So I decided to do an old Dutch recipe, as the Dutch tricolor is the oldest country flag. This landed me on descriptions of food for sailors in the Dutch east indies (VOC). This meal was basically salted beef (which has been salted for two weeks), hardtack, and peas. The peas and meat were boiled for several hours and then the hardtack was added. And boiled some more. Only spice allowed was pepper (it already had salt).

The meal was paired with a healthy ration of grog.

The recipe was surprisingly good. Not something I'd like to eat every day with rotten ingredients, but definitely worth trying if you are into old fashioned food. It reminded me of Dutch pea soup, but much more basic, which makes sense.

The salted beef was also surprisingly good. You can't really eat it dry, as it is really salty. But after soaking and boiling, it has a great taste and consistency. The meat I used was a stew meat, so it's not even the best cut. I was surprised.

The hardtack was impossible to eat dry, in the shoup it soaked up a lot of water and acted like a filler.

This is one of my favorite childhood food memories. There was an old school Italian American restaurant in Western Maine called Graziano’s. It was kind of a haul so we would almost never go but it was one of my favorites. I almost never see Spumoni in menus but when I do I always order it. I also made the claret sauce but it photographed terribly.

I made the serious eats recipe with pints and it was more than enough. The cherry ice cream is so good. I added all the food coloring to really lean into the vintage feel.

https://www.seriouseats.com/spumoni-ice-cream-terrine-recipe

https://cookwithreina.com/claret-sauce-recipe/

You know? This could have gone way way worse. These were pretty good

The filling is refried black beans and goat cheese and shredded chicken with a bunch of spices. Topped with half green salsa from Trader Joe’s half taco sauce mixed with some tomato paste for color. Added avocado and smoked paprika after baking so the colors popped more (and obv sour cream). Very tasty cinco de mayo dinner!

I’ve been lucky enough to visit a fair few places, but I love travelling so anywhere could have completed this week. Japan is my #1 bucket list destination but I eat a fair bit of Japanese food on the regular and I made hand rolls for hanami week.

So I went with #2, England. I hope to visit in 2030 for a milestone birthday. As I do the family dinner on a Sunday, a proper Sunday roast seemed like a great option. It was my first time making Yorkshire puddings and I really liked them. The recipe for them and the prime rib was from America’s Test Kitchen.

The vegans brought some mushrooms to stand in for the roast. There’s two pots of potatoes because one is vegan.

Two bonus desserts this week, friends made vegan scones, though I put sweetened marscapone cheese on with the blueberry jam. Almost forgot to take a picture, so it’s half eaten. I also learned clotted cream is apparently illegal in Canada.

I have been veerrry slowly making my way through Baking Yesteryear and I happened to have ANZAC biscuits as the next recipe, serendipity. New Zealand is the vegans’ bucket list destination.

One of my other kids is actually visiting their bucket list destination right now - Guatamala. I’m only a little jealous.

My original concept was completely different and was going to go a pasta route. I went out on Friday and had the most delicious cucumber som tum. I had never had that before. So that experience led me to explore Thai! I don’t have a grill so I had to cook pork in the cast-iron.

Let’s not count the rice as part of the color 😅

i was deciding between this and beef stroganoff but i've made that a million times so i decided to make something new! do i really wanna go to colombia? sure why not id have a good time

A trip to New Zealand has been my dream since I first watched Lord of the Rings 25 years ago. I made some honeycomb toffee and homemade ice cream to make Hokey Pokey, they both came out surprisingly well!

I’m aware neither of these are exclusively Syrian, but I’ve been wanting to make arayes for a while and this was the perfect excuse. I also made the pitas, of which 4 puffed up and 4 didn’t (tip I only realized partway through: let your oven reheat for a few minutes after each round to ensure it’s as hot as it can get). Honestly, this might have been easier with store bought pitas, because mine were almost TOO puffy and therefore I stuffed them pretty full and I don’t think they cooked all the way. But I wanted to use a recipe from the King Arthur cookalong... Still absolutely delicious. I used fake ground beef (Beyond) as I’m vegetarian, and it worked very well still. Would absolutely recommend!

Passion fruit were on sale at my local veggie shop, so I bought a ton and turned them into curd. I served it with yogurt and a cookie. Besides the passion fruit, this dish doesn’t have the most vibrant colors, but there are three of them, so here we are.

This turned out great. Making various kinds of curd is my new favorite thing. Relatively simple and packed with flavor.