In the days after Hurricane Sandy, many of us are managing (well barely!) with no power, heat, hot water, closed schools, and an inability to get around easily. Honestly, we are the lucky ones who are just suffering without these luxuries. Many people lost their homes, or sustained tremendous damage that they must somehow manage. It’s always amazing to see how friends and communities pull together to help one another in these types of emergencies – from calling to say, “come stay with us”, to sharing their generator electricity, to late night rescues from water-flooded homes or just enjoying a game of Monopoly by flashlight. I am so privileged to know these types of people and grateful for the welcome they gave us.

On a much lighter note, I cannot help thinking about some of the ideas that came to mind while trying to cook without power. The main goal was to use whatever perishable ingredients I had on hand. Second, I only have a gas powered cooktop so I was limited to cooktop items.

The first night we enjoyed a homemade marinara sauce. I added some flanken that I browned in a pan and then slow cooked it in the marinara sauce for about 45 minutes. The result was a delicious, thick and rich tomato sauce. I cooked some pasta, added a bit of the pasta water to the marinara sauce pan and coated the pasta with the meat sauce. Dinner 1 is done!

The second night I made Asian Chicken Salad Cups. It used up all my leftover chicken from Shabbos and quite a few other refrigerator and pantry items. We devoured the No Bake Chocolate Peanut Butter Oatmeal Bundles while playing board games by flashlight. Mission accomplished.

The third night, we went to a friend….game over 🙂