I love finding patterns and when it comes to cooking soups, I find soups fall into 1 of 4 categories:
Tomato-based soups
Chicken based soups
Bacon based soups.
Note: this is not all soups… just a trend I’ve started mapping out for most western styled soups. I’ll go into detail about it another day.
Yup. Bacon.
Bacon isn’t just a breakfast food. It’s a wonderfully salty flavor-packed piece of fatty meat that works wonders as a foundation for many dishes. You don’t even need that much of it! 2 slices (what’s usually on the plate of a typical American breakfast platter) is all you need for a dish that can serve ~4.
Today I made pumpkin soup. I’ve made pumpkin soup before and it’s been… all right. I’m not personally fond of the pureed soups. I like texture. You know, the soups that can serve as meal replacers on their own. But puréed soups like these are especially great when paired with a sandwich. And today’s recipe was good enough that my husband got up for more.
This soup relies on bacon and caramelized onions to get that savoriness that makes the soup taste full-bodied. And relies on white sweet potato to give it that extra creaminess that you might miss from omitting cream.
It will lack the fattiness of a cream-based pumpkin soup, but honestly I prefer it this way.
Butternut Squash Soup with Bacon (dairy free)
Use bacon to makes this traditional soup extra savory and delish
1Japanese Sweet Potato, choppedapprox 1 cup, optional, see notes
1tspthyme
1bay leaf
2 tsporegano
3tspparsley
2cupschicken broth
2cupswater
1/2tspsaltor to taste, see notes
Instructions
Add the chopped bacon to a pot on medium heat to render out the fat. Stir occasionally to prevent burning and sticking, and let cook until bacon crisps, then remove the bacon while leaving the fat behind. Depending on your bacon, you may want to remove some of the fat. Ideally you want about 1-2 TBSP bacon fat. If there's less than that, add some olive oil. If there's more, use a paper towel to remove as needed.
Add the onions to the bacon fat and saute, stirring occasionally. The more caramelized, the more flavor that gets released into the soup.
Add garlic, squash, and sweet potato. Give it a stir then add the rest of the ingredients starting with the broth.
Adjust heat to high and bring pot to boil. Once boiling, reduce to a simmer, close lid, and let cook for 20 min.
After 20 min, remove lid and stir. Test the squash and sweet potato. They should both be soft now. If using a blender, carefully ladle the soup into the blender and puree til smooth, then return to pot.
To serve: Ladle soup into bowls. Drizzle soy yogurt overtop for visuals and use a toothpick or skewer to draw a spiral to create the white trails in the yogurt. Sprinkle the previous cooked and chopped bacon and serve.
Notes
Add salt to taste. Depending on your chicken broth, you may not need additional salt. Mine is homemade so there’s no salt from it, so 1/2 tsp work great for me. For the sweet potato, you can use either orange or white flesh version. the white flesh version is sweeter so I recommend that. The sweet potato added thickness and sweetness to the soup. For the decorative yogurt, use a flavorless yogurt or cream or simply omit. It only adds visuals and doesn’t really affect the flavor.
Obviously this is not a “recipe”, but long story short… I bought a strawberry latte from a new bubble tea shop and forgot that the default sweetness in these drinks is usually too sweet for me. I also didn’t realize that a strawberry latte wouldn’t have any tea in it, so what resulted was a cup of almond milk with strawberry syrup, strawberry puree, and enough sugar to turn it to ice cream. Yikes!
So I didn’t drink it. I sipped about 1/3 of it through the evening and then took the rest home. Where we got the silly idea of… “will it waffle?”
I mean, when you break it down, what we have to work with is sweetened strawberry-flavored almond milk. Batter can use milk… and sugar. So let’s just add the rest of the ingredients for this recipe and give it a go!
The recipe I used is actually my own crepe recipe, which works well in a waffle iron too with added baking powder. I like using my bubble waffle maker when doing these kind of snack experiments because you get the best of both worlds: pillow-y bits and crispy edge bits.
Crispy edge bits and pillowy middle bits… yum. I need to stop myself from eating all these….
This worked really well….lol. When all else fails… turn it into a waffle. XD
Note: I have no idea if the strawberry syrup in this drink has corn syrup in it or not. I have a high enough tolerance to handle occasional corn syrup, but if you’re not the case, always ask before ordering and if you’re not confident, don’t buy it.
Wedding soup is a chicken broth-based soup whose primary flavor profile is from oregano, parsley, and parmesan cheese. It’s popular in the US and is one of my dad’s favorites, though we rarely ate it because of how salty the canned version could be.
Key Ingredients
Most of the ingredients in this soup are pretty standard meat and vegetable ingredients of a chicken soup, but there are 3 ingredients to be wary of in this recipe
Noodles
Wedding soup usually includes a pasta called orzo. Orzo looks like a rice grain but it’s wheat just like any other pasta. Other types of small pastas (“pasting”) used in this soup are acini de pepe (dot-shaped) or stelline (tiny star-shaped). There are gluten free variations of these, so it’s easy to replace. Otherwise, you can just substitute with rice, but it will lengthen the cooking time.
Parmesan cheese
Parmesan cheese is mixed into the meatballs themselves and the rind is often used to provide the soup with savoriness and saltiness. For a dairy-free version, we can actually replace the cheese with nutritional yeast, but it changes the cooking order. Rather than adding the cheese rind in the beginning, we’ll be sprinkling Nutritional Yeast at the end to get that savory “cheesy” taste.
Chicken bone broth
If you don’t do this already, I highly recommend making homemade bone broth as part of your kitchen basics routines. Homemade stock/broth is significantly tastier and pretty low-effort as long as you have a slow cooker.
Boxed broth is a fair alternative, but many broth variants have hidden corn. Look out for “natural flavor” or “vegetable stock” with unidentified ingredients. Broth is a food where corn is a highly likely ingredient in the broth. Bone broth is less likely to have it but it still can.
Making the Process Easier
While most recipes call for pre-cooking the meatballs either in the oven or by searing in a pan, this dish can be done in 1-pot by rolling and dropping the meatballs directly into the soup as it cooks. Pre-cooking the meatballs helps sear the flavors into the meatball better, but for a quick weekday meal, it’s perfectly fine and tasty to skip this step and cook the raw meatballs directly in the broth for a faster weekday meal.
Healthy Substitutions
The traditional recipe calls for meatballs made of 1/2 ground pork and 1/2 ground beef, but TBH I always make this with ground turkey or ground chicken for a lighter meal. I’ve also mixed in 1/2 cup sweet potato puree instead of almond flour for the heck of it, but that does sweeten the meatballs a bit. If you don’t care about authenticity, there’s a lot of variation you can do.
Italian Wedding Soup (Gluten Free, Dairy Free)
A comforting soup that works great as a meal and tastes better when the noodles have absorbed the broth and softened.
Add all the meatball ingredients into a bowl and, using your hands, mix it all together until fully incorporated. Set aside.
Make the Soup
In a heavy bottom pot, heat olive oil on medium heat and add diced onions and sauté until softened.
Add the garlic and diced carrots and continue to sweat the vegetables, about 3-5 minutes.
Add the chicken broth and turn the heat to high to bring to a boil.
As the chicken broth starts to heat, wet your hands and start rolling small meatballs from the meat mixture, dropping them into the soup 1 at a time. As the broth heats, it will cook the meatballs and cause them to float to the top.
Once boiling, add the orzo, and stir frequently to prevent the noodles from sticking to the bottom as they cook. Cook for 10 minutes.
Add the nutritional yeast, salt, and tumeric. Add the spinach and stir until wilted. Turn off heat.
You can serve immediately, but I recommend waiting 20 minutes for the noodles to expand and get softer. Some reason it tastes better this way in this soup.
Notes
This recipe is more of a lazy weekday method to making wedding soup. You get a tasty comforting soup, but I’m not optimizing for the best “gourmet” experience.For best flavor, bake or pan sear the meatballs before adding to the soup. This step helps seal flavor into the meatballs and makes them more savory.
Keyword bone broth, chicken soup, meal soup, noodle soup, soup
Pastelón de platano maduro is a Latin-American layered dish made with ripe plantains and a meat filling. Popular in both Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, I was introduced to the Puerto Rican version first through my fiancé and fell in love. Who knew Latin America had so many gluten-alternative dishes and ingredients readily available to explore? Our version of the pastelón recipe is packed with flavor while minimizing the unhealthy fats. It is an all-in-one dish that is sweet, savory, and hearty– a perfect 1-pan dish to serve a whole family.
Watch our first cooking video on YouTube! Don’t forget to follow us there for more video content in the future!
But First, About Plantains
If you aren’t familiar with plantains, a plantain is a tropical tree fruit that is common in Latin American countries, having originated from West and Central Africa. It looks very similar to a banana, but anyone who has ever handled a plantain can tell you they are very different foods. Plantains are a lot starchier than a banana and must be cooked to eat. When peeling, you often need a knife to cut through the peel, which is also a lot harder and stiffer than a banana’s. The taste and culinary uses are also different as well.
The fruit is used in many dishes and is eaten in both its green state and yellow state. When the plantain is green, it is starchier and not sweet. It is commonly fried in to plantain chips or tostones or boiled into a masa. Ripe yellow plantains are sweeter. When fried, the sugars within the ripe plantain caramelize, turning a golden-brown color, making a delicious dessert all on their own. Ripe plantains are also boiled into a masa, but it comes out softer (and of course sweet).
Like a banana, as a plantain ripens, it goes from green to yellow to black, getting sweeter as it changes color. For a pastelón, you want yellow to black plantains (but of course, this is a pretty flexible dish). The blacker they are, the sweeter (and softer) they’ll be. The sweeter the plantain, the more it will provide a sweet contrast to the savory filling.
Our Method
Pastelón starts with ripe plantains as its primary starch. Traditionally when cooking the Puerto Rican version, you cut the plantains lengthwise into flat slices and fry them first before laying the slices into a single starch layer. This method gives more texture, flavor, and gives the plantain a softer bite, but also makes the overall dish heavier since it’s frying. So instead, we boil and mash the plantain, then scoop and press the mash into an even layer for the base and the top of the pastelon.
Our version also does not use cheese or bechamel sauce, which is typically added as a top layer to the dish. A cashew cream sauce would be a good alternative to the bechamel, but for simplicity’s sake we simply do not add it and instead include a generous side of garlicky mayo ketchup! For the cheese, you could substitute with a store bought vegan cheese shred, but keep in mind most of those contain coconut. I personally haven’t missed the cheese in this recipe since the meat filling used is incredibly flavorful already. To make up for the lost moisture though, we make sure the plantain masa is slightly wetter than standard. In our case, we add pumpkin to the masa, but you can optionally just add more liquid instead.
Recipe
As a layered casserole dish, the recipe for Pastelón can get pretty complicated, but when it comes to the steps they actually aren’t too difficult. You can also vary up the fillings if you like. Add mushrooms or onions into the beef filling for added vegetable content. Too much variation and you’ll move away from this being a true Pastelón, but hey. As long as it tastes good and feels good, who’s really complaining?
Pastelón (Gluten and Dairy Free)
A Puerto Rican and Dominican inspired pastelon made healthy with mashed ripe plantains, ground beef, and no dairy or gluten
1cuppumpkin pureeto add moisture and more nutrients
1tbspdairy free butteror cooking spray or oil, for greasing the baking pan
Beef Filling:
1tbspolive oilor other cooking oil
2tbspsofritoIf you can't buy sofrito, see below
1/2cuptomato saucecheck the label, some brands include corn starch or corn flour for thickening!
1/2cupdiced red bell peppers
1/2cupsliced olives
2tspadobo spice blendGoya brand is traditional, but see below for a separate adobo recipe
1tbspdried oregano
2bay leaves
Additional ingredients:
3eggsoptional, but helps "glue" everything together
1cupgreen beansoptional, but adds nutrition and texture
Garlicky Mayo-ketchup
3tbspketchupmake sure you get one without corn syrup!
2tbspmayonnaiseadd more or less to taste
2tbsprice vinegarif using white vinegar, reduce to 1-2 tsp
2tbspsakecan sub with water
2-4garlic cloveswe like it really garlicky, so adjust according to taste
Instructions
Make the Plantain Masa
Cut off the ends of the ripe plaintains and slice open the plantain skins lengthwise from end to end. Peel back the skin to reveal the white plantain fruit (it looks a lot like a banana but is much starchier). Roughly cut the plantain into chunks for boiling.
In a large pot, bring salted water to a boil. Once boiling, add the plantains and let simmer over medium heat, about 20 mins. Test with a fork for doneness. If the fork easily pierces the plantain, it's ready (this is similar to how you would boil potatoes).
Drain the plantain pieces, then with a fork or potato masher, mash the plantains. Add the pumpkin puree and then continue to mash. Optionally add 1-2 TBSP of water until desired consistency (like a mashed potato, not overly wet. You want it to maintain some substance by being slightly dry).
Cook the Beef Filling
Add oil to a pan and gently sauté the sofrito over medium-low heat (careful! sofrito is wet so may splatter). Add the ground beef and break it apart with a spatula.
Add the tomato sauce, red bell peppers, adobo spice, oregano, bay leaves, and olives, stir to cook. If it's too dry, add a splash of water or sake. Cook under the liquid is mostly gone.
Assemble the Pastelón
Prehead the oven to 350ºF.
Grease a 9×12 baking pan
Scoop half the plantain masa into the pan. Spread it around and press it down into an even layer
Remove the bay leaves from the beef filling, then spread all of the beef filling overtop the plantain layer. It should completely cover the bottom in an even layer.
Scatter the green beans overtop the beef filling.
Crack 3 eggs and beat well. Gently spread 1/2 the beaten egg overtop the beef & green bean layer evenly across the dish. Use a basting brush to even out the spread as needed.
Add the rest of the plantain masa to the top of the dish, being careful to spread it evenly and press it into a flat layer. Then gently spread the remaining beaten egg overtop this plantain layer, again using a basting brush to even out the spread as needed.
Optional: Sprinkle ground achiote (can sub paprika) as a garnish
Bake at 350ºF for 45 min.
Once finished, remove from oven and let it sit for 10 min before slicing. Enjoy!
Make Mayo-Ketchup condiment
Mince the garlic or mash in a mortar to draw out the most flavor
Add ketchup, mayonnaise, vinegar, sake, and garlic to a bowl and mix completely until fully incorporated. Serve on the side with the pastelón.
Notes
If you can’t find sofrito, you can make some yourself, but if that’s too cumbersome, just add minced culantro (or cilantro if you also cannot find culantro), onion, and garlic. Pastelón is a great family meal dish, but it also can be made ahead and served as leftovers. Pastelón also freezes really well for meal prep!
The scheduling problem that started in February only got worse in March, primarily due to work life but also due to social obligations and changes in daily routines. I did manage to focus my cooking on Italian food but as for writing about it, that just… never found time in my schedule to get done.
Some Thought on Italian Cuisine
I tried REALLY hard to cook “authentic” Italian (images of cranky grandmas tasting my food and screaming “this is not Italian” kept coming to mind), but I ultimately found this really difficult to do for several reasons:
First what IS “authentic Italian cuisine”? Italy is divided into regions and each region approaches their food differently. Meat sauce is an Americanized thing? Well there’s ragu alla bolognese which is served in both Bologna and Naples (Also why is “ragu alla bolognese” an authentic italian dish while “pasta bolognese” is not? Looking at the recipes, they are the same thing). There’s a lot of debate between Italians from different regions about which region’s version of a particular dish is better.
There’s a LOT of Italy-inspired recipes out there (primarily coming from the US). This can really dilute the search results when trying to find “authentic” recipes. Italy’s popularity means a lot of invention and adaptation has happened with the cuisine around the world, which makes it difficult to figure out what recipes are truly from Italy.
Sometimes the only way to find something was to search in Italian, which is not a language I know. However, even when researching in Italian websites, the recipes weren’t really… recipes. More like suggestions of what to add with arbitrary measurements and optional ingredients. Perhaps, like me, measuring ingredients isn’t really a part of their ethnic culinary culture?
There is a heavy reliance on ingredients sourced in Italy and honestly, you need to reside in Italy to really have access to it all. It’s something you hear a lot about anecdotally. Your basic table wine in Italy is better. The tomatoes grown in Italy are better. The cured meats are better. Even the wheat used in Italy is better (and in fact, there are several stories of people with gluten intolerance being able to eat wheat products when in Italy in spite of this (1 reasoning is that Italy’s wheat is not as “hard” as American wheat (that is to say, it has less of the “hardiness-against-pests” protein… I need to research this more))). We can get processed versions of Italian ingredients imported, but it’s never going to be the same as sourcing them locally, not to mention all the logistics of trade quality control that have been flagged issues in the past (anyone remember the scandals of imported Italian olive oil being cut with other oils?).
At the same time, Italian food was easy to cook in the US. Perhaps too easy. Because of its popularity, there are a lot of Italian-style premade ingredients to work with: gluten free dried pastas, jarred marinara sauces, vegan pesto, refrigerated raviolis, olives, etc. In the US, one of the quickest home meals to make is to boil pasta noodles, mix in a premade sauce, and serve. Whether that could be considered “authentic” though, is pretty questionable. It certainly made weeknight dinners easy though.
“Authentic” really depends on who you’re referencing. When Italians immigrated to the US, they brought their culinary cultures with them. But then, as all immigrants do, they began to adapt their foods to their new way of life in the US. Which is to say, Italian food in the US became hardier, more filling. The US was founded on industry and hard work, so much of its food is meant fuel long days and to be eaten quickly or on the go. Plus in the modern days of the busy dual-income household, food needs to be cooked quickly too (after all, why am I even doing this 12-month challenge if not to figure out better ways to eat well at home with those same time pressures?). If you ask any Italian-American, they would say their dishes are authentic Italian because they were adapted from their Italian heritages. But those local to Italy would probably not recognize it.
Modern adaptations have resulted in new options that swing Italian cuisine from the popular hardy & filling style back to light and healthy. Zoodles (zucchini cut with a spiralizer to take the shape of noodles) became really trendy in 2020, returning the pasta dish to people on a variety of diet trends (keto, paleo, gluten free, etc). You can find premade zoodles in the grocery aisles now, including other spiralized vegetables like butternut squash, kohlrabi, and carrots.
Ultimately, I decided to focus the month on adding Italian “flavors” to healthy dishes, and came out learning a few quick and easy ways to get get a weeknight meal on the table without resorting to takeout.
Some Thoughts on the Monthly Cuisine Challenge
With April already underway, I’ve decided to use this month to take a break and put into practice what I’ve learned so far. This will also give me time to catch up on some posts and share the recipes and base recipes (!) that I’ve come up with from this challenge.
General Cooking Lessons Learned
The magic of zoodles. Zoodles + sauce (any sauce really) + meat make for a quick and easy weeknight meal. I’ve learned to embrace the pre-cut pre-spiralized vegetables. It’s expensive but there’s always a trade-off between time and money isn’t there?
Many dishes follow the same cooking method but use different ingredients, such as the sauté. Or the stir fry. Japanese and Korean have their own dishes that do this (Japanese chashu pork & cabbage, or Korean spicy chicken & cabbage). Italians have plenty too, just with olives and tomatoes instead of garlic and soy sauce.
Oven steaming is super easy. We’ve been wanting to eat fish more and found an amazingly simple way to do this: oven steaming. Fish + ingredients of choice in a covered dish (or aluminum foil packet for minimized mess) popped into the oven for 20-30 minutes results in a moist, flavorful 1-pan meal that takes minimal active attention to make.
Premade seasoning blends make the process even faster. Or premade formulas for flavor combinations. That’s the purpose of the “flavor alchemy” section of this site. For instance, I used to scoff at premade “Italian seasoning” blend, preferring to buy the dried herbs separately and adding them in as I need them. There’s value in owning the separate herbs (many are used across different culinary cuisines) but having a jar of something that just makes a dish taste “Italian” is magic.
While I don’t think I’ve learned as many dishes that are “Italian” as I would have liked this month, I think the process of researching the cuisine while living in the US has opened my cooking practice to new quick-and-healthy methods and skills that are great for weeknight meals. We’ll touch base again at the end of April. For now, I plan to practice what I’ve learned so far and get back into learning new cuisines in May.
Finding gluten-free noodles without corn flour or corn starch is fairly easy in grocery stores nowadays, but finding Italian pre-made items, such as ravioli, that are both dairy-free and gluten-free (it’s usually one or the other, not both) is uncommon. Then there’s the additional complication that the dairy-free filling needs to be coconut-free as well, and it’s near impossible to achieve.
Manini’s is a small gluten-free specializing brand that managed to achieve just this with their line of gluten and dairy free (and coconut free!) raviolis. As of now, they offer 2 flavors in this category:
These raviolis came refrigerated and are meant to be stored in the freezer. To cook, just pop the contents into a pot of salted and boiling water, cook for the duration indicated on the box, and then serve with a sauce of your choice.
Once the water starts boiling, pop the raviolis into the pot and cook for about 4-5 minutes. I recommend using a bigger pot than me since the frozen temperature of the raviolis negated the boil for the 1st 30 seconds or so.
I’ve tried both flavors in the past and the Roasted Tomato & Basil has to be my favorite. Those who can eat real cheese will notice the absence of it (cashew cheese is an excellent texture and flavor replacement, but it does lack the fatty richness of real cheese), but personally…? I like this better. Cashew cheese is light, less fatty, making eating a whole container of raviolis less caloric and guilt-ridden (it’s still a solid amount of calories, don’t mistake me, but less than if those pastas were filled with cheese).
Manini’s not only manages to be gluten-free, corn-free, dairy-free, and coconut-free, they also manage to do it without using rice as staple ingredient
Manini’s also sells fresh pastas that are without filling and meet my dietary requirements as well, but I haven’t personally tried those.
Unfortunately you can’t direct-order the raviolis from Manini’s website and need to rely on their 3rd party vendors for access (you can order the flours, pizza crusts, and brownie mixes direct, just not the refrigerated fresh items). The primary vendors listed on their site are Amazon Fresh and William Sonoma. William Sonoma currently only stocks their non-dairy-free options (which you must buy in a variety pack) and from personal experience, the stock availability from Amazon Fresh can be pretty random.
I occasionally find boxes at certain Whole Foods or Sprouts stores and when I do, I make sure I stock up on a couple while I can. I leave them in the freezer for those days when I have a real craving for Italian and hopefully they last until the next time I find more at the next store hunt.
Switching things up this month and moving away from the Asian culinary regions, I’m focusing on Italian food this month for the 12 months of cuisines challenge!
Italian food is very popular here in the US and yet… is not in my comfort zone. For one, I’m not a big noodle eater and pasta is pretty much the staple pantry item in Italian cuisine. Cheese (and dairy) is also the primary compliment and is also not friendly to my restricted diet.
I’m also not very well-versed in Italian food. The United States has a plethora of Italian restaurants and families with generational recipes, but the US also has it’s own take on what Italian food means (which I believe has to do with the earlier Italian immigrants and the needs and resources available to them when they arrived. Those staple dishes for those starting Italian-Americans were passed down and became what the US understands as Italian food today). It’s heavier, heartier, richer, and overall very delicious, but not what I found appealing about trying a month of Italian cooking. I want to focus on the REAL Italian food, which is to say, the food that Italians in Italy cook and eat, the foods associated with a “health Mediterranean Diet” and celebrate quality ingredients prepared simply. The food that’s meant to be eaten slowly while savoring each mindful bite.
Italians are passionate about their food and traditions around the food, so perhaps this month may end up being a bit sacrilegious since I won’t be cooking with any dairy (no butter, cream, milk, cheese, etc) or gluten (bread, pasta). Even with gluten free alternatives, I 100% plan to be using a lot of vegetables (zoodles anyone?) to replace at least a portion of the carbs to make it healthier for my body.
Benefits of Italian Month
1. Italian food is well known for being healthy
And Italians have a reputation of being skinny and healthy as well. There’s a practice of eating “only when hungry” and eating mindfully in Italian culture. Hopefully focusing on Italian food will be able to bring some of those good habits home.
2. There’s a high emphasis on vegetables and healthy fats
Italians don’t eat a lot of heavy meats, with the ones most commonly eaten being cured and sliced thinly to savor the flavor. Olive oil is the most common cooking fat used and fish (omega-3 rich fish like sardines) are common as well.
3. Italian food emphasizes fresh and high quality produce
Italians tend to use simpler cooking methods that focus on the flavor of the ingredients used. With the exception of long-stewing dishes, Italian recipes are fairly simple in their ingredients and preparation (which additionally makes quick cooking a possibility). If it’s not a good quality tomato, you can tell in Italian food. Therefore, being fresh and in season is important. This also means nutritionally, the food will be at its best.
4. Italian food is popular in the United States.
Even though the US has its own variant and its own take on Italian food, this does mean that the US regularly stocks a lot of the staple ingredients in Italian cuisine. And for those specialty items, it’s not difficult to find an Italian grocer around the states (imported cured meats are especially prized in a lot of charcuterie or “cold cuts” shops).
Additionally, because Italian food is so popular, there has been more progress in gluten free and dairy free alternatives to Italian staples than other cuisine categories. You can find a variety of pastas and brands that are gluten free (and that’s not including the naturally gluten free varieties from Asian countries like rice noodles (pho) and potato starch noodles (japchae)) and the cheese alternatives have grown to include a wide variety (though because many of them rely on coconut in the absence of dairy fat, I still can’t eat them).
Challenges
1. Italian food is high carb and relies on gluten
Pasta is like the rice of Italian cuisine. Outside of pasta, people eat a lot of bread. While there are gluten free options out there I can use as alternatives, it’s still a large carb load on my body. I’ll need to get creative to lessen the carb load and balance the overall meal plate. I see many zoodles in the upcoming month.
2. Dairy free cheese is not very good
While there has been many advances in the dairy free cheese alternative food manufacturing world, when comparing real cheese to fake cheese, it’s very easy to tell which is fake. Another down side is that most dairy free alternatives involve coconut, which is one of the food items I cannot have.
Cheese is the most difficult food category to get around. However… while replacing cheese on a cheese board or in a sandwich may be difficult, replacing “cheesiness” in a dish is actually pretty easy. Many foods that rely on cheese for its salty umami-ness (pasta carbonara, pesto, etc) can easily substitute nutritional yeast and salt. Some of the simplicity of Italian food I might have to skip because of its reliance on just sprinkling cheese on something, but I’m optimistic that I’ll find ways around this that won’t make me miss real cheese after all.
3. We’re in the wrong growing season
It’s March, which means it won’t be easy to find “local seasonal produce”, even in northern California where we tend to have milder weather. We’ll just have to focus on getting good quality and not letting it get too old in the fridge before eating.
4. I have a time conflicts now
This was a major issue last month during Korean Cuisine Month, but I started a new job in February and severely underestimated my time distribution between work life and side projects. Not that I dislike my job, but… the amount of time I have to write blog posts, research cooking culture, and formulate recipes has severely declined so I think I’m going to have to reduce the goal here. Hopefully, I’ll have at least 5 recipes to share by the end of the month.
I also have a backlog of Korean recipes I want to make sure I add. I will focus on keeping up to date with Italian month, but I might be sprinkling an old Korean recipe in every now and then.
And yes, pizza will definitely be one of the things I will be to making. Multiple versions hopefully. I know it’s not a “quick” option, but it is one of the foods I miss most when it comes to Italian.
Eating Out Italian
To be honest, I don’t do this much. It’s very difficult. Even if I find an Italian restaurant that openly offers gluten free pasta, the pasta might have corn flour or corn starch (it’s something I would have to ask the waiter to check… and I for some reason I’m very intimidated at the idea of walking into a proud authentic Italian restaurant and asking for food with no gluten, dairy, corn or coconut (I feel like they might get very judgmental and tell me “get out”)).
Pizzas are always a no. Even if a place offer gluten free crust, it will likely be heavily made with cheese (not sure why… I think it’s a texture thing) or include corn flour. I haven’t found a place that does otherwise, nor have I found a decent off-the-shelf gluten free pizza crust mix in grocery stores either.
If you find a restaurant that serves gluten free noodle options, then tomato-based sauces are you safest bet and you will ALWAYS want to ask to be sure (it’s surprising what sauces will have dairy in it (pesto, for instance, is green and made of basil, but it has parmesan!)). Even tomato sauces have versions with dairy (vodka sauce, being an example). If you want to include meat, don’t get the meatballs (meatballs are made with breadcrumbs and sometimes parmesan cheese). Opt for ground meat like a ragu (but again, ask to make sure there’s no gluten or dairy such as butter in the dish) or opt for a grilled portion of protein on the side (again, make sure there’s no butter used or corn starch to tenderize the protein).
Salads have been my default when I find myself at an Italian restaurant (which history has tended to be during a work lunch event). As long as it’s not a Caesar salad (which when you remove the dairy and gluten is just a pile of romaine lettuce (and funnily enough is not even Italian (it started in Tijuana, Mexico) but we have it in every Italian restaurant in the US)), you can normally just ask they remove the cheese (but do check that the dressing used is dairy- and corn-free since premixed vinaigrette can contain high fructose corn syrup or corn starch).
Salad and simple grilled proteins are great options at Italian restaurants. Just make sure there’s no dairy or corn used (especially in the salad dressing and meat).
If there’s no salad option, and you are at more upscale Italian restaurant, check the “secondi” menu, which is usually where the heavier plates that feature whole chunks of grilled meat are. These tend to be more customizable for your diet (talk to the waiter!) but sometimes you’ll find items that already work, such as a roasted chicken plate.
But with Italian food, ALWAYS ask. Even if a dish you know is safe, that particular restaurant could have a restaurant-specific method of cooking it that includes your food sensitivities, like grilling your chicken with butter or adding cheese to the spinach. I once had a brick-oven roasted chicken make me sick b/c it was pre-tenderized with corn starch (I think. It’s a common method in restaurant cooking to keep partially-cooked chicken tender with quick-turnaround cooking, but I didn’t actually ask the chef. The waiters there were already super confused at “too many food omissions” request). Always ask.
Finally, Some Starter Ingredients
Italian food is about simple preparation and fresh quality ingredients, but they do have several key ingredients that are repeatedly used in their cuisine.
Tomatoes – large, small, etc. They’re condensed into pastes, sliced and eaten raw, roasted, etc.
Basil – fresh and dried, though fresh is significantly more fragrant.
Olive oil – The main oil type used in Italian cuisine. Food is lightly sauteed in olive oil, braised in it, etc. Olive oil is even served as a dipping condiment with balsamic vinaigrette or dried herbs for bread.
Garlic – The more the better.
Lemons – Especially good when cooking fish, this fruit, like most citrus, keeps well in the fridge and has decent shelf life outside on the countertop. I love lemons and regularly keep a few around for desserts, drinks, soups, and seafood.
Olives – Salty and briny, these give a burst of salty flavor when added to a dish. They can also be eaten on the side as a snack. There are many varieties of olives and olive color (black, brown, green…), but I personally always prefer the green ones. I recommend avoiding the canned black ones we see a lot in the US (the olives pick up the tin taste very strongly) and going for a jarred option. It’s more expensive, but if you’d never eaten the jarred kind, the flavor is like night and day
Rosemary, thyme, oregano, marjoram, parsley – an assortment of herbs that are part of the Italian flavor palette. Many US homes will have these in a single jar mixed together in a store-bought “Italian Seasoning” blend, but I also recommend keeping the herbs separately too so you have better control of the flavor combinations. These are also great fresh, but unless you cook Italian regularly, keeping the herbs maintained in a household garden may be too much work. Dried has been fine for me (especially rosemary as the rosemary leaves are more hardy than the other herbs), but maybe this upcoming month will make me rethink that.
It’s almost the end of February and the end of Korean Cuisine Month in this 12 months of cuisines challenge. February has been… very challenging schedule-wise. I have a backlog of recipes I need to write up and haven’t even researched next month yet in order to get started (it’s Italian…. I chose it. Italian is easy. Will explain in the future). Needless to say… I’m very behind and it’s weighing me down a lot.
The main culprit to this time-restriction: I started a new job. I was expecting the workload to have impact on my free time for cooking and recipe writing, but I severely underestimated how much of my physical time and mental energy it would take away. I admit, I was pretty demoralized the last couple of days that the activity I must do to survive (aka “make money”) prevents me from doing the thing that brings me the most joy (aka “no money”). I should figure out a better balance, but I’m not wholly sure it’s achievable, given the other life activities that exist and just how much mental space work is requiring of me.
But let’s treat these “month-end reviews” as post mortems to reflect on the positives and find ways to make it better next month.
Some Thoughts on Korean Cuisine
First, a great positive: Korean food is VERY easy to meal prep! Most recipes are meant to make large family-size portions (soups and stews, large chunks of sliced-up meat, kimchi, etc) and stored for future eats. It’s not uncommon for a Korean mom to make a bunch of side dishes (“banchan”) and gift them to her adult kids to be eaten for the next 1-2 weeks. Many dishes are meant to be prepared ahead, stored in the fridge, and served alongside a main that is cooked that day (whether that main is a soup, a cooked central dish, or just a bowl of rice).
There are a lot of vegetables in Korean food! And many ways to incorporate vegetables into dishes (like juk). There’s only a handful of traditional Korean vegetables used, but the cooking methods are repeatable with other produce. Broccoli, celery, and parsnips, for instance, can be cooked the same as any other “namul” dish (I’ve definitely seen broccoli served as banchan in Korean restaurants before).
There’s actually not a lot of meat involved in Korean cuisine. When we go to Korean restaurants in the US, beef (and large quantities of it) is usually what we see (mostly b/c Korean food = Korean BBQ in a lot of areas). I was actually a bit worried since we’re currently in a meat shortage in the US, so the prices have spiked a bit (it wasn’t as terrible as predicted but the price hikes are still visible), but even when dishes use beef (bibimbap, juk, taro soup, etc), the quantity of beef is actually not a whole lot. The way you cut the beef into fine pieces and use bones to increase the beefy flavor (such as with seolleongtang (beef bone soup)) makes a small amount of beef carry a long way.
As a consequence, there are a lot of carbs in Korean food. I didn’t make many noodle dishes (except for Japchae once), so mostly focused on rice and I noticed us eating more rice than we did in Japanese month. Both cuisines are rice-based. I don’t know if Korean cuisine just relies on rice as a flavor carrier more than Japanese food, or if this was just a coincidence (or if my weight gain this month was due to work stress and not carb intake). But yeah, our carb intake increased in February.
Korean cuisine is also (overall) high in salt. All the namuls (side dish vegetables that are blanched and coated in salt, sesame oil, garlic and other flavor ingredients) and many of the banchans require salt to be tasty. It’s not necessarily a lot per dish, but I get the feeling the daily consumption adds up quick.
The dishes are variable due to the reliance on specific flavor profiles. Primary flavor profiles involve sesame oil, garlic, doenjang (fermented bean paste), and gochujang (red pepper paste). My favorite is definitely the combination of sesame oil, salt, and black pepper (common in namuls).
Some Thoughts on This Monthly Cuisine Challenge
I had set myself a goal of 12 recipes this month, thinking that was a fair reduction in scope while still being able to turn out enough recipes to make the month worthwhile. At the end of the month, I feel very certain that this is way too many. It sucks b/c I know I can cook more than 12 different dishes in a single month. But I didn’t consider how taxing the extra effort of photographing and writing on a timeline outside of work would be. Work cuts waking hours in half and when it comes to “free time”, it’s more like taking away 2/3rds or 3/4ths of it.
“Burning the candle at both ends” is not realistic as an adult with adult responsibilities (I’ve always noticed the “self starters” and “go-getters” who make claims of being able to do so always have a spouse of some significant other who is playing support role from behind the scenes (or they have money to pay others to do this for them)). Health (and that includes chronic stress reduction) must come first. I mean, the whole purpose of figuring out simple-to-make meals that are my-diet friendly is so I can eat healthy in an over-capacity work life.
Last week of the month should be dedicated to kitchen cleanup (using up the last of certain ingredients and leftovers) and getting ready for the following month’s food type, especially if I want to get in to some more challenging cuisines that I know far less about, such as Middle Eastern or Russian or Latino options.
So onwards to March, where I’ll be focusing on Italian food. New start-of-the-month post coming soon.
When I go to restaurants I normally eat bibimbap plain. That is, when you order bibimbap, they often serve it with a thick red sauce on the side known as “cho-gochujang (or “chojang” for short). It’s a condiment made with gochujang (Korean red chili paste) that is slightly sweet, slightly spicy (or very spicy depending on the gochujang used. Most restaurants do not serve it very spicy), slightly tart, and slightly savory. Adding it to a bowl of bibimbap really elevates the flavor and makes it more complex.
However, a common culprit found in cho-gochujang is corn syrup. Or oligo-syrup made with corn. And if the restaurant isn’t making their own and buying premade in bulk, there’s also likely to be corn starch too. In addition, people have their own recipes and flavor alterations they like…. Soy sauce and wheat can be additives too. It’s hard for the Korean restaurant staff to know what’s in their unlabeled bottles of cho-gochujang. So I just don’t try it.
Corn syrup is easily replaceable. Honey is the premium sweetener of choice, but I’ve found maple syrup to work just as well. you can also sub for plain sugar and just dilute it a bit more with water.
I personally don’t like my cho-gochujang very sweet and prefer to highly the savory and vinegar flavors more. Add more sweetener if you’d like.
Korean Sweet Red Pepper Sauce (Cho-Gochujang)
Commonly served on top of bibimbap or as a condiment for other Korean dishes
Bibimbap is my go-to dish whenever I go out to a Korean restaurant that I don’t know. By default, it has none of my allergen foods (no gluten, dairy, corn, or coconut) and when made well, is a very balanced meal of vegetables and rice. You can also get it with beef (and most American restaurants serve it with beef by default as well) For the most part I’ve done fine with that. But fair warning… the beef is commonly marinated in a sweetened soy sauce (aka “bulgogi” style beef) and that does come with risk of gluten (soy sauce has gluten) and corn (when corn syrup is used).
As one of my favorite Korean dishes, I had to spend some time this month making bibimbap. While bibimbap is easy to put together, I don’t really consider this an “easy dish”. There’s just a lot of different ingredients and they all have to be cooked separately to get a good taste. This is perhaps easier if you prep the ingredients as “banchan (Korean side dishes)” in advance, but unless you’re in the habit of doing weeks of single-cuisine cooking (or whole months (like me in this 12 months of cuisines challenge or longer), it’s likely you’ll be prepping several of the ingredients used that same day.
The best way to make cooking bibimbap easier is to have at least SOME of the toppings prepped beforehand so the day you assemble they’re all ready and seasoned. In my case, I had my prepped bean sprouts (kongnamul muchim) and premade garlicky spinach (store-bought, not homemade, but probably one of the easiest side dishes to recreate). All I had to cook was the julienned zucchini, beef, egg, and then assemble with the freshly cooked rice.
Bibimbap is not a dish that can truly be a “recipe” although I tried my best for you to create some measurements to start with. The ingredients for bibimbap toppings don’t have to be the exact ones I listed (additional vegetables that are commonly used are mushrooms, carrots, seaweed, kimchi, and pickled cucumbers). The idea is to have a variety of bright colors so when mixed it is an appetizing meal for both the taste buds and eyes.
A simple formula to keep when putting this together though: at least 1 crunchy thing for texture, at least 1 pickled thing for tartness vinegary tartness, at least 1 vegetable flavored with salt and sesame oil, and preferably 1 thing with sweetened gluten free soy sauce for umami-ness.
1 earthenware pot alt nonstick pot, but you won't get as good of a crisp at the bottom
Ingredients
2cupsfreshly cooked rice
Zucchini Topping
1/2cupjulienned zucchini
1/8tspsalt (just a pinch)
Spinach Topping
1bundlespinach(bundles vary, approx 3 oz of raw greens)
1tspminced garlic
1tspsesame oil
1/4tspsalt
1tspsesame seeds
Additional Toppings (remember all toppings are modifiable)
kongnamul muchim (prepared bean sprouts)
pickled daikon
fried eggs
salted seaweed
Beef Topping (optional)
1/4lbshaved beef(or finely cut)
1TBSPsoy sauce
1tspgarlic powder
1/4tspblack pepper
1tspsugar (optional)(or sweetener of choice)
1TBSPsake
Bibimbap Sauce (optional)
2TBSPgochujang
1TBSPrice vinegar
2tsphoney(or maple syrup or sugary syrup of choice)
2tspsesame oil
2tspgarlic powder
1/8tspsaltor to taste
Instructions
Prep Cooking Ingredients
If you don't have it on hand already, start by cooking the rice. Bibimbap is best with freshly cooked rice.
2 cups freshly cooked rice
First sauté the vegetables. Starting with the zucchini, add 1-2 tsp of cooking oil (olive or avocado is my preference) and cook over medium heat until zucchini's color has become bright green and slightly wilted in texture. Add salt (and pepper if you like) to taste. Remove and set aside.
1/2 cup julienned zucchini, 1/8 tsp salt (just a pinch)
Next we cook the spinach. In the same pan, add another 2 tsp cooking oil and add in the minced garlic. Once fragrant, add the spinach and stir to coat. The spinach will wilt a LOT. Once wilted, drizzle sesame oil and sprinkle the salt. Toss to coat. Remove and set aside.
Beef topping is last. Mix the seasoning ingredients in a separate bowl. In the same pan that you've been using, add in 2 tsp of cooking oil, then add the beef into the pan. Stir to cook evenly. Once most of the pink/red is out of the beef, add the seasoning sauce. Cook the beef in the seasoning sauce until the sauce is evaporated. Remove and set aside.
Coat 1 TBSP of sesame oil into an earthenware pot and turn on stove to medium heat. Line the bottom of the pot with the freshly cooked rice, using as much or as little as you prefer (I usually avg about 3/4 cup per person eating). Once the pot starts heating you'll start hearing sizzling sounds from the rice.
Drizzle additional sesame oil overtop the rice.
While rice is sizzling, start assembling the bibimbop. Places the various vegetables into different quadrants of the pot, making sure to leave room for the beef (if using). Top with salted shredded seaweed and place the fried egg on top (if using).
1/8 tsp salt (just a pinch), kongnamul muchim (prepared bean sprouts), pickled daikon, fried eggs, salted seaweed
Allow rice to sizzle for 5 minutes.
Remove pot from heat and serve in pot. Use a spoon to stir the grilled rice from the bottom. Try serving with homemade bibimbap sauce*.
*I highly recommend taking a little extra effort to make the bibimbap sauce. It really elevates the bibimbap meal. Store-bought tends to be too sweet and often has corn syrup. Homemade is very easy and you’ll find the sauce can be used as a condiment for many other things. In my version, I used an unknown earthenware pot I owned (meant for stovetop stews I think more than recipes like this). The Korean stone pots are definitely superior in this kind of dish, but are pretty unique to Korean cuisine and therefore not easily found outside of a Korean market. If you don’t have a stone pot, earthenware pots or cast iron are the next best thing with nonstick pots as a last resort.
