Remember four years ago when I was like “I’m baaaaack?”
What I did instead was join my roommates in a regular rotation of HelloFresh recipes which are way less fun to write about/experiment with than a regular recipe. There’s a lot less winging it, which is one of my favorite/least favorite things about cooking, and it’s hard to colossally fail at a recipe where the ingredients practically come pre-chopped.
That being said, I learned a lot about which types of flavors go together well, which ones I hate, what kind of ingredients I like using as opposed to stuff I never want to cook with again, and some techniques that I’ll hopefully remember for longer than 15 seconds. Also, the food waste is practically zero, which is a huge plus when you’re making a recipe that requires offbeat ingredients that you’re not sure you’ll use again (sesame paste, I’m looking at you). You won’t see me judging or speaking poorly of meal kits here- I am on that team when it’s cost-effective and makes sense.
However, things have definitely changed recently, resulting in a change of meal-planning strategy: I moved out of my apartment in Belmar and into one in Queens. I’m living with my boyfriend. Our kitchen is tiny, our appliances are vintage, our countertops are nonexistent, and our air conditioner is reluctant.
But alas, I love a challenge, so I’m looking forward to what comes next. Based on the second meal I made here (a version of this pulled pork, which I’ll discuss in the next post), I think the Instant Pot is going to be my best friend, at least during the summer. I didn’t use it too much in Belmar, but I’ve discovered that making food that doesn’t take up a ton of space or heat up the entire apartment in the process is pretty clutch.
I’ll be back with a writeup of my experience making Instant Pot pulled pork which, in classic Maggie style, entails last-minute dashes to get a major ingredient I forgot while shopping, a few moments of panic, completely misjudging how much time it would realistically take, and much more.
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