It was rainy tonight, and I was trying to think of something to do with the four zucchinis I’d bought (because that was the smallest quantity available). And I decided I wanted it melty with ground beef and a brown sauce that wasn’t tomatoes.
On the left of the plate is a bunch of vegetables, especially zucchini, cooked with ground beef. On the right is brown rice.
I picked a couple peppers and some green onion from my porch.
So I started with the (small-medium) zucchini and sliced it lengthwise and then cut it into fine slices. And I tossed that into the pan with some olive oil. And I pulled out a quarter pound of ground beef from the freezer and lay that on top to thaw.
Then I pulled out a couple mini sweet peppers and a partial onion from my refrigerator, gave them a medium dice, and threw them in around the beef (which now was ready to be flipped to the other side while stirring everything around.
So that was my base. To that, I decided to add a generous drizzle of oyster sauce and some cooking wine. And then I finely cut up the peppers from my garden: a spicy purple one and a firm jalapeño. By now, the beef was fully broken up into small pieces and nearly cooked through.
So I still was puttering and decided to add some garlic and ginger. And I sliced the scallions.
Then I remembered to think about my starch. And I think it probably should have gone with noodles, but it was a little late to start them now. And I had a quart of cooked brown rice prepped already.
So I pulled about about a quarter cup of rice and warmed it in the microwave for a minute and threw the sliced scallions into the skillet.
On the side, I’m eating some daikon and carrots that I quick pickled in seasoned rice wine vinegar.
It is so good! And very satisfying. Would make again.
I haven’t been to Pennsic in about eight years, but I had been planning outdoor cooking experiments and making garb the whole time, so I had too many options to pick from rather than too few.
One of my big goals was to get photos of all my Pennsic garb, but like always, I hardly ever had my phone out and ended up with very few pictures from the two weeks.
My first packing plan was to only take the hottest weather clothing and use the extra space for more cooking plans, but then I was lucky enough to check the weather forecast twelve hours before I would leave because it had changed a lot from the long range forecast! Apparently we’d be getting all the weather, including some cooler temperatures.
And once I was there I hardly even cooked because one of my campmates has devised a whole meal plan for war and I could barely offer help with dishes and some side dishes.
When I was cleaning out my refrigerator if perishables before I left, I turned all of the lingering perishables into quick pickles.
Eight small rectangular plastic containers with locking lids that could be stored in a cooler without leaking. They’re numbered to match with the descriptions below.
I was working with five big carrots, one and a half daikon radishes, 1 garden cucumber, 8 persian cucumbers, 1 purple onion, 1 yellow onion, 3 Vidalia onions, and 2.5 heads of garlic
1) carrots, daikon, yellow onion in black vinegar 2) cucumber and purple onion in red wine vinegar 3) a chunk of ginger in the bottom, carrots, and daikon in rice vinegar 4) carrots and cucumbers in rice vinegar 5) carrots and cucumbers and purple onion in rice vinegar with a dried chili 6) carrots and daikon in seasoned rice vinegar 7) fine matchsticks of daikon and carrot in rice vinegar 8) Vidalia onions, garlic cloves in malt vinegar
My other preparation ahead of time was to make little gifts I could give to camp mates and people displaying their Arts & Sciences research in competitions. I’m very proud of myself because I always forget tokens of appreciation.
Proof of concept before assembling then at scale
I bought tiny glass jars with corks, and then I special ordered some washi tape to make a personalized label – and ended up getting the spacing perfect!
So I made 80 bottles
A few years ago, a retired former coworker of mine gave me some flavored salts that she had made (mostly with dried citrus zest), and that seemed like a reasonably stable gift that most people would not be allergic to. And I have been harvesting and drying more thyme from my garden thanks can use it give away, so that was that I decided to flavor my salt with. As for which salt to use, I’ve been very excited recently to have found a coarse salt that ALSO has iodine, so that was my choice (and yes, I did tell people about the iodine). And that was VERY well received as a gift. I’ll need to think of something similar to do next time I go.
Early setup with a purple vardo, a bell tent, and my wee modern orange tent behindEarly setup with some olde tymey canvas tents and a more modern canvas tent in front
I took some pictures of setup the first couple days because I am amused by the tents with the big vehicles next to them. My car went to parking as soon as I finished getting my rent up and stuff inside. I don’t know if you can see it in the pictures (I can because I know it’s there), but we camp with a small river that has been cut in the middle of the space. I ended up having to park on one side and carry my stuff to the other side. But the advantage of having a river is that when we set up our shower, we don’t need to dig separate drainage! (But we do need to clear the weeds and from the trench to make sure it flows smoothly)
Campmates setting up the shower walls
I didn’t end up taking any classes this year. I’ve had a very low activity couple of years, and I was finding that just hanging out near camp, staying hydrated, and slowly stretching and strengthening really helped. But there were people I had wanted to see, and I did get to see them regularly and I also got spend time hanging out and sewing during the hottest party of the day at my favorite temporary Turkish coffee shop: Kafe Merhaba!
Low stools and cushions make for pretty comfortable seating, but there are also picnic tables and benches outsideIt’s in a rented party tent, but they drape other fabrics to make it softer and breezier
The only cooking experiment I did manage to do was making white rice in an unglazed clay pot over a charcoal brazier. And it didn’t happen the way I thought it would (with two steps at two different heat levels), but instead I just guessed that it was time to peek and see how it was and it was a already done. Did I remember to time the process? No. So I have no idea if it can be replicated. Did I take pictures to document the experiment? Nooo… But I think some of my camp mates did.
More tents! Look how pretty. This is near the end of the first weekCamp mates chatting and getting things doneOur stunning camp ice maidenWe have just started a fire in the fire pit!Siblings sitting around in the shade reading a book and doing some leather crafting.The shade it’s good both to hide from the sun and to shelter from the rainNow it’s a full encampment and everyone is here and set up. My tent is almost completely hidden behind the bell tent.
It was a lovely and cozy two weeks spent with some great people I only see when I can get to this event, but there’s no other group of people I would rather camp with.
I did do one new thing this year. I volunteered to help with scoring the A&S competitions (both the main one and the one out together by the collegiate discord. Since I’m still fairly new, my task at the big competition was to review the comments given by the team of judges to make sure they were not rude and did not contain offensive language. It was a fun team to work with, and I’m glad the competitors get to have that level of protection.
Preparing for the collegiate A&S competition with a check-in for the judges
For the college level competition, we only had three entrants and almost a dozen judges eager to support the collegiate participants. We decided to switch from a competition to just giving commentary and feedback because all three were spectacular and there wasn’t much point in trying to rank them.
I think I’ll try to help out with both of these in the future as well.
(this post doesn’t start vegan, but keep reading to the second attempt!)
I’ve been taking a class on food and culture in the Islamic Middle East, and my assigned country to research is Egypt. As part of this, I’ve been looking at Egyptian cookbooks.
I started with Egyptian Cooking: A Practical Guide by Samia Abdennour, published in 1984 by the American University in Cairo Press. It looked very sensible and traditional with bare bones recipes and no pictures. The cookbook inspired confidence that this is recording traditional cooking. There were 2 versions presented: one with veal and the other with beef, but all of the same ingredients and quantities for both. I figured I would give it a try.
Here are the recipes as published in the cookbook: MC 180 SANIYET BATATES, NAY FI NAY – Casserole of potatoes (1) 1 kg potatoes, peeled and sliced 2cms thick 1/2 kg beef 4-6 ripe tomatoes, peeled and chopped coarsely 12-15 garlic cloves, halved diagonally 2 onions, sliced thinly 2 cups tomato juice salt and pepper
Cut beef into bite-sized cubes. Put all the ingredients together in an oven pot, cover with seasoned tomato juice and cook in preheated moderate oven for 1-2 hours.
MC 181 SANIYET BATATES – Casserole of potatoes (2) 1 kg potatoes, peeled and sliced 2cms thick 1/2 kg veal 3-6 ripe tomatoes, peeled and chopped coarsely 12-15 garlic cloves, halved diagonally 2 onions, sliced thinly 2 cups tomato juice cooking oil salt and pepper
Peel and slice potatoes 2cms thick. Cut veal into small cubes. Peel and chop tomatoes coarsely. Peel garlic and halve diagonally. Slice onions very thin, keeping all items separate.
Saute onions, add tomato juice and cook for 10 minutes. Add [meat,] garlic and seasoning and cook for another 10 minutes.
Arrange sliced potatoes in lightly-greased oven dish, bury the meat mixture among the slices and cover with the cooked tomato sauce. Bake in slow oven for about 1 hour.
Now I didn’t have a full kilogram of potatoes handy and was only cooking for 1 person, so I scaled the recipe down a bit.
mise en place with an empty donabe, 2 sad potatoes, 5 peeled garlic cloves, 1 small peeled white onion, 1 can of peeled plum tomatoes, and a bowl with small cubes of beef
I had 2 russet potatoes that were not in great shape. (I had purchased them on delivery instead of looking them over in the store, and this batch was damaged. The delivery place gave me a full refund for the potatoes after I sent them a picture. Then I split up the bag with a few people so we could use them up before they went off. So I washed them and peeled them and sliced them into thick rounds and put them in the casserole dish. And this is where I had my first misgivings – when I’m building a dish like this, I usually like to put the onions between the bottom of the dish and the main meat (or in this case potatoes) so that there’s less worry about sticking and burning. But we’re trying to follow the recipe here!
Donabe filled with potatoes with small beef cubes tucked all around and thinly sliced onions on top. There are also garlic slices in there, but none are showing in the picture.
Once I had a solid layer of potatoes in there, I started tucking the garlic pieces and the small beef cubes around the potatoes. And then I (foolishly!) decided to not get another pan dirty by precooking the onions in the tomato juice, like in the second recipe, and just add them directly the way the first recipe says/implies. I added the tomato juice from the pan and sliced some of the tomatoes on top. Then it went in the oven!
donabe with a cooked dish with potatoes in thin liquid and you can see the other ingredients – tomatoes, beef, and onions – looking a little dry and cooked with some small amounts of burning, especially right around the edge of the bowl where liquid bubbled up the sides.
After about an hour and a half, it was smelling pretty good and like food, so I gave the potatoes a poke with a fork – they were still fairly firm, so back they went for another half hour. Then I waited for the potatoes to cool enough to eat and I was very optimistic about this dish.
It was terrible! The potatoes might have been cooked, but they were not soft and none of the sauce had penetrated to flavor the potatoes. And the onions! I don’t know how, but the onions tasted even more strongly of raw onion flavor after cooking than they did before! Nothing went together and it put me off of using that whole cookbook!
But this should be a viable dish! It sounds so simple, stable, and reliable. So I went looking to see if it appeared in other cookbooks. Of the ones I checked, nothing particularly close appeared.
screencapture of the start of Chez Nermine’s page about Saneyet Batates – site linked to picture if you want to click through
And this was more like it! With detailed instructions, discussions about ingredient varieties, and even a video recap. So this time I made it for lunch with a friend. She has been having chemo on Friday afternoons and then I’ll pick her up and make a meal before the nausea kicks in. It has all of the fun of dining out with none of the risks of dining in public while immunocompromised. So I asked her opinions about the ingredients, and she asked for minimal garlic and onions and that it not be particularly spicy, so those are the big changes here.
Using an 8″x8″ casserole dish, I started with some oil in the base. And then I added about 1-2 Tablespoons (not measured, just was left in the container I had) of dried shallots (to replace the fresh onions) and the spices – this version called for spices, so that’s exciting – ground coriander (the last one the ones I dried from my 2025 garden), ground cumin (from the Egyptian cumin a former couchsurfer had brought me!), dry oregano (also dried from my garden), and a generous sprinkle of paprika (a little more generous than the recipe because I’m trying to use up that container). And then that got kind of mixed together.
This time, I was using a fresh bag of yukon gold potatoes. Even though the directions say to slice one inch thick, looking at her video I decided to slice them closer to half an inch thick. And then I sliced up some fresh bell peppers without any spiciness to them. That gets tossed with the spices to distribute as evenly as possible.
I still used the same kind of canned whole tomatoes, so I first poured out some of the liquid and mixed it with tomato paste and vegetable soup base. Then I sliced the tomatoes on top again and poured the enriched liquid over everything. The whole large-sized can was perfect for this size casserole dish.
And then I cooked it – first on the stovetop and then in the oven. But for much longer than called for because my friend’s appointment ran later then I’d been expecting. By about an hour and a half. I had been planning the switch to the oven for right when I left the house, but it ended up almost completely finished before she even called me for a pickup. So I made sure there was enough liquid and that the heat was just high enough to keep a low bubbly simmer but low enough to not dry out or misbehave while I was out of the house.
Finished dish of tomatoes that have turned orange from braising in the tomato sauce and small chunks of tomato and pepper in a saucy base.
We came back in the house, and the smell was amazing! The potatoes were very hot, but that gave us some time to chat while waiting for it to cool.
I still had a little ruqaq (an Arabic thin crepe-like bread) left from an experiment, so we used that as a base layer to soak up the sauce. And we had feta brined white cheese on the side.
A plate made up with the potatoes on top of a layer of soaked flatbread and some white cheese on the side
This version ended up amazing! A+ Would make again. The spiced tomato broth flavored the potatoes all the way through, and it was just the right amount of warm and comforting without being too heavy for lunch.
Let’s also do a quick roundup of Egyptian food blogs I found:
Chez Nermine: authored by Nermine Mansour, who was born in Egypt, a former Egyptian diplomat (her husband still seems to be a diplomat), and lives in Virginia (united states). Oldest recipe posted 17 August 2017; most recent recipe 3 April 2026. Primarily Coptic, she has recipes tagged for Christian, Islamic, and Jewish holidays and includes both vegan and meat. Has a recipe for macarona forn, saneyet batates, koshari, and molokhia. Tagline is Raising the Flag of Egyptian Cuisine. Likelihood of using: 10/10 (see above)
TheEgyptianCook: Signature cooking by Muhammed Elgammal, but posts and videos are made by a team and his site has a merchandise store “in development.” He is an Egyptian-American Muslim who resides in the United States. Oldest recipe posted 11 December 2023; most recent recipe 17 November 2025. Has a recipessddd for macarona bechemel, baked potatoes and lamb, koshari, and molokhia, Recipes are fairly meat heavy, but includes vegan kofta (as well as beverages and desserts). Likelihood of using: 1/10 (autoplay videos)
Scarf Gal Food: Simona Afifi does not have a separate “about” section, but does sprinkle anecdotes throughout the posts. Diaspora Egyptian with actual experience making and buying food in Egypt, posting from the united states. Oldest recipe posted 21 April 2015; most recent recipe 13 December 2021. Has a recipe for macarona bechamel, saneyet batates, koshari, and molukhia. Likelihood of using: 6/10 (most likely this recipe for easy ful starting with canned beans)
The Egyptian Kitchen: abissada was 1st generation born outside Egypt and lists her location as France, but she has visited Egypt. Earliest recipe posted 18 January 2010; most recent recipe . Has recipes for macarona bil bechemel, koshari, and molokhia (first posted recipe). Likelihood of using: 3/10
Food of Egypt: References christian and Islamic holidays. Oldest recipe posted 28 July 2010; most recent recipe 1 August 2013 (posted to facebook through August 2015). Has a recipe for molokheya. Likelihood of using: 2/10 (too many intrusive ads)
Cleobuttera: Tasbih is a food blogger in Egypt who specializes in pastry and baking. Oldest recipe posted 11 November 2014; most recent recipe 25 August 2019. Best web design, includes a section of which major publications have referenced her blog. Likelihood of using: 7/10 (would be higher if I were more of a baker/confectioner)
I wasn’t sure if it would be possible to make just one bowl of potato soup, but I figured I would try.
The bowl of soup with some bacon crumbles and cheese on top
I used my 1 quart pot so that I’d not have room to add too much.
Starting by dicing half a large onion, I put it in the pot with some bacon fat and turned the burner to medium to start sweating the onion. I washed and diced two smallish medium potatoes and added them to the pot as well (and turned the heat a little higher).
I mixed two cloves of garlic and threw those in as well, but I didn’t want either celery or carrots. I have carrots, but I didn’t feel like it
Once the vegetables were pretty evenly translucent and a bit softer, I added two teaspoons of flour. Then I thoroughly stirred that into everything and let it cling evenly to the vegetables and get cooked until it was no longer raw flour.
Then I added just enough soy milk to cover. (Last time I was ordering groceries, I wanted a little dairy but the smallest quantity was a half gallon and the soy milk was cheaper than the cow milk. The main thing I look for in a plant milk is that it has no sweetener and no vanilla flavoring. If I want sweet milk, I can always add sugar, but there’s no taking it out when I want savory (which is most of the time).
I added a bunch of seasonings – salt, black pepper, gochugaru, paprika, powdered thyme, and some mushroom powder. Because that was what was on hand. Because my paprika is losing its color so I want to use it up.
The soy milk thickened faster than I was expecting, so I added a little more. I’m not sure if that’s because of how much flour I added or if it is party of the qualities of soy milk and how it behaves. But I made sure I kept cooking long enough for the potatoes to be cooked through.
Then I topped it with cheddar cheese and bacon crumbles.
It’s was very rich, but definitely tasty. As long as I still have an abundance of ‘milk’, I might make this again. It was a very satisfactory dinner
If you’ve ever grown peppers, you know they can be quite prolific.
I usually grow at least once variety I can dry, but I’ll admit that I still haven’t used all of my dried peppers from last year. Or the year before that.
Growing purple peppers in a pot on my porch
These purple peppers were not a variety I was familiar with, but they rounded out an order to get free shipping from one of the Etsy stores I but small plants from (yes it sounds like a weird source for plants, but it has worked surprisingly well the last couple years). The listing called them a Buena Mulata pepper and I did not look them up before buying.
The fruits have been delicious and I love them on sandwiches or with eggs. There’s a zing of spiciness, a hint of fruitiness, and a medium amount of meatiness. And a lot of them! This is just from one single plant, two harvests about a week apart.
I just looked them up for this post, and it looks like if I leave them longer they will turn red and dry well. So that’s probably what I do for the rest of their season.
A pint jar of purple peppers being pickled (by means of fermentation)
For this experiment, I boiled the pint jar, a jar weight, a fermentation lid, and the ring to hold8 the lid on.
Once I pulled the jar out and let it cool a bit, and I started off with two fresh bay leaves and two pinches of Egyptian cumin.
I washed the peppers and peeled off their stems without cutting into the skin. I also peeled about 4 cloves of garlic.
Then I wedged the peppers in as tightly as I could with the garlic cloves popped in randomly as I went.
This time I weighed my water and tried to get 4% salinity, since I might a well try a more proper pickle. I also added a little sugar because I find sugar pairs well with spicy, and I’d read that too strong capsaicin can inhibit fermentation, so I figured a little extra food wouldn’t hurt.
We’ll see!
Update Sunday 3 August 2025: the peppers are fermenting and have lost some of their color.
I have not yet tasted the peppers.
3 jars of pickles. In back is a half gallon jar of cucumber pickles. The middle one is a 20 ounce jar of spicy green and banana peppers. In front is the pint jar of purple peppers.
But I did start a whole other batch of peppers pickling! This new batch used some of the brine from the cucumber pickles as the start.
The new batch also had fresh bay leaves and brown mustard seeds as seasoning, but I also added some fresh sage. This was a mix of all the other peppers, so some banana peppers, a lot of Korean gochugaru style (still green) peppers… And a third one which might also be the Korean peppers or might be something else
