Cooking during difficult times

Dear Senthil’s Kitchen family and friends:

The COVID-19 outbreak has put all of us in a tight spot; the entire world is being stunned with a pandemic none of us have ever witnessed in our lifetimes. The last known pandemic of this magnitude, the Spanish Flu of 1918 infected around 500 million (one third of the world’s population at that time) and killed around 50 million.

It is definitely a challenging time for everyone, including Senthil’s Kitchen. With the lockdown in effect, my pantry is running low on many items and I am constantly being challenged on what to cook. Somehow, I have been managing to dish out (so far) healthy, mouth watering, and sometimes innovative dishes by scrambling the items in the pantry. I will be sharing those recipes in my future blogs.

I want to share some of the tips and tricks I have been following to manage this crisis in my kitchen. Please make sure to check this page periodically, this is a “living” blog and it will be updated as and when I have a new tip to share. I also encourage you to share with me if you have a useful tip to share.

• Be a minimalist
  • Use less ingredients than normal.
  • Consider cutting down on (cooked) food. Last two weeks, we have been eating only 2 meals per day – brunch around 11 am, and dinner around 7 pm, with fruits and light healthy snacks in between.
• Be innovative
  • Be creative and come up with innovative ideas on what you can cook with whatever vegetables, meat, eggs and other ingredients available in your pantry.
  • This is the time to use the different pulses, grains, flour, dried and frozen vegetables and meat that have been occupying space in your fridge, freezer and pantry since a long time ago.
• Focus on immune boosting superfoods
  • Try to make and consume immune boosting superfoods like rasam, kasayam on a daily basis.
• Remember the “base” concept
  • This is probably the most useful tip on my list. Majority of the Indian cooking utilizes sauteed onion, tomato base. If you haven’t read my blog on Base concept yet, please read it. Make a big batch of sauteed onion, tomato base and divide and freeze them in smaller containers. You can also follow this tip and make coconut paste, ginger garlic paste etc and freeze them in smaller containers or ziplock bags.
• Organize, plan better, follow important safety tips when grocery shopping or bringing in outside food
  • To minimize the risk of coronavirus infection, minimize your trips to the grocery store (say once every week or two weeks), where possible, order online. Practice sensible social distancing when visiting grocery stores.
  • Avoid buying baked items like bread, rolls etc from the stores as it is harder to sanitize the package. If possible, learn to bake at home.
  • Avoid eating out or getting takeouts or deliveries.
  • When you bring in groceries from the stores, immerse the vegetables, fruits and sealed milk cartons in a bucket of soap water for 5 mins, rub and mix them vigorously, then rinse in regular water and wipe them clean (you can sun dry the vegetables for few hours) and store them in the fridge. Watch this video by Dr.Jeffrey VanWingen “PSA Safe Grocery Shopping and Food Safety Tips in COVID-19 Pandemic” to hear the advice straight from the horse’s mouth.
• Try new things
  • If you are fan of different types of cuisines and have been missing out on specialty foods big time because of the lockdown, this is the time to learn new cuisines. I am a big fan of Mexican food, and I used to eat fajitas and tacos in outside restaurants at least once a week before COVID-19 outbreak. I am seriously missing Mexican food, so I ordered (online) some taco seasoning, I am all game now to learn and fix some homemade fajitas, tacos, tortillos and Mexican rice in my kitchen. We already cook some Chinese and Italian at home so we are not missing them at all.
  • Involve other members of the family to cook meals so you are not bored or overwhelmed in the kitchen.
  • Try to grow vegetables, spinach in your home garden.

Supplement your good and healthy food with a daily dose of moderate exercise, good sleep, and prayers and meditation. Call and check on your family and friends, you never know how much joy and happiness your call will bring them.

I hope this coronavirus pandemic will be over soon, and we all can go back to our normal lives!

For latest and useful information on COVID-19, please refer to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention website.