionally, a fellow Prepare instructor has written a book to address this topic with 8-12 year olds called Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness, which is being offered as a free PDF download through June 19th.

I know for a fact that I turn to food for comfort, and this week has been no exception. Also as I mentioned before, during this pandemic, food is one of the few things we can control to some degree, which is why there has been so much focus on it these days. Everything I've been eating has elements of what makes food comforting to me -- quality ingredients, melty cheese, roasty potatoes, warm bread, noodles -- all while continuing to work through the food on hand before new supplies arrived. 

As part of my Wegman's order a few weeks back, I got a jar of Mexican style red chile sauce and a stack of corn tortillas, so I started off the weekend with one of my most favorite comfort foods -- chilaquiles.  While the tortilla chips were baking, I put together a dish of cheese enchiladas and set it aside for dinner the following day. I also did some baking, which is rare for me (as someone who lives alone, I generally don't need/want a whole cake or dozens of cookies lying around), but I made the Ovenly salted peanut butter cookies and froze half of them, and I'm very glad I did. Saturday's dinner was an easy sheet pan dinner of roasted potatoes and turkey sausage and I threw in some frozen broccoli and cauliflower. This weekend I also treated myself to another batch of fresh baked baguettes delivered to my door -- just as delicious this time around. 

During the pandemic my friend Karen has been getting boxes created by Blue Hill -- fresh produce and pantry items from their amazing farm upstate.  She found herself with way too much asparagus for one person and some hard and soft boiled eggs and a cucumber (which she hates), and I was the lucky recipient of those items. I used the soft boiled egg in my favorite ramen from Sun Noodle, made a smashed cucumber salad to go with the leftover enchiladas, and ate the hard boiled eggs for breakfast. These are the only new groceries I got until yesterday, when I received an order from Imperfect Foods. I got about 5 1/2 lbs of produce, some ground pork, cubed lamb, breakfast sausage, and a bag of tortilla chips for about $50. It's a subscription service, but they have small boxes that are customizable, they offer both organic and conventional produce, and you can adjust the frequency to suit your needs. I'm going to pause it for a while to try Farm to People, and then compare the two to see which is best for my needs. Using some shitake mushrooms from the box, Karen's asparagus, and some Butcher Box scallops from the freezer, I made a stir fry of the three with black bean sauce and some brown jasmine rice (made a big batch; half will go in the freezer for the future). Looking forward to eating through the rest of the newly arrived goodies.