star-crossed smile | NYC life and style blog

Unsurprisingly, we have been cooking A LOT during quarantine. Before COVID, I’d say we cooked fairly regularly, but then during COVID, we started cooking pretty much every meal at home. Now that NYC is finally in phase 4, we’ve been getting takeout maybe once a week (it’s nice to have a break from cooking!) and making the rest of our meals at home.

I’ve been posting some of the meals I make on Insta (check out my food highlight if you’re interested), and I thought it would be fun to see which recipes we’ve made multiple times during quarantine.

RECIPES

1. Israeli Couscous Tabbouleh – I make this recipe every summer and it is so good. It’s super easy (you basically just chop up a bunch of stuff and toss it all together) and it’s perfect for when you want a meal that’s light, but still filling.

2. Crispy Rice and Egg Bowl with Ginger-Scallion Vinaigrette – The thing I love about this recipe is that it’s so customizable. For example, my bf gets an egg on his and I go sans egg. Sometimes I crisp up the rice and sometimes I don’t. I usually add this ground beef recipe to the bowl to get some meat in there. And the ginger-scallion sauce is straight fire. Mmmm, so good!

3. Pickled Red Onions – I guess I was sleeping on pickled onions, but now that I know how easy it is to make your own, I’m all in. It’s seriously so simple. Now we constantly have pickled onions in the fridge (which I usually throw on salads). As soon as we start running low, I make a fresh batch.

4. Grilled Flank Steak with Homemade Chimichurri Sauce – We’ve made this twice during quarantine and it was excellent both times. Again, for some reason I thought chimichurri sauce would be difficult to make, but it’s not. And the fresh herbs in this sauce give it so much delicious flavor.

5. Lemongrass Chicken Skewers – I love the taste of lemongrass and this recipe was an instant hit. You let the chicken marinade in a delicious lemongrass sauce, then you make the skewers and grill them up. So simple and tasty.

What are some of your favorite recipes that you’ve made during quarantine?

When I lived alone, I used to make pancakes every Saturday. I would whip up a batch on Saturday mornings, eat my pancakes drowned in syrup (My preferred choice is Aunt Jemima. I like the fake stuff, don’t @ me!) with a cup of tea, and then have the leftovers on Sunday. I’m a person who loves routine and I loved the ritual of making pancakes on Saturdays. My go-to recipe is pretty simple and soon I had it memorized. While I waited to flip my pancakes, I’d usually scroll through my phone, or flip through a few more pages of my current read at the time.

At some point, I stopped making pancakes on the reg. Not for any particular reason, I don’t think, and definitely not because I stopped loving pancakes!

Thanks to quarantine though, the tradition of Pancake Saturdays is back. I think it started when I saw a friend making pancakes on her IG stories. I thought, “Remember when I used to make pancakes every weekend?” Now there’s a small group of us making pancakes and tagging each other when we post pics.

In a time when the days have all started to blur together (seriously, what day is it?), I have something to look forward to each week. And I’ve been branching out a little and trying out some different add-ons, including funfetti pancakes (I just added sprinkles to the batter, which automatically made them feel more festive), pancakes with a strawberry/raspberry compote, and chocolate chip pancakes. Recently a friend sent me a link for pancake cereal, so I think I might try it this weekend.

I don’t know if Pancake Saturdays will keep going after quarantine, but for now, I’m very much enjoying this weekly ritual.