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From the Skinny Taste air fryer cookbook

Made this tonight, from the Skinny Taste air fryer cookbook, because Kev got us an air fryer a while back and I figured I should learn how to use it. This was good, but dang, white people food makes a lot of mess to cook. So many dishes! And then you need utensils to eat it too…

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Sri Lankan dinner for twelve

I might’ve done a lot of cooking today. Sri Lankan dinner for twelve. Other people helped shop and chop and did all the dishes while I was cooking, and all the cleanup afterwards. It was actually a lot of fun — it’s been a while since I had time to cook like this. I love composing a complex meal, and even dealing with restricted ingredients can add a fun challenge.

AND I finished a story draft today. Today gets an A+ on the personal front.

Menu:
• cheese and chutney (from a jar) and crackers
• mango-passionfruit mimosas
• red samba milk rice
• basmati rice
• seared ahi tuna, seasoned with a marinade of green chili, onion, and pink Hawaiian sea salt (this was an experiment, turned out well)
• local beef (from a family farm) curry
• tempered red lentils (one guest liked it so much, she took a photo of the recipe in my cookbook)
• egg curry
• eggplant and date curry (no tamarind easily found nearby, but dates worked well in a complementary sort of way)
• papaya and pineapple curry (v. popular)
• kale salad
• cucumber salad
• yogurt (okay, I didn’t cook this, but it was on the table, so)
• vanilla ice cream and store-bought cookies — in theory, I was going to make fruit salad, but ran out of energy, alas. But the papaya-pineapple curry was actually really good / interesting on the ice cream!

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Sardines on toast

Couple hours layover, going to try to get through a little bit of photo posting.

A few days ago, tried sardines on toast with some Sri Lankan spreads — the eggplant pickle was a little too sweet, I think — a touch of it would’ve been nice, but not on its own. The seeni sambol (spicy-sweet caramelized onions) worked better, but I have to admit, I like mine better than this one that comes ready-made in a jar. On the other hand, for a 3-minute breakfast (just long enough to toast the bread), the jar is awfully convenient…

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Simple pear and strawberry trifle

Simple pear and strawberry trifle. Kept it very small-kid and convalescent Kavi-friendly this time, with strawberry jam (I don’t usually use jam in my trifle), no sherry, and non-dairy Cool Whip instead of real whipped cream (Kavi’s avoiding dairy for another day or two until she’s fully recovered). (There’s a nice bottle of sherry on the counter, though, so you can either add a glog to your trifle or just drink some…) We’re hosting potluck and board games and knitting / crochet this afternoon. Kind of a low-key version of our traditional Christmas party + New Year’s open house. I sent out invites late enough, I suspect not too many of our good friends can make it, but maybe a few, and we should have some new folks coming for knitting. A chance to make some new friends, perhaps. I’ve been mostly in hunker down mode for a while, but I don’t want to stay there forever — time to open up a little, reach out to the community, breathe.
Okay, I promised Kavi a mango fluff, so make that next, so it has time to set. Beef smoore and ginger-garlic chicken made, next I think a quick carrot-cucumber pickle. Will set out yogurt instead of making a raita, because that way, the yogurt can either go with the curries or be eaten with berries. And if I’m feeling ambitious, maybe some Sri Lankan noodles — Amma used to make those for New Year’s, if I’m remembering right. But there’s a bit of cleaning and organizing to do too, so we’ll see. Open house 2-6, bring some food or drink to share. Or just show up, and please help me eat all the food I want to cook. 🙂
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Beef Smoore with Brisket

Tried an experiment tonight — usually when I make Sri Lankan Beef Smoore, I use chuck. But brisket was on sale (half the price of steak), and I couldn’t think of any reason why it wouldn’t work — just maybe take a little longer, so I’d need to start a little earlier? So I tried it, and it was good. It’s not quite as sliceable as chuck, which usually ends up with a roast beef kind of consistency — when you slice this, it shreds some. Yet I didn’t cook it so long that you can easily use two forks to shred it the way you might normally with brisket. (Maybe another 30 minutes would have gotten it there.) So it ended up a texture that’s sort of neither one or the other…but a deliciously tasty texture, easy to eat with your hand. Kevin did fine with a fork. 🙂 I spent most of the day hauling stuff around the house in a big re-org, and stayed up most of last night nursing Kavi (so tired!), so I wasn’t really up to cooking anything else. But I’m thinking I’ll save this to put out at the potluck we’re hosting on Sunday (Kavi is FINALLY on the mend from her traveller’s bug, so we should be an illness-free house by Saturday, knock wood!), and tomorrow I’ll make a veg. or two to go with it. It could use a cabbage & coconut mallung, or a bright carrot pickle, or a fresh kale sambol… Recipe is in my Feast of Serendib cookbook. This took 2 hrs marinating time + 2 hr 15 min. simmering time. You can also cook it in an Instapot to speed things up — link below.
Instant Pot Beef Smoore
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It makes me happy, having such a pretty meal

#type2diabetes #fishforbreakfast — this is honestly very similar to my previous fish for breakfast option, which was whitefish spread on multigrain toast, with the same toppings (pickled onions, capers, cherry tomatoes), but so many people suggested a bagel and lox, I figured I should explicitly include it in the list. I eat this all the time. 🙂

I’m watching the new season of Queer Eye right now, and one common theme is how many people don’t take time to take care of themselves, because they’re so focused on caring for other people, or so focused on work.

I try to make a decent breakfast for myself most days, and I really do think it helps set me up for a good day — this meal looks fancy, but takes literally 5 minutes. And it makes me happy, having such a pretty meal, and the flavors are so satisfying and well-balanced, the salty and tangy and sweet, every bite is a pleasure. It’s good to start your day with pleasure.

Nutrition count for half bagel with lox — will vary, but roughly:

Calories: 350
Carbs: 25

know most takeout places will automatically give you a full bagel, but I feel like a half is plenty of bread for me in a meal.