Food You Can Eat: 2020 Retrospective

1/1/21 Elliecoo 31
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Food You Can Eat had its inaugural posts in February 2020, beginning as weekly Saturday afternoon “filler” content. However, food, its preparation, and its sharing bring people together; folks tend to gather in the kitchen for a reason. By the end of the year there had been 90 FYCE posts, and some of those contained more than one recipe.

FYCE has evolved into a core group of chefs: Cousin Matthew’s Tingling Leg, ButcherBakerToiletryMaker, and me. BigDamnHeroes joined the kitchen staff in December and Farscythe pops in with a recipe as the spirit moves him (no pressure). Hannibal, Loveshaq, MegMegMcGee, Myopicprophet, and ThrobbinOfLoxley have all offered recipes; if you would like to share a recipe, please send me a message.

Thanks to the talented people above, FYCE now posts two or three days a week, with five-day runs on occasion, as events and content permit. The core chefs share a spreadsheet with the next year’s recipe date responsibilities, and the prior and current year’s recipes, so that we do not repeat ourselves (unless we do it on purpose, like here and here.)

I’ve linked to a few of the recipes below, but you can find them all by clicking on the Food You Can Eat Category.

Cousin Matthew is a party awaiting a guest list. He is a prolific chef, and his recipe posts entertain and educate. We have learned that cooking is more fun with Mattie in the kitchen as he dances with his dog and gifts us with life vignettes and reminiscences about the recipes he shares. Why not try his Salad Trifecta, Baked Brie en Crote, or Boeuf Bourguignon? Or perhaps you would like his Deviled Eggs, which may or may not be a Thanksgiving staple.

ButcherBakerToiletryMaker has an enviable, magic garden from which he plucks fresh herbs and produce to use in his recipes. He has opinions on recipes and cooking techniques and isn’t afraid to share them! He has given us the perfect recipe for Eggplant Parm, as well as posts on Green Chile Chicken Enchiladas, and pasta with Clam Sauce. His recipe for Chocolate Peanut Butter Squares is to die for, quite literally, but at least you will die happy.

Speaking of dying, we have learned that my cooking will indeed kill you, but I swear that Keitel’s heart attack was from bad genes and was not caused by good food. However, I have offered recipes for Peanut Butter Cake, and Chocolate and Apple Strudels. Other recipes from this year included Panzanella Caprese Salad and a super easy Chicken Cordon Bleu.

Farscy’s Fishy Dishy became an instant classic, Hannibal gave us a super recipe for Onigiri, Loveshaq kicked in an excellent Hawaiian Ahi Poke, and MegMegMcGee gave us an accessible and delicious Risotto recipe. Myopicprophet contributed a recipe for vegan potato curry, but also offered up spaghetti…garnished with an avocado slice, while BigDamnHeroes posted the definitive recipe for Rice and Beans, and ThrobbinOfLoxley gave us an awesome Baked Falafel.

I hope that you have enjoyed the Food You Can Eat feature during 2020, because we will be back in 2021 with recipes for your culinary delight!

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About Elliecoo 563 Articles
Four dogs, one partner. The dogs win.

31 Comments

  3. Fantastic! Over the course of my life I have been a (paid) writer every so often and the only praise I’ve ever gotten is from my editors, although they complain about my wordiness. “I know you said 3,000 words but I wrote 5,000 just in case you wanted to post the expanded version on the website. Online content doesn’t cost any more to display.” “No, we do not want to do that at all, in print we want 3,000 words and online we cut this down to maybe 2,000, maybe 1,000, because people online have the attention span of gnats. Have you ever heard of or seen the term ‘long read’ online? It’s why websites have the warnings.” “Warnings? I thought they were inducements?”
     
    We’re all a little full from the Chateaubriand I made last night. For lunch today (and I hope this is not a trend) I was asked to just put berries and low-fat yogurt in bowls so we had that. “We have some honey–” “No, no, this is fine.” 
     
    Despite the holiday I think we’ll continue to observe Meatless Friday. It won’t be healthy, God knows, but I think I’m going to just make an improvised smorrebrod out of some bread, herring in a sauce (from the deli), salmon, pickles, cheeses, tomatoes, whatever I can find.
     
    It has been my pleasure and a great comfort to contribute to FYCE during These Uncertain Times™. I miss having people over and I feel when I write my long-winded, somewhat insane contributions it’s like you’re all with me, whether you like it or not. When we had people over they didn’t really ask about how I made what I served: either because they knew how to do it themselves or they took no interest in cooking.
     
    So thank you all for putting up with me and thank you for being part of the Deadsplinter community.

      • You’re being far too generous. Everyone else contributes stuff that most people would like to make and consume on a regular basis, and I throw out some of these these oddball recipes that must incite wonderment and “WTF?” in the readership. I don’t cook like this seven days a week; Julia Child and Martha Stewart themselves couldn’t do it. I try to roam around in my memory that covers 35 years of kitchen experiences and mishaps. 
         
        I sometimes ask Life’s Helpmeet to watch me make things. What if I were incapacitated, like Joan Crawford/Blanche in “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane”? “It’s really simple. All you do is pull out a skillet, no, not that one, this one, and then you add this butter that I’ve let soften a little bit so it cooks a little faster–are you paying attention?” “Sorry, I just got a text alert from TMZ. Celebrity X has [just done Y.]” 
         
        “Show me how to make a grilled cheese. Those can’t be hard.” “No, they’re not. But we’ll make a sauce first and make croque monsieurs. Actually we’ll crack an egg over them and make croque madames.” “You really are impossible.”
         
        One day he said, brightly, “I made tuna salad. I thought we could have tuna fish sandwiches.” I tasted it. “Great! But you know, if you add a little of that tarragon mustard that we have and get me that jar of relish, I’ll drain a little bit using a slotted spoon and mix it in. And we can heat up the grill, layer the bread–no, no, not that, something heartier–with slices of this white cheddar and make open-face tuna melts!”
         
        He’s given up. I don’t blame him. He has a very busy life and for the last decade I’ve been working/”working” from home. When he worked in an office (he’s now with a company that’s been work-from-home for ages so he’s done that for over three years now, and he’s one of their executives) he used to come home and say, “Hello, Mattie, what did you get up to today?” “The usual. You probably saw the two rent boys leaving on your way in. Try not to breathe too heavily in the bedroom because I’m not sure we had all the cocaine. Listen, do me a huge favor and walk The Beast. I’m making a veal ragù that I’ve never made before and I’m in the last hour or so of it and I need to keep an eye on it.” “Last hour?” “Yes, I don’t have a crockpot, so I have to watch the non-crock pot.” 
         
        I’ll have to post a couple of recipes for sauces/ragùs that take hours of occasionally stirring and adding ingredients, just to torture you further. 

    • Cousin Matty, speaking from here in the Cold, Blue, North, your “long-form” posts have been some of my FAVORITE  reads this year😉💖😁🤗💞
       
      This was a hard one on lots of us, for multiple reasons… but for me, since I didn’t have the time/energy to DO as much cooking as I’dve liked (being at the Grocery Store so much & the School, often, too!), I could live semi-vicariously through the posts y’all did HERE.
       
      I didn’t have to hunt up recipes elsewhere, in my spare time, or dig through cookbooks. I could read something you & the others wrote, be inspired, and re-find some of my old creativity.
       
      So THANK YOU, my friend, for the excellent  stories (the BEST part of dinner parties!😉😁🤗💖), and the tasty inspiration!💖💞💗

    • For lunch today (and I hope this is not a trend) I was asked to just put berries and low-fat yogurt in bowls so we had that. “We have some honey–” “No, no, this is fine.” 

      That plus a banana and possibly a dollop of jam/preserves in lieu of honey, served with coffee, is my breakfast most days. 

  4. He has opinions on recipes and cooking techniques and isn’t afraid to share them!

    I’m not judging.  I’m just reporting the facts.
     
    So, when the eggplant apocalypse was upon us, I had to resort to our storage method of frying and freezing them.  I put a layer of paper towel in between each layer of eggplant slices to keep them from getting too soggy.  Last week I pulled out one freezer bag of eggplant slices and made a batch of parm.  Still holds up.
     
    The garden will be going over a major overhaul this year, due to the fact that Mrs. Butcher stopped eating roughly half of the things that we typically grow…after everything had been planted.  So, I’m going to be doing some experimenting this year with more new stuff, rather than pulling old reliables out of the recipe box.  I make no promises.
     
    Like Cousin Matt, it’s been my pleasure to contribute to FYCE.  At first I wasn’t sure my first contribution would be well received, considering some of the things I make aren’t exactly mainstream.  But, the response to the Green Chile Chicken Enchiladas was surprisingly positive, so you only have yourselves to blame.

  6. I’ve been happy to join the FYCE team, though in no situation would I ever imagine calling myself a chef hahaha. But hopefully I can keep contributing vegetarian recipes that meat eaters can appreciate too. 

  7. I’m going to start an alternative column called “Food You Can Actually Cook.”  J/K.  I don’t give enough of a damn about food to spend more than 20 minutes preparing it.

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