u/Sunny_Psy_Op

Top: Montreal Steamie

Middle: All-American Grilled Dog

Bottom: Sonoran Style-Inspired Dog

Flavor profile is mainly lemon and basil. I also added some chopped serrano pepper for heat, which I felt was needed. I used this recipe:

https://thefirstmess.com/2019/01/02/deep-green-lentil-stew-vegan-recipe/

This theme came pretty early in the year for those of us in the northern states. All I could really guarantee I'd have is an herb garden.

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I have a ton of mint so I wanted to use it. I turned some of it into bright green mint oil. I was hoping for that contrast of the bright green oil against the rest of the dish. Mine didn't quite hold the color once added.

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The rest of the plate is largely stuff I would garden. The corn salad includes serranos and red bell peppers as well as some immature banana peppers that had taken off early.

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The broth was really good. I essentially just simmered a ton of tomatoes and fresh herbs in water and then let the whole mixture drip through a coffee filter overnight to keep it pretty clear.

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I went with fish to keep the whole thing relatively light and bright.

Inspired by me announcing the theme to my girlfriend and her misunderstanding "tarot" for "taro."

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Homemade taro chips with a spinach/artichoke/furikake dip.

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Beef and vegetable skewers, grilled.

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I thought hard about this one. It felt like a cop-out to just cut a symmetrical vegetable in half or plate a normal dish is symmetrically. I was kinda at a loss, and was about to just phone it in for the week. Then I stumbled upon instructions for how to turn mango juice into these self contained little spheres of juice: https://www.gastrosenses.com/blog/mango-spheres/

I ordered some crazy ingredients and then jumped into the world of molecular gastronomy, creating what was essentially a homemade boba pearl.

Flavor wise, there really isn't one. Despite storing them for a few hours in extra mango juice, they taste like water that someone might have dipped a mango in.

Nonetheless, I'm determined to put them to use. I got some fresh mango for flavor, and created a lassi-inspired yogurt bowl: vanilla yogurt, fresh mango, dried cardamom pods, and of course my homemade mango spheres.

This was a challenging week because I've been so many places. 49/50 US states and a couple territories. I've been to a lot of Europe and a small bit of Asia. New Zealand. Dipped my toe in Latin America. I've taken care of a lot of my true bucket list locations.

There's a lot of the world I still want to see. The first thing that came to mind was Antarctica, but I know I'm not gonna eat a whole batch of pemmican.

Then I remembered one of the big European trips I had planned but haven't done yet: Austria.

It ended up being a bit repetitive with Alpine week right before, I guess, but it was pretty good nonetheless.