Trying to cope with pandemic cooking burnout? Here are some easy kitchen treats

Like Mordor, this pandemic casts a long shadow.

During the last lockdown, my husband and I tackled some impressive cooking projects. Crab rolls with homemade brioche buns were a standout, but we also made Trinidadian doubles, asparagus risotto, sourdough bread, and homemade frites with aioli.

I made pies like my life depended on it and channeled all my free-floating nervous energy into dough, custard fillings, and poufy meringues.

It wasn't all culinary fun, though. There was a lot of hashing together hodgepodge meals and digging out the old moose meat from the back of the freezer while we waited for supplies to get low enough to warrant a trip to the grocery store.

We were shack-wacky and worn out by the end of the first lockdown. The pandemic has kept that feeling alive.

We lived between two extremes: afternoon-long culinary projects and "what can we make with these five random things?"

We were shack-wacky and worn out by the end of the first lockdown. The pandemic has kept that feeling alive. Physical distancing, working from home, bad news cycles, hunkering down in soft pants: it all takes a toll.

Don't get me wrong; I know things could be much worse. I know that we had a relatively normal summer compared with most places. I know having food and time to make it is a privilege.

I know I should be grateful for the freelance work that comes my way and the kitchen where I can burn off all this extra energy.

Yet, no matter how you look at it, the past year has been exhausting — and folks are definitely sick of cooking.

We've never been more in need of treats, of things to look forward to.

So I present to you kitchen projects that take minimal time and yield maximum reward.

These are not actually projects! These are recipes with six or fewer ingredients, they'll take less than an hour of your time, will only dirty a small handful of dishes, and will thrill you with the results.

Rosemary and kale pesto

*Makes a small jar's worth.

Sure, nettle pesto and basil pesto are great. They taste like summer and smell like possibilities, but rosemary and kale make a seasonal woody pesto that's perfect when smeared onto sourdough. I also toss pasta with this pesto for an easy and fairly healthy meal. I also stir this pesto into soups.

Ingredients:

6 sprigs rosemary

2 cups kale

⅓ cup pine nuts (or sunflower seeds if you're broke like me)

½ cup Parmesan (or Grana Padano or a nice hard aged cheddar)

2 garlic cloves

2 tablespoons of lemon juice (I like things bright and lemony, but for a more balanced pesto, you can cut this down to 1 tablespoon)

½ cup olive oil (quality does matter here!)

Instructions:

Strip the rosemary leaves off the stem. The stem is far too woody for any purpose beyond a broth. Chop your kale into pieces. Spritz it with a little lemon juice and give it a massage for a minute or two. This breaks down the enzymes that make kale a little tough to swallow.

Now, throw it all into your food processor and blend away. Don't over-puree. It's great when it's a little chunky.

Season as desired and store it in a Mason jar in the fridge. It should keep there for about two weeks.

Notes:

A little juniper-infused salt take this up a notch.

Beer Bread

Makes 1 loaf

This recipe has long been a storm-day staple in my house. I'll check the forecast, throw on a pot of soup, and get this bread on the go. By the time the winds have picked up, lunch and dinner will be all sorted out.

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons of butter (or coconut oil! This recipe can easily become vegan)

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour (you can play around here and mix in whole wheat or spelt)

1 tablespoon of baking powder

2 tsp salt

¼ cup honey, or white sugar

1 10 oz. can of beer (I've tried it all. I love a stout here, but a lager works well)

Instructions:

Preheat your oven to 375 F. Grease your pan with 1 tablespoon of the butter and dust it lightly with flour. Combine your flour, baking powder, salt and honey in a bowl. Pour in your beer and mix until it just comes together. Don't worry about kneading — that will make your bread tough. Pour the batter into the pan. Melt the remaining butter over top the batter. Bake for about 45 minutes, possibly a bit longer depending on your oven.

Notes:

Your beer bread won't rise as well if you use whole wheat or spelt flour, but it will be healthier. IPA makes for a pretty gross loaf of bread, so pick another beer. The alcohol in the beer cooks out, so this is safe for kids.

Also, I tend to toast oats or pumpkin seeds and use that to decorate the outside of the loaf. I've also added eggs and a tablespoon of molasses to this recipe and that worked well and made it rise higher. Play around!

Beef, rabbit or moose stew with almost no work and only six ingredients

Serves 2 to 4

This recipe is for the back of the freezer. I know there's game meat back there that needs to be used up, and I know you don't really feel like dicing and chopping, so we'll keep that to a minimum.

Ingredients:

3 cups diced meat  — moose or beef are preferable, but rabbit works well too.

4 carrots

1 onion

¼ cup Worcestershire sauce

1 heaping tablespoon of whole grain Dijon mustard

½ cup red wine

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 325 F.

Dice your beef or moose or or rabbit into thick cubes. Season with a healthy amount of black pepper and sea salt. Season liberally! Heat your cast iron pan and melt a little butter. Now, toss in your beef and let it sizzle from about five to eight minutes.

Peel your carrots into healthy chunks and toss them into a dutch oven or casserole dish. Drizzle a little olive oil over top your carrots. You can dice your onion into nice even small pieces and toss it in with the carrots. When your meat is nice and brown, take it off the heat and into your dutch oven. Add in your wine, Worcestershire, mustard. And then cover everything with 1½ cups of water. Cover and cook in the oven for about 3½ hours. You can add more wine and salt as you see fit! 

Notes:

You can add potatoes, celery, thyme, and rosemary! Barley is awesome too. I'm just giving you the skeleton of the recipe, you add things in that you like and adjust it to your personal tastes.

Flatbreads or tostadas with spicy chickpeas, garlicky sauce and sundried tomatoes

*Supper for 2-4

You can really play with this one. I toss in sauteed kale and lentils all the time, I've added sundried tomatoes. You can use store-bought tostadas, or mini garlic naan rounds for the base, but I've included a really easy flatbread recipe in case you want to go the extra mile. I also need to praise Maroun's garlic sauce. It's made on Prince Edward Island and the recipe originated at one of my favourite island restaurants (Cedar's Eatery, a Lebanese restaurant that I think about daily).

I used to buy some of this sauce on P.E.I. and shove it in my suitcase for the flight back to Newfoundland, but now I can buy it at Sobey's! It adds this perfect garlicky bite to the whole thing, but you can use Greek yogurt instead.

Ingredients:

1 15-oz. can chickpeas

1 lime

¼ cup Maroun's Garlic Sauce, or whole fat Greek yogurt

Cilantro to garnish

Fresh mint to garnish

A quarter cup of oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes

4 store-bought tostada shells (pitas and naan work too!)

Instructions:

Rinse and drain 15 oz. chickpeas. Measure out ½ cup; reserve remaining chickpeas for another use. Grate your lime and add that zest into the garlicky white sauce or Greek yogurt. Now squeeze half the lime into the white sauce. Cut the other half into wedges.  Add a tablespoon of freshly chopped mint and some salt to your sauce. Now put a quarter cup of sun-dried tomatoes into your cast iron frying pan. Don't drain the oil! Heat up your tomatoes and now add your chickpeas until cooked through. This should take about seven minutes on medium high heat. Remove from heat! Spread your garlicky white sauce over the tostada shells and top with chickpeas, sundried tomatoes, cilantro, fresh mint, and lime wedges.

Notes:

You can add lentils, sauteed kale or Swiss chard, and even crumbled tofu to this!

Easy flatbreads

The beauty of this recipe is that these freeze so well. I'll make a stack, place some parchment between each flatbread and put them in the freezer. They thaw in no time and nothing gets wasted.

Ingredients:

2 cups of all-purpose flour

1 tsp salt

3.5 tablespoons of butter (salted works fine)

¾ cups of milk (buttermilk is even better, but harder to find)

½ tablespoon of neutral oil for cooking

Instructions:

Combine butter and milk and heat until butter is melted. In a separate bowl, combine 2 cups of flour with the salt and add in the butter milk mixture.

Sprinkle work surface with flour then knead for a few minutes until it is smooth — don't overwork it! Wrap it and let it rest at room temperature for 30 minutes.

Dust bench top with flour, cut dough into 4 or 8 pieces, depending on how big you want your flatreads. Roll into perfect round balls. Then, using a rolling pan, roll into ovals about a half centimetre thick.

Heat two tablespoons of a neutral oil in a cast iron pan on medium heat. Let it get nice and hot. Stack the cooked bread and keep wrapped with a tea towel — the moisture helps soften the surface.

Notes:

You can add some roasted garlic into the pan, fold herbs into the dough, have fun!

Homemade almond butter cups

This is the easiest dessert I know about. Quality of ingredients matters here. Splurge on good chocolate and thick flaky sea salt if you can. If you're stressing about money (I feel you) then swap out the almond butter for Kraft or Jiffy peanut butter and make it with what you have on hand. 

Makes about 12 mini cups

Ingredients:

½ cup almond butter

2 tablespoons butter

½ cup icing sugar

Sea salt to garnish

1⅓ cups dark chocolate

Instructions:

Melt your almond butter and butter in a saucepan. Whisk in your sugar. Grease and line 12 mini muffin cups, melt 2/3 cup of your chocolate atop a double boiler, and then pour into the mini-muffin cups. Set aside in the fridge to set. Now, fill the cups with your almond butter mixture, and ladle the remaining melted chocolate on top. Sprinkle with sea salt. Refrigerate to set.

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