The current COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc on the restaurant and food business. Restaurants all over the world have either closed down or significantly reduced their client service capacity. These series of events have now made avid restaurant-goers craving and searching for healthy and delicious dishes to eat.
As the saying goes, “there is beauty in chaos.” The recent pandemic also allowed us to hone our cooking skills. The pandemic gave us extra time to spare to cook and to indulge in the food we create. We have compiled the seven best dishes for you to cook during the recent pandemic. Be ready to feel hungry while you read. You have been warned.
Buttermilk Pancakes
Are you tired of eating bland, dry, and tasteless pancakes? Do you dream of eating the perfect pancake? Do you want the fluffiest, moist, and most delicious pancake you can eat? If you do, then try adding buttermilk to your pancake recipe. If you are a morning person, then having your daily dose of buttermilk pancake is a great way to start your day.
You might ask why buttermilk, the acidity in buttermilk, helps the pancake batter be more moist, fluffy, and soft. Buttermilk also gives the pancake mix more volume, so every bite that will be light and airy. In addition to it being delicious, buttermilk pancakes are also easy to make, and the prep work is not complicated.
Pizza Pockets
Pizza is and will always belong to what we call “comfort food.” We eat pizza on almost every occasion. We eat pizza when we are happy. We also eat pizza during the times that we are feeling down. If you think about it, we eat pizza no matter our emotional state, and this pandemic somewhat hindered our pizza indulgence because many pizza parlors are closed.
But all is not lost. In this time of crisis and pandemic, we can still eat our favorite comfort food, our go-to fixer upper. During home quarantine, we can make homemade pizza pockets. Making our own pizza pockets is relatively easy and less messy than that of the traditional pan pizza. You can customize the fillings and flavors according to your liking.
All you need is pizza dough or leftover bread. If you opt for pizza dough, you can either have it homemade or store-bought.For the sauce, you can choose from either spaghetti or marinara sauce. The variety of cheeses, meats, and veggies also depend on your preference.
Spaghetti and Meatballs
Nothing beats the classic spaghetti and meatballs combo. The perfect combination of al dente pasta, tomato sauce, and delicious garlicky meatballs would make anyone hungry with excitement. Making the perfect spaghetti and meatballs is also very easy.
Eating the classic spaghetti and meatballs also come with health benefits. You can get your daily dose of iron and protein from the meatballs, healthy energy-giving carbohydrates from the pasta, and lycopene from the tomato sauce. All in all, this dish is a healthy trifecta.
Garlicky Pulled Pork
One can never go wrong with pulled pork. Just imagine that smoky, garlicky, melt on your mouth pork cuts that are so delicious it makes you want just to lay down and enjoy every bit of it. There are many recipes online on how to cook the perfect garlicky pulled pork, but slow cooking is the way to go. Make sure to use the pork shoulder or pork butt for better results.
Eating pulled pork also comes with health benefits. When you eat three ounces of pork a day will give you a third of your daily requirement of vitamins and minerals. Vitamins like Niacin and Thiamin are what you can get from eating pulled pork. These vitamins are essential in energy metabolism and overall health.
Bubble Milk Tea
Even before the pandemic started, the bubble milk tea craze already took the world by storm. Milk tea stalls kept popping out almost instantaneously. Even after the pandemic, Bubble milk teas did not go out of the market. Who said we could not enjoy the sweet taste of bubble milk tea during the pandemic?
Aside from being delicious and refreshing, drinking bubble milk tea in moderation is also beneficial for our health. Bubble milk tea contains powerful antioxidants that enable you to fight harmful free radicals and boost your immune system. These are crucial in the fight against the pandemic as we must make sure that we have robust immune systems to fight off the virus.
Takeaway
During home quarantine, it is a bit of a struggle to eat healthy food. With easy access to food delivery services and fast food, people nowadays struggle to find alternative ways to eat tasty and healthy food. People are often too afraid to go out and enjoy good food.
With the added time on our hands, we can hone our cooking skills and eat healthy and delicious food again. But we must always remember that all good things come in moderation. It is vital to maintain a balanced diet and to keep hydrated always.