Hello! I hope that your week has been going well. Today is going to be a quick post, but nevertheless, it’s got some delicious food in it. As always, I want to start out by giving a big thanks to my friend Andrew Yuan who submitted a recipe for the “Dishes for Donations” challenge. As I’m writing this post right now, I am actually digesting the very food he recommended: pesto pasta! If you can forget about the occasional stomachache that comes with this meal, it’s a really valuable dish to have in your “arsenal”.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

Recipe:

Ingredients

• Pesto (to make your own this is a good recipe)
• Pasta – enough for four people (it still tastes great even after the day that you make it on, so it might be a good idea, especially now, to make a little more than usual)
• Cauliflower – one head
• Olive Oil
• Salt
• Pepper
• Large salt and chile flakes (garnishes)

• Start boiling water and preheat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit
• While water is boiling, chop the cauliflower into florets
• Put the cauliflower onto a baking pan, drizzle with olive oil, add some salt and pepper, and toss with either your hands or tongs
• Put cauliflower into oven, bake for 20 minutes
• While this is happening, the water should have boiled by now – add the pasta and begin cooking
• After the pasta is done, drain it and add pesto. Maybe around 1.25 cups, but it is your preference
• Once cauliflower is cooked, it should have some crisp on the outside. Add it to the pasta, mix around.
• Sprinkle with chile flakes and large salt and serve.

This pesto pasta dish is a very flexible dish. We often eat it with a little bit of bacon or even some grilled beets. Going low carb? Try it with just the cauliflower or just a little bit of pasta. If you don’t have chile flakes you can use any sort of hot sauce, but be careful not to add too much otherwise you’ll lose the pesto flavor. Andrew recommended that if you need something easy and fast to make, you should try this recipe because it’s fast and efficient.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

Our second recipe is another one of my favorites: Baby Back Ribs. We had this a couple of days ago, and it was another one of those perfect comfort foods that you can really soak in, especially if you haven’t had it for a while. Of course, ribs aren’t usually meant to be eaten alone, so I would recommend maybe a little cornbread or some coleslaw/Brussels Sprouts as well to balance out the heavy meat flavor.

Recipe: 

1. Boil 5 lb. slab of pork spareribs for 1/2 hour with 2-3 cloves of garlic.  Drain liquid.
2. Make sauce by mixing all the ingredients below:
   2 cups BBQ sauce (e.g., Sweet Baby Ray’s)
   1/4 cup soy sauce
   1/4 cup oyster sauce
   1/3 cup honey
   1/4 cup sugar
3. Pour sauce on top of slab of pork sparerib and marinate overnight.  The next day, bake at 350 degrees for 30-45 minutes.  Broil at the end.

Who needs Armadillo Willy’s if you can just make this? I mean, it tastes exactly like any slab of ribs and it’s quite simple to make as well. My one tip for this is to really nail the sauce, because that’s the main sensation that’ll be making your taste buds go crazy when you devour the ribs, bite by bite. I would definitely eating it with your hands; that’s part of the experience! Again, this is another fairly easy meal to put together. Just remember to marinade it the day before, not the day of. Overall, 10/10!

I just wanted to end off this post by saying that we’re all in this together. It’s not going to be easy, but I’m just trying to keep my spirits up by thinking about the time, which may be very soon, when some of our public spaces will be reopened (parks, beaches, etc). I know it’s kind of annoying to be stuck at home, but hey, why not test out your cooking skills with one of the recipes above. I’m sure it’ll put a smile on everyone’s face, including yours.

Have a great week!