There is no shame in admitting you’ve been mainly in the kitchen during this social distancing process. I know I have … .

As expressed before, cooking is one of the major ways I de-stress, so it should come as no surprise I have been in the kitchen more than usual over the past month. Without trying, I noticed my boyfriend, Nathan, and I have been sticking to a theme for our meals each week.

One of the things I love about cooking is it can transport you to other places with just a bite. While I have not traveled internationally as much as I’d like to, Nathan spent a fair amount of time exploring the world, so I like to listen to his stories and favorite dishes from the different countries he visited and try to recreate them for him — a rather hard task at times.

As I scrolled through my camera roll, I noticed we have recently “traveled the world” just based on the dishes I have been cooking. From Asia to Europe, from Europe to America to South America, from South America to the Caribbean . . .  you name it! Since we are avoiding crowded places, we try our best to do our grocery shopping once every two weeks, which has awakened my creativity. Mainly using the same ingredients, I have been able to make the dishes below:

1. Spicy Thai noodles with baked Thai chicken thighs 2. Empanadas: chicken, cheese, guava and cheese and pizza3. Pineapple fried rice with sweet and sour chicken breasts4. Caribbean rice (coconut milk and dried pigeon peas), smoked eggplant and tostones (double-fried green plantains)5. Caramelized onion kale chicken pasta bake; I got this recipe from Ambitious Kitchen and modified it a bit by sticking to what I had in the fridge and pantry.6. Sweet ponzu beef bowls; these were part of our EveryPlate menu for the week and a game changerThere are more, but my tummy is growling! These have allowed us to transport ourselves out of our apartment momentarily and into the world we all miss exploring. Maybe you can use this time to expand your kitchen horizons and try to recreate a dish that blew your mind or opened your palate to flavors you never knew you loved before you traveled!

— Yasser Ogando, production & advertising coordinator