Four recipes you didn't know you needed

Food, one of the few resorts of quarantine, is loaded with lots hope and anticipation. Those of us who are usually responsible for putting food on the table feel like cooking has become a burden. One has to come up with new things often, because we all get bored in isolation. The dishes should be somewhat sophisticated as well, because dining out is an unnecessary risk that we continue to constantly crave nonetheless. Food should also be healthy because we don't move enough and need to build a good immune system. And lastly, it should not be too expensive (crisis mode!) or contain funky things that are hard to get - who wants to have to drive to 5 different stores right now? I think the following recipes cover all that - they are nutritious, a little unusual and easy to prepare.

1. "Mediterranean" Potatoes

Born in Texas, so the name is a deception. but the dish is certainly not. I "invented" this easy lunch by accident and now it's a favorite of my daughter's. You'll need Golden Medley potatoes, cooking oil, herbs, olives and feta. I also add a little homemade pesto (olive oil, basil paste, pine nuts & parmesan) but store bought is just fine. All I do is wash & cut the little potatoes in half and put them in an oven dish. I mix a couple table spoons of avocado oil with herbs and spices - salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, paprika and parsley (you could add whatever you like) and pour it over the potatoes that I put in the oven at 220C / 425F. You could stop at that and have a great side dish after ca. 40 mins. Or you add some Kalamata olives and feta crumbs after about 20 minutes, then finish baking and add pesto.

2. Summer Pasta

My bestie Daria thought up this easy, beautiful dish. You'll only need penne or rigatoni, olive oil, a little white onion, zucchini, carrots and parmesan. 1 zucchini and 1 big carrot are enough for 2 people. Heat water for pasta and start the veggies - thinly slice them and fry them in olive oil, add salt & pepper. Meanwhile, cook penne al dente, drain, mix with the vegetables. Add more olive oil (lucky me has fancy lemon olive oil from Daria‘s restaurant). Add parmesan if you like.

3. Tuna steak with sesame sauce

Tuna steaks are a staple at our house, the sauce is a relatively new addition that I stole and modified from a French youtube channel. Grill the tuna like you'd grill your meat - heat, oil, salt & pepper (though I like my beef medium and the tuna well done - my husband eats both rare). For the sauce, heat fresh minced garlic in some sesame oil, add equal parts (1-2 tablespoons each for 2-3 ppl) of lemon juice, honey and soy sauce. bring to boil then turn down immediately and let simmer for 1-2 minutes. Add sesame seeds if you have them, pour over tuna and you're done!

4. Whole roasted duck

This is my mother-in-law's recipe and though duck is somewhat of a celebratory dish, it's so easy that you could do it every week. We started eating more duck once we got tired of chicken. It's not always available, but I've found it frozen at Kroger, Costco and Aldi recently. A whole duck is around 15 $ but it'll feed 4 or 2 for 2 days. All you need is time. Wash the duck and massage it with a little oil, salt and paprika, cut it in half. Place directly on the oven rack with a big oven dish underneath. Put some water in that dish. Bake 20 mins at 180C / 355 F then turn down to 150C / 300F and cover with aluminum foil for an hour. Remove foil and turn up to 200C / 390 for 45 mins, use the water / fat mixture from the dish to occasionally pour it over the duck. We cook French fries in the air fryer and warm up red cabbage from the jar (Aldi, again), German style. But you could do any sides you wanted. All the ducks I've bought came with a pretty tasty orange sauce that you just warm up in the microwave. Or you could make one yourself with orange juice, flour and brandy.

Let me know if you like these and what your go-to quarantine dishes are.

Talk to you soon, J