Weekend Cooking: When you can't go on holidays...

We have been in lockdown of some degree of another now for more than 5 months, and currently we are in stage 4 which is our strictest restriction level yet. That's a long time to have to find new ways to entertain yourself, or at least not to get too stuck in a humdrum routine.

It turns out that food is a real motivator for us. We have tried all different kinds of foodie things over the last months. There was the week where we ate different flavoured gourmet marshmallows, a few different types of fresh pastries, different flavours of macarons, we've made our own pasta, we've used our pressure cooker, and we've made macarons from scratch. And there is a fair chance I have forgotten something too.

One of the things we have done over the last 5 weeks is something called Atlas Masterclass, which is a concept that spun out of a restaurant called Atlas Dining.  The idea behind Atlas Dining is that every few months the menu at the restaurant changes to a different country around the world. The chef, Charlie Harrington (who has been on Masterchef Australia as a guest at least once), has taken that idea and changed it during COVID to Atlas Masterclass.

With the masterclass, each week there is a new cuisine, and anyone who orders it is sent a box which contains everything you need in order to create that week's menu, from the protein to pre-prepared sauces, eggs and vegetables.  There are two menus for each cuisine, one with two meat/chicken dishes and one vegetarian dish and the other menu is all vegetarian.  There are then videos on the website that you watch to help you recreate the dishes at home.

For the three of us, we purchase the four person box which costs us around $109 for three meals, which is pretty good value. We have a couple of single friends who are also doing it and they are saying that there are always leftovers, even when you order the box for one, and we also often have some leftovers. We are also catching up online to compare out dishes and then eat together. It's almost, but not quite, look going out for dinner.

The ingredients are restaurant quality, the veggies are always great quality, and there are always far more veggies than we would normally eat on our plates. And the best thing, all of the dishes are surprisingly easy and quick to make.

While we don't get the from scratch recipes, we have learnt a lot from doing these classes. For example, in British week there were baby carrots that we sauteed with the meat, which I would never have done but they tasted so good.

The first week we did this, it was Moroccan week, and the menu was:

Marinated Chicken, Caramelised Onion and Olive Sauce with Cous Cous (pictured)

Lamb Kofta, Tomato Sauce, Egg with Moroccan Carrot Salad
Vegetable Tagine

The chicken was delicious but the cous cous was a revelation. We will definitely trying to be a more adventurous when we next make cous cous. The way the kofta was plated was also interesting. You formed a donut shape with the meat  and then cracked an egg into the centre before serving it with a tomato sauce, which is something you could do in any cuisine I think.

We have decided to do every second week, so we skipped Portugal and instead did Britain. The menu that week was:

English Roast Chicken, Sauteed Vegetables, Rosemary Gravy 

Bangers and Mash with a tomato and onion sauce (pictured)

Mushroom and Leek Shepherd's Pie

The pie was a revelation. The leeks were around the side of the pie dish, kind of forming what would have been the crust, and instead of putting mash on top, it was seasoned grated potato with a some sauce to hold it together. And the rosemary gravy...yum.

We missed Italian week, although there was a pork dish that looked amazing, and this week it is Japan week. And this week, I remembered to take photos of everything, which I neglected to do in previous weeks. This week's menu is:

Teriyaki Chicken, Udon Noodles, Daikon Salad

Beef Tataki, Cucumber & Wakame Salad, Ponzu Sauce

Mushroom Okonomiyaki, Egg, Daikon

So, out of all of these ingredients, we made all of these dishes, and still had some veggies left over!

Over the coming weeks there are boxes for countries including Taiwan, Indonesia, Croatia, Singapore and Sri Lanka. There is also a favourites box which takes dishes from countries and mixes them together.

If you are in Victoria or New South Wales, I would definitely recommend giving those a go.

For those who are not, do any of these boxes sound appealing to you? How do you try new cuisines?

Weekly Meals

I have also decided that we will be recording our meals for the week here to to try and help us keep track of our meal planning and helps us keep some variety in our meals.  Of course, the first week when I have tried to do this it has been quite a challenge to remember what we had last Saturday!

Saturday: Beef stew
Sunday: Pork herb schnitzel, mash potato and beans
Monday: Lasagne
Tuesday: Chilli
Wednesday: Teriyaki chicken, udon noodles, daikon
Thursday: Beef tataki, cucumber & wakame salad, ponzu sauce
Friday: Mushroom okonomiyaki, egg, daikon






Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page.

La Prisonniere: Twenty Years in a Desert Gaol by Malika Oufkir and Michele Fitoussi

This book is published under the title Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail in most countries, but the copy I read was a Canadian version, with the title La Prisonniere.

Malika Oufkir was born into a proud Berber family in 1953, the eldest daughter of the King of Morocco's closest aide. She was adopted by the king to be a companion to his little daughter, and at the royal court of Rabat, Malika grew up locked away in a golden cage, among the royal wives and concubines.

But when Malika was eighteen, in 1972, her father was arrested after an attempt to assassinate the king. General Oufkir was swiftly and summarily executed. Malika, her beautiful mother and her five younger brothers and sisters were seized and thrown into an isolated desert jail. For fifteen years, they had no contact with the outside world, and lived in increasingly barbaric and inhumane conditions.

Like a modern Scheherazade, Malika kept up the spirits of her younger siblings by telling them stories every night about an epic world of her own invention. Then, after fifteen endless years of imprisonment, the Oufkir children managed to dig a tunnel with their bare hands, and made an audacious escape. Although they were recaptured after five days, the ensuing public outrage resulted in house arrest rather than a return to prison. In 1996, Malika was finally permitted to leave Morocco to begin a new life in exile.

La Prisonniere is a heart-rending account of resilience in the face of extreme deprivation, of the courage and even humour with which one family faced their tormented fate. A shocking true story, it is hard to comprehend that it could have happened in our own times.

This book was the July or August book (I think - whichever month it was I am behind!) for one of the groups that I am in. Or more precisely, I probably skirt around the edges of this group now. I used to be fully involved in it, but I find myself not keeping up with all the reading that I need to do for all the different groups I have attached myself to, and this seems to be one that is going by the wayside.

As a read, this was very interesting. It was set in a country that I know very little about, with very different religious and cultural experience to my own, and thankfully much different life experiences to mine.

Malika Oufkir lived a very comfortable life - as a very young girl she was even adopted by the King of Morocco so that she could be a playmate for his young daughter. However, Malika's opulent lifestyle was very often tinged with loneliness as she missed her parents, and the brothers and sisters that she barely knew. Her early life is portrayed as a gilded prison.

When she was in her late teenage years her father lead a coup against the King, and was executed. As a result of his actions, the Oufkir family were all arrested and then transported to a variety of different prisons across the country - each feature terrible living conditions, incredible isolation. In some cases they were kept in their cells 24 hours a day, unable to see or touch there loved ones who were kept in separate cells, but they found ingenious ways to keep in communication with their family members, and to not let their spirits be defeated by their oppressors.

When several of the family escape after many, many years of incarceration, and manage to get their story out, things begin to change. The family is released from prison into house arrest, allowing for some freedom, but it is a hard adjustment for them to make, and then ultimately to freedom outside of Morocco. Her youngest brother was just 3 years old when he was imprisoned, so for him to come out into the world having been incarcerated for so many years, through his childhood, and teenage years, must have been terribly overwhelming.

As a life story Malika Oufkir's is certainly very dramatic, and very interesting to read, and for the most part it was very well written. There were occasional times through the book that felt a little stilted, but for the most part, it was quite good. I am also not sure how much of that "stiltedness" would come from the fact that the book was not only an autobiography, but it was also translated from French to English for publishing. I noted with interest that she has a new book out called Freedom: The Story of My Second Life, which I will definitely read if I can find it.

I think that writing an autobiography would actually be pretty hard - details that certain people find fascinating would bore others to tears, needs to be well written without being monotonous, need to portray your life story in a variety of shades in several ways. For example, whilst you are telling your story there would presumably still be parts of yourself that you want to keep private. Sorry, just random musings there!!

Rating 4/5