Cooking to Cook: A Quarantine Cooking Guide

This column came about last year, based around the idea of cooking for one’s own pleasure, for the purpose of making mistakes and learning along the way. In this latest edition, Attic contributor Corinne Elicona shares what she’s been cooking through quarantine.

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“ Food may not always heal a broken heart, fill an emotional void, or stop a panic attack in its tracks, but it does get you from one day to the next day, and sometimes that’s all that can be done. ”

— Corinne Elicona

In my childhood, I had the fortune of having two parents who  loved to cook. Not only did they love to cook, in fact, but they loved to experiment in the kitchen. Sometimes the recipes would take thirty  minutes from fridge to table… other times my dad would wake up at 5 a.m. to begin cooking dinner for that night. I was never really involved in these cooking processes under my parents’ roof, but I was fascinated by them. 

All photos courtesy of Corinne Elicona.

Eventually when I moved out on my own, it fell to me to  recreate the feeling of my childhood Sunday dinner and invest in the time and skills it takes to really enjoy cooking. I am a self-taught cook. I’ve learned through everything from taking baking tips from my Swedish grandmother to watching videos on YouTube –  I don’t discriminate! But I will say, the best teacher is hours and hours of practice. Eventually, you'll understand the rhythm and flow of most dishes and eventually, you’ll get to a point where you can improvise your own. 

Cooking always intrigued me in its flexibility of time and temperature. Sometimes you just want a quick tomato sauce pasta that tastes like it’s not from a jar. Sometimes you’re a mad scientist hydrating, dehydrating, fermenting, and spending hours in the lab to concoct something special. To me, this is the beauty of cooking as self-care. It can be a distraction when it needs to be, just as it can be as simple as basic nourishment. Now, with the pandemic afoot, and all the restaurants closed, cooking has become a staple of our daily lives, whether we want it to be or not. Since I began quarantining on March 10th, I’ve cooked every single meal of every single day. 3 squares a day! And I’m not tired of it yet, but I’ll be the first to tell you it’s okay to be tired. 

The purpose of this guide is not to say “look, you should be doing this/or that” and more to say, if you’re in the headspace to begin a project, or if you just need to feed yourself, here are some suggestions from my New England kitchen. Take them as pretty pictures to look at, or take them as inspiration! Whatever you need them to be at whatever the moment demands. 

This whole thing mostly started because I was bored in my house with too much time on my hands, but I eventually  began a “Quarantine Dinner” series on my Instagram, which I was surprised to find my followers actually liked! I started to post a picture of my dinner each night of quarantine (that I wasn’t eating leftovers or shredded cheese from a bag). Then to follow, I would post some updates from my baking adventures in quarantine. Bread-making and pastry require massive amounts of time, and a lot of hands-on-dough dedication. This makes them extremely difficult to accomplish during regular work hours, but hey! Now I can easily step away from Microsoft Outlook in my living room for five  minutes to punch down my dough – AND it’s cathartic. 

You’ll find most of these recipes are vegetarian. I am not vegetarian, but I think it’s important for our own health and the health of our planet to eat as many veggies as possible, especially at this time.  

Quarantine Dinner: Chicken Piccata 

Recipe used: Bon Appetit

This is a meal that my brother and I used to BEG our parents to make for Sunday dinner, so there’s a lot of nostalgic value for me here. Personally, I was trying to cut down the amount of pasta I’ve been consuming so I decided to serve it with roasted broccoli (just salt, pepper, olive oil and roasted at 450F for about 30 minutes) and roasted potatoes. Chicken piccata is an italian dish, with floured cutlets, and a white wine, lemon, butter, caper sauce. Most of the time I’ve seen it served with spaghetti, so make sure to double the sauce recipe so you have enough of that delicious goodness to drench your pasta in. 

Bonus Baking! 

Focaccia

Recipe used: Samin Nosrat

Focaccia is a great pairing for any Italian dish. It’s easy to make, and so delicious. Just make sure you have a surplus of olive oil before you embark. If you’re adding toppings to your focaccia, be sure to par bake it first, and then add the salt and rosemary (or tomatoes or olives!). 

Quarantine Dinner: One-Skillet Squash 

Recipe Used: Epicurious

This is one of those: “I just need to eat something that’s good for me” dishes. It’s satisfying, healthy, and super quick and easy. Don’t be scared of getting color on the squash. It may stick to the pan, but if you just give it a bit more time to caramelize, eventually it will release, and you will be rewarded for your patience handsomely.

Pasta Aglio e Olio

Recipe Used: None! 

Sooooo… You know how there’s been a pasta shortage recently? Well yeah, that kind of led me to the point at which I had to use mini penne for this recipe, the one kind of pasta that was  left completely untouched on our local  shelves. So if you know any Italians (like I do) try to keep this photo on the down-low. Aglio e Olio is usually made with a long-thin pasta, like spaghetti or fettuccine. So if you have some, definitely use that instead. 

This dish is so simple, easy, fast and delicious it really doesn't require a recipe. All you need is a massive amount of garlic (sometimes I use a whole head) sliced very thinly, red pepper flakes, olive oil (about a quarter cup), parsely, lemon juice, and (optional for non-vegans) parmesan for finishing. For this dish, I would also recommend using dried pasta as opposed to fresh, so you can get the most out of using that super-starchy pasta water. Just fry the garlic in the olive oil until lightly browned, add the red pepper flake, drained pasta, about a quarter cup of pasta water, and then add the rest of the ingredients to your fancy! 

Bonus Baking!

Croissants

Recipe Used: Food and Wine

This was actually my first time making croissants, and I’ll tell you, it’s not easy on the wrists, but it’s definitely worth the first crispy bite you take. This recipe is for French style croissants, so it’s super important to use European style high fat butter. I used Kerrygold Irish Butter because it was the only thing remotely close on shelves at Trader Joes and I think it worked out well! Croissants are a yeasted pastry dough so they are especially high-rising. The recipe says 10 hours, but it will definitely take you 72 hours from start to finish – BUT THE LAYERS! 

Quarantine Lunch: Riffable Veggie Bowl

Recipe used: None!

This is a formula that works fantastically, whether you’re working from home or bringing lunch into the office. Here’s the equation: 1 part leafy green salad, 1 part grain/legume protein, 1 part roasted and spiced root vegetable. For this iteration I have some green French lentils, which are my favorite type of lentil because of their peppery flavor, a mesclun salad with tomatoes, and roasted sweet potato with harissa and paprika. You could substitute farro or quinoa for the lentils, spinach for mesclun, and squash for sweet potato and have something equally as delicious and nutritious. Save the leftovers and assemble a new bowl each day for your lunch. Make a simple vinaigrette and drizzle it over everything! 

Vegetarian Enchiladas Verdes

Recipe Used: Bon Appetit

This is a recipe for one of those “I’m not afraid of a project days”. Making the salsa verde from scratch will be time consuming, but I promise it’s 100 times better than buying the stuff in a jar. The main challenge you may face embarking on this recipe is finding fresh tomatillos. If you’re in the States, most local Mexican markets have a marvelous selection. Otherwise, I’ve had luck finding them at some farm stands and Mahket Basket (Market Basket) for my fellow New Englanders. 

Bonus Baking!

Bread that Is not Sourdough

Yeast is hard to come by in the supermarket now, which is why I recommend that you conserve whatever yeast you have! You don’t need a lot of yeast to make bread, you just need much more time. Try making something called a “poolish” before you make your next loaf. It only requires an ⅛ of a teaspoon of yeast, and a fermenting time of about 18 hours. In that time the yeast will grow through the flour/water mixture of the poolish and create a much more nuanced flavor.

I had my college years, nursing my sourdough starter like a baby, but in the end, the amount of discard that I was throwing out really disturbed me, and my garbage disposal. Yes, people say you can use it for pizza dough, or waffles, but if you’re baking bread every week, that’s a lot of pizza and waffles to be making each day! One day I may start nurturing my sourdough baby once again, but that day isn’t today! 

Spring Minestrone

Recipe Used: Bon Appétit

Early spring is my favorite time to be cooking and eating. Unfortunately, it feels as though I’ve been robbed of much of my spring enjoyment, seeing the flowers bloom in the park, going to my favorite seasonal restaurants and seeing morel mushrooms, garlic scapes, and English peas on the menu. This recipe is an extremely comforting place-holder for all those early spring veggies. It’s not difficult, it doesn’t take all day, but it is extremely complex and satisfies my spring cravings. 

Bonus Baking!

Sometimes you just need a cookie and a hug, but you can’t have a hug right now so here’s a cookie. 

Recipe: The Food Lab – Best Chocolate Chip Cookie 

Try browning your butter before adding it to your cookie dough mixture! Brown butter gives the cookies an incredible toffee-like flavor. 

Cauliflower “Bolognese” 

Recipe Used: Bon Appetit

This recipe actually came recommended to me by The Attic’s own Raquel Reyes! And my word, is it amazing! Some people might gripe and moan about vegetarian substitutions for meat, but I love them. They are such a creative and masterful way to recreate the savoriness of meat, that they become their own kind of umami delicious. 

I also wanted to use this recipe as an excuse to talk about mise-en-place. Mise-en-place is a French cooking term literally translating to “putting in place”. In regards to cooking, it means having your ingredients ready to go for the moment you need them. Mise-en-place is an essential tool to the home cook to ensure that the kitchen is not chaotic, and the ingredients are added to the dish when they need to be and not a moment later. A little bit of preparation will save you a lot of stress in the kitchen. 

My family, whom I miss very much in the K-Paul Kitchen in New Orleans. Before any of this.

I wish you well through all this stress and grief. Food may not always heal a broken heart, fill an emotional void, or stop a panic attack in its tracks, but it does get you from one day to the next day, and sometimes that’s all that can be done. 

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Corinne Elicona is an Event Coordinator and Crematory Operator at the historic Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She curates Mount Auburn's "Death Positive" programming and can often be seen roaming the cemetery in search of fascinating epitaphs for her next historic walking tour.