#cooksandchainmail

[booksandchainmail]

> be me > going to cook lamb + potatoes with rosemary > look in the spice rack. rosemarys empty. used it up last week > this is good! time to open up the new nicer thing of rosemary > look in the refills row of my spice rack > no rosemary > look through the rest of the spice rack in case it was misplaced > no rosemary > look in the long-term dry goods shelf of the pantry cabinet > no rosemary > go back through my emails to find the order history > I never ordered rosemary > fuck > have a small breakdown > pull myself together. improv with italian seasoning + thyme + oregano > cook lamb, have dinner. pretty good. > go to put away all the spices I pulled out of the rack earlier > decide to reorganize while I'm at it > start to take everything out of the spice rack > spare rosemary

[booksandchainmail]

cooksandchainmail is incredible by the way

thank you! I am very smug of it

[booksandchainmail]

I'm calling this lunch culturally inaccurate gyudon, because the rice was leftover from a lemon garlic shrimp dish and the beef and onions were originally for birria tacos. the egg was normal

[booksandchainmail]

first dinner of 2026! mussels with garlic herb butter (already prepared in the frozen foods section), orzo with mushrooms, and roasted broccoli

[booksandchainmail]

basque cheesecake! the recipe was sized for a proper springform pan and I only had a much shorter round pan, so I wound up with a full muffin tin of leftover cheesecake

[booksandchainmail]

meal that made my partner walk back into the dinib room multiple times after they finished to say "that was so yummy"

salmon patties (recipe from budgetbytes), one big russet potato chopped big and boiled until forkable but still firm then chopped small and fried in bacon fat, spring mix salad with vinaigrette

[booksandchainmail]

bbq tofu sliders! extremely messy to eat but very good and easy to make. also some roast cauliflower on the side

[booksandchainmail]

since my partner started working in person three days a week, I've started to get into prepping lunch boxes for them. It's all leftovers, but it's fun to pick out a container and divvy it up across all the little compartments

top left: couscous, za'atar roasted potatoes and onions, beef kofta meatballs, and pickled radishes top right: garlic oyster sauce noodles, sauteed broccoli, and fried tofu bottom left: salad greens (in a bowl underneath), crumbled tuna patties, crispy fried shallots, olives, and a vinaigrette bottom right: lemony rice topped with beef birria, cucumber chopped salad, bean + bell pepper + tomato chopped salad