Casual Conversation

I'll pitch my favourite food and drink, gazpacho. Basically a thick (or not) vegetable smoothie (no, it's not a soup). The basic ingredients are stale bread, tomato, cucumbers, bell peppers, garlic, olive oil, wine vinegar, water, and salt. You can add or take ingredients as you please to make it to your taste.

Some tips. I always put onion too (I'm a bitch for onions). I use Italian green bell peppers, because I like the flavour and smell they give to the dish. You can put spices to your taste, I usually put cumin and/or pimentón (smoked paprika) and/or white pepper. The tomatoes have to be ripe, the riper the better. The bread must be stale, in the style of a baguette or loaf bread, not soft sliced bread, you can also put no bread. The oil must be olive oil, with other oils the flavour is just not gazpacho's anymore. I often use sherry vinegar instead of wine vinegar, other vinegars than those two don't work that well. The main ingredient is the tomatoes, the other add/modify the flavour, if you don't like some of them just don't put it. You can add/substitute other things, I like to put watermelon, substituting some of the water, for example. Other ingredients I've tried are carrots, strawberries, cherries, beets, broccoli... You control the thickness with the bread and the water, from very light and liquid without bread and more water (great to just drink a cold mug in the summer) to a very thick paste/cream (a variety called salmorejo, without cucumber, onion, or extra ingredients, is served like this, with crumbs of hard boiled egg and cured ham as toppings), you can pass it through a colander to take out the seeds, peel bits, and other chunks left after blending. If you're eating it with a spoon, instead of drinking it, it's usually served with some finely diced vegetables (the same that went in) and croutons as toppings. Depending on your taste it can be from chill to cold, never warm. Pro tip: taking out the seeds from the bell peppers and cucumbers, and the garlic germ beforehand will make it softer on the stomach.

If you (or anyone reading this) wanna try it and have any questions don't hesitate and hit me a message, I'm a mad gazpachier and will be very glad to answer them.

Not from where I'm from but a family friend made it once and I've been craving it again since. Khachapuri absolutely slaps. It's Georgian egg and cheese bread that you serve while the yolk is still runny.

https://www.recipetineats.com/midweek-paella/#recipe

Made this a few times, delishous. Rest of her recipes are great as well.

Edit: just realised you may be pescatarian, in which case that recipe won't work well. But you could replace the chorizo and chicken with a vegie alternative and see how it goes, I usually put "fake" meats in a lot later on to save overcooking them into mush.

I would recommend a Jianbing. This is an extremely popular Chinese street food that was really hard to find outside of China; allegedly they are getting more popular worldwide though. Chicago has one of this on the basement floor of that mall in the Loop (at Lake I believe?)

Cooking method is very similar to a savory crepe, you cook it on a large, round heating iron & spread the mix, brush the sauce on, place one of those crunchy... things, add any stuffing, and it's done. Ppl usually put meat as stuffing but a vegetarian one should work too

I have never made this myself so I can't give a recipe... Maybe there are tutorials on YouTube

Waterzooi from Belgium. It's a kind of soup with cream-like consistency, containing lots of fish and vegetables, usually potatoes, leaks, and others. You sometimes also see it with chicken, but fish is the original. There is usually more content than soup, so you could call it a stew or so. It's very filling and portions are large. Sorry I don't have a recipe.

You diet sounds like the Israeli Sabich: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabich

Lentil soup!

https://cookieandkate.com/best-lentil-soup-recipe/

hainanese chicken rice, originated from Singapore but popular in Malaysia as well

Easiest recipe is: Cook your rice but replace the water with chicken stock(if you have cubed stock, i use around 1/3 of the cube and dissolve it in water), add 3 leaves of screwpine leaf(you can skip this if there's non available in your area), one chunk of ginger(about 1 inch, crushed), a few clove of garlic(crushed, no skin!), and one chicken thigh(any part is ok but thigh is right for one portion). Cook the rice with all the ingredient in a rice cooker, and remove the chicken once cooked, slice the chicken up, and it's ready to serve with the rice.

Additional, mix one teaspoon of oyster sauce, a little bit of sesame oil, and one tablespoon of soy sauce, pour it over the chicken.

If you got the time as well, slice up a few small shallot, fried it until crispy and golden brown, drain the oil, and sprinkle it on top of the chicken.

And that's the easy way of making it. There's also a lot of depth like poaching the chicken and bathing it in ice cold water to make it juicy and smooth, making the chili sauce, but that's beyond the scope of "easy" 😅

I love a potato stew!

I usually make a spaghetti pot of it at a time and freeze in single serve containers so take the amounts in that context.

• 2-4 large russet potatoes skinned and cubed
• 2 large yellow onions diced
• ~1.5 cup chopped carrots
• ~1.5 cup chopped celery
• a quart of vegetable broth or 2 bouillon (if I have none on hand I increase spices and onion)
• If I have a parmesan rind on hand I like to throw that in.

After adding everything fill the pot with water until you’ve at least doubled the volume (I like to do a bit more but I love broth, some people don’t). Bring to a boil then simmer on the hotter end of the simmer spectrum until the potatoes are the right consistency (~20min).

Spices I usually do to taste but something like:

• 1.5 tsp dried parsley
• 2-3 dried bay leaves (very important imo)
• 1.5 tsp dried basil
• 2 tsp black pepper (fresh)
• 1.5 tsp salt
• 2/3 tsp turmeric

Serve with a dinner role ideally, maybe a salad.

If I’m sick I also add some paprika or cayenne to clear my sinuses!

I find this dish very forgiving and routinely delicious.

Étouffée might fit some of your diet.

I unfortunately don't have a recipe; my dad used to make it a lot when I was growing up.

But, it’s one of those things you can basically just throw anything in. As long as you have a roux with tomatoes added, and rice to pour it over (and a healthy amount of Cajun creole seasoning), you can swap the meat and veggies with whatever you’d like and still reasonably call it Étouffée

You Suck At Cooking's peanut butter and chickpea soup