Certainly made the chicken a lot more tender - good experiment!

A party snack I could have made in this year :) Child helped and loved eating them of course.

I went into this challenge planning to make cottage pie-style stuffed potatoes topped with a potato-taro mash. After cooking and mashing the taro, I wasn't a fan of the texture on its own, so I pivoted and turned it into taro pommes aligot instead. For me, that solved the texture issue.

Crispy potato skins were hollowed out and stuffed with a cottage pie-inspired filling of ground turkey, onions, garlic, peas, carrots, fresh herbs, and a super-thick pan gravy. The potatoes were then topped with a cheesy taro-potato aligot, finished with Parmesan and green onions.

From the Best of the Year 2000 Cooking Light magazine. Also fully made in a microwave, which was a shock.

I remember this being served at every single party from 1999 New Year’s Eve to well into the mid 2000s. And while spinach and artichoke dip never dies, it always takes me back to the Y2K.

Latte Recipe from "Vegan for Youth". The Taro Boba was the only way for me to get sth Taro lol

Curry recipe from a curry cookbook. The lava tofu is my version of realising the theme without using meat. It didn't turn out quite as gooey as I'd hoped, but it was still very soft and delicious! Lava Tofu recipe from "Wendy the food scientist"

Recipe from the cookbook "Love is Served". This was really delicious and I will def make it again.

I was pregnant in the year 2000 and figuring out how to be a stay at home mom. Dinner was shake n bake, a lipton sidekick and frozen microwaved veggies. Or maybe some KD if I was feeling especially tired.

I attempted to do this again but make jt better. Somehow, I channeled my inner 2000 bad cook so hard that this meal was TERRIBLE. Worst thing I’ve made all year. Somehow the pork chops were soggy and the Mac n cheese was dry. Steamed the frozen veg, so that was about as good as could be expected.

Thankfully I only disappointed 2 friends and one kid this week.

* The roundish fish-cake looking pucks on the plate are Taro. The rest is edible.

As someone who was the farthest thing from a picky eater, Taro or Arbi was the bane of my young life! The strange fibrous, pulpy mush often disguised as potato would find itself on my lunch plate after a gruelling day of alphabet, addition, painting and softball at school… destroying everything I knew and loved! Yea, I hated it.

And I must be young at heart because nothing’s changed and I still hate it, although I really tried to do everything to give the recipe every chance I could. I steamed and mashed it with tempered spices, rolled it into fritters and pan fried them. It’s meh with a hint of 🤢. Seekh kababs, daal, tomato chutney, cucumber and onion salad, and paratha saved lunch today.

My meta is UTSSS or Use that sexy stupid stuff- to try to incorporate some of the many, many ingredients I’ve collected over time but haven’t used at all or enough.

Meta ingredients used in this recipe: mustard oil and carom seeds.

Hey, I know sweet potatoes aren't yams, but this theme was tough give me a break

Homemade marinara (my son’s favorite food right now!) and some quick plain naan breads. Delicious :)

Meta explanation: cold pepperoni is discouraged during pregnancy