Quarantine Food Favorites

As the sweet aroma of garlic pervades the downstairs, I eagerly await my husband's pork shoulder roast. We hardly ever have pork anymore (having broken our bacon habit a year or so ago), but he picked this up fresh at the farmer's market and I'm not sorry he did. I can be a vegetarian for nine days, but around about that tenth day I still want some meat.

Eating delicious cuisine during this time of quarantine is perhaps more important than ever. Eating healthily is also good, and mostly we do that too. One of our favorites is a one-tray baked salmon meal that includes chick peas, zucchini and red pepper brushed with a cumin, coriander and paprika mixture. Simple, almost zesty and enjoyable. Another is lightly breaded, sauteed chicken cutlets with a lemon, white wine and caper sauce, served with asparagus.

We've also been growing microgreens and eating them on omelets, on mini-bagels with cream cheese and lox, on sandwiches and in soups. The Spicy Daikon Radish is my favorite so far. But I'm also looking forward to the Fragrant Fenugreek, which until this very moment I thought was pronounced Fenugeek.

This afternoon Molly baked banana bread. Sometimes she makes the griddlecake recipe from the Mennonite Community Cookbook. We like that one because it has you separate the eggs, and beat and add the whites at the end. So far none of us have become interested in keeping alive a sourdough starter, or decorating a focaccia with herbs. But in another six weeks, who knows?!