Cooking Challenge: Reddit’s 52 Weeks of Cooking
Our family marks the end of the winter holiday season by making a traditional Galette des Rois. The end to seasonal baking, menu planning, and big cooking projects usually leaves us wondering what’s next on the cooking front. So we were intrigued when a Mark Bittman newsletter highlighted a fun cooking challenge over on Reddit called 52 Weeks of Cooking:
“Everyone in the community is trying to get better at something and I think coming together like that attracts people with positive energy. Everyone here is trying to improve and trying to help others do the same.”
The Reddit subgroup has been together since 2012. Their description states: “Each week, we give you an ingredient, technique, cuisine, or inspiration. Each week, you cook a dish in that theme and share the results. Each week, your culinary repertoire gets a little bigger."
It’s a fun way for home cooks—beginner or expert—to challenge themselves to make something new or different more often than they might usually do so. There aren’t any strict rules, almost anything goes as long you can make an argument for your dish being relevant to the week’s theme. It’s not a contest, so you can choose to make super easy recipes or challenging dishes.
The subreddit is a great source of recipe ideas and cooking inspiration—you have access to 10+ years of home cooks submitting a wide variety of creative entries week after week. Some results are stunning, some are fails, and most fall somewhere in the middle. The admitted failures usually see many upvotes for their efforts. And of course there is fun participation flair.
To top it off, some participants choose to take on a self-selected meta challenge—committing to use a single ingredient, technique, cuisine, or theme the whole year alongside the group’s weekly challenge theme. We used a meta for a few years and found it narrowed our options in a helpful way and often inspired creativity. We keep a running list of our weekly entries below.
So whether you are looking for an excuse to cook more at home or a cooking challenge to complete with friends, you will find it in this community. You can join in on the easy culinary challenge anytime throughout the year. The Reddit subgroup is one of the most feel-good places on the internet. Try it and see!
Popular 52-week challenges on Reddit: Cooking, Baking, Books
2024 Weekly Challenge Themes
Week 1: Beans — Slow Cooker Black-Eyed Peas with collards and ham on New Year’s Day. Black-eyed peas are actually beans.
Week 2: Year of the Dragon — Slow Cooker Chinese Ribs.
Week 3: Kashmiri — Slow Cooker Rogan Josh.
Week 4: Peeling — Slow Cooker Beef Rendang with lime zest (peel) as an ingredient.
Week 5: Celestial — Cosmic Charlie smoothies, Juiceland copycat.
Week 6: Normandy — Slow Cooker Baked Apples or Pommes au Four à la Normande.
Week 7: Discontinued — Chocolate Amaretti Cake. A favorite easy dessert calls for amaretti cookies which are a mixture of sugar, apricot kernels, and egg whites. We like the original Italian Lazzaroni Amaretti Di Saronno brand, which have been discontinued from our local stores, but are still available on Amazon.
Week 8: Bulbs — Slow Cooker Leek Potato Soup. While leeks aren’t bulbs, they are often lumped in with bulbs, but we added garlic for good measure.
Week 9: Paraguay — Bori Bori (or Vori Vori) de Pollo is a traditional Paraguayan chicken and dumpling soup.
Week 10: Balling — Spaghetti with Meatballs.
Week 11: Cream — Slow Cooker Beef Stroganoff.
Week 12: Poetic — Grits. If you’re from Louisiana, the poem “Going Home: New Orleans,” by Sheryl St. Germain is worth a read. The Poetry Foundation offers a smorgasbord of poems about food.
Week 13: Knifework — Slow Cooker Ratatouille.
Week 14: Local Produce — Slow Cooker Beets served in a salad.
Week 15: Out of the Box — Upgraded boxed brownie mix.
Week 16: Egyptian — Mahshi prepared as Slow Cooker Stuffed Peppers.
Week 17: Tea — Slow Cooker Steel Cut Oats cooked with Chai Tea.
Week 18: Eponymous — Slow Cooker Salisbury Steak
Week 19: Pennsylvanian Dutch —
Week 20: Wrapping — Slow Cooker Tamales
Week 21: Anthony Bourdain — Slow Cooker Kimchi Stew. The PBS series The Mind of a Chef was hosted by David Chang and narrated by Anthony Bourdain. The episode “Rotten” included kimchi.
Week 22: Yucatecan
Week 23: Smoky — The Splendid Table’s Smoky Pumpkin and Tomato Soup with toasted pepitas.
Week 24: Berries — Ice cream with Slow Cooker Berry Compote.
Week 25: Hawaiian — We stretched the theme this week and served Mississippi Pot Roast sliders on Hawaiian Rolls.
Week 26: Gelling
Week 27: Tomatoes — Slow Cooker White Beans and Sausage.
Week 28: Just Desserts — Rice Pudding is one of our favorite Slow Cooker Desserts.
Week 29: Emulsification — One of our favorite salads is Pati Jinich’s Avocado and Hearts of Palm Chop Chop Salad.
Week 30: Coriander — Slow Cooker Greek Chicken.
Week 31: Inspired by Sports
Week 32: Andalusian
Week 33: Corn — Slow Cooker Corn Chowder.
Week 34: Fairs and Festivals — A number of chokecherry recipes in honor of the Pequot Lakes, Minnesota Chokecherry Festival.
Week 35: Romanian — Mici, or mititei, are small grilled fresh sausages made from a mix of ground beef, pork, and lamb, flavored with garlic, thyme, and other spices.
Week 36: Encrusted
Week 37: Viral
Week 38: Filipino — Slow Cooker Chicken Adobo.
Week 39: Basting — Smoked chicken thighs basted with BBQ sauce.
Week 40: Fungi — Creamed chicken over biscuits with mushrooms.
Week 41: Southern Africa — Bunny Chow, a popular South African dish, is Curry served in a Bread Bowl. A repeat from 2020.
Week 42: Under Pressure — Cubanos made with Slow Cooker Cuban Pork.
Week 43: Curry — Christmas Lima Bean Curry.
Week 44: Haitian
Week 45: Freezing — Once you know how to cook dried beans in a slow cooker, you’ll cook them all the time and freeze them for later use. This week we cooked a couple pounds of slow cooker chickpeas.
Week 46: Bones — Slow Cooker Bone Broth.
Week 47: Izakaya — Nikujaga prepared as Slow Cooker Japanese Beef Stew.
Week 48: Vintage — Slow Cooker Senate Bean Soup.
Week 49: Seafood — Slow Cooker Gumbo with shrimp added at the end.
Week 50: Giftable — Toffee.
Week 51: Polish — Slow Cooker Polish Sausages.
Week 52: Carbonation — French 75.
2023 Cooking Challenge Completed! 🍌
Week 1: Rainy Day — Chocolate Amaretti Cake. During the recent arctic blast, a burst pipe caused it to “rain” in our garage. Giada’s easy dessert was baking during the rainy day chaos.
Week 2: Cabbage — Slow Cooker Red Cabbage served with smoked pork tenderloin.
Week 3: Oaxacan — Slow Cooker Black Beans, or Frijoles Negros en Olla de Cocción Lenta, served with avocado and crema.
Week 4: Instant — Jar curry sauce, chicken thighs, cauliflower and peas for “instant” Slow Cooker Chicken Curry.
Week 5: Mustard — Poulet à la moutarde, we made it as Slow Cooker Chicken in Mustard Sauce and served over noodles. It was based on this similar slow cooker rabbit recipe. See our suggestions for using up leftover sour cream and crème fraîche.
Week 6: Icelandic — Braised Lamb Shanks served with slow cooker beans and salad. The New York Times tells how Iceland wooed America with lamb and skyr.
Week 7: Dyed — Slow Cooker Salmon topped with a lemon-caper-parsley vinaigrette. When you have the option, eat wild salmon vs farmed.
Week 8: Celebrity Chef — Jamie Oliver’s Slow Cooked Lamb Shoulder.
Week 9: Palestinian — Sabanekh bil Hummu, a bright lemony Chickpea Spinach Stew made with Slow Cooker Chickpeas.
Week 10: Substitution — Saltimbocca served with Polenta and sautéed spinach. Someone on Reddit asked about random grocery substitutions: we once asked for whole nutmeg and the shopper subbed rubbed sage. We subbed the dried sage for fresh sage on simple chicken saltimbocca.
🍔 Week 11: Cult Classic — In-n-Out’s Double Double Animal-Style. In-n-Out has a cult following, and American burgers play a part in cult films such as Grease, The Big Lebowski, Dazed and Confused, Better Off Dead, Good Will Hunting, and Pulp Fiction. The “animal-style” burgers are quick when you have leftover caramelized onions on hand. And the sauce is easy, but you could opt for bottled Thousand Island dressing.
Week 12: Three Sisters — We considered making Porotos Granados, a “three sisters” stew with beans, corn, and squash. But we went a different direction taking inspiration from Anton Chekhov’s play Three Sisters and filled pirozhki with Slow Cooker Berry Compote.
Week 13: Patagonian — Grilled Rack of Lamb with Chimichurri served with salad. And for dessert, a chocotorta made with Slow Cooker Dulce de Leche.
Week 14: Animal Kingdom — Cheddar Chive Biscuits cut with a bunny-shaped cookie cutter to celebrate springtime.
Week 15: Olives — Bon Appétit’s “Just-Keeps-Getting-Better” Lentil and Kale Salad with olives, feta, lemon, and almonds is a favorite salad.
Week 16: Dumplings — Slow Cooker Chicken and Dumplings.
Week 17: Midnight Snack — Leftover Cheese Rice.
Week 18: Asparagus — Slow Cooker Asparagus.
Week 19: Vietnamese — Bò Kho is a beef stew with tomatoes, carrots, and lemongrass. Served with rice cooker rice.
Week 20: Favorite Kitchen Tool — Thermaworks Thermapen, smoked pork shoulder.
Week 21: Hot Sauce — Mayocoba beans and rice served with a variety of hot sauces.
Week 22: Street Food — Tacos.
Week 23: Boards — Salmon grilled on cedar plank.
Week 24: Most Requested — Pesto Pasta is quick to make as we always have basil pesto, pasta, and parm on hand.
Week 25: Québécois — Soupe aux Pois or Split Pea Soup.
Week 26: Served Cold — Chicken Salad made with Slow Cooker Poached Chicken.
Week 27: Alliteration — Big Buttermilk Biscuits. We also did Pesto Pasta and Waffle Wednesday. See our big list of alliterating food nights that go beyond Meatless Monday and Taco Tuesday.
Week 28: Nigerian — Slow Cooker Jollof Rice made with parboiled rice.
Week 29: Candying — Slow Cooker Candied Sweet Potatoes.
Week 30: Invented by Immigrants — Kolaches and klobasneks in Texas are based on Czech koláče.
Week 31: Mint — Biryani.
Week 32: Okinawan — Rafute is very similar to Shoyu Pork.
Week 33: Cutthroat Kitchen — Whipple Beans with spices picked from spice drawer while blindfolded.
Week 34: Chips/Crisps — Slow Cooker Apple Crisp.
Week 35: Afghan — Kabuli Pulao.
Week 36: Reduction — Beans can reduce inflammation.
Week 37: Medicinals — Slow Cooker Bone Broth.
Week 38: Wartime — “Peace Pies.” Pirozhki are a savory hand pie popular in both Russia and Ukraine. We used cabbage and chicken.
Week 39: Creative Plating — Seven Layer Dip. We attempted to stack the dip using a ring mold for individual servings, but failed. So for photo purposes, we stacked the dip with tortilla chips and called it a day.
Week 40: Same Latitude — Margaritas and enchiladas. We are the same latitude as where Jimmy Buffett had his first frozen concoction.
Week 41: Northern Italian — Beef Ragu from Frasca’s Fruili.
Week 42: Sticky — Slow Cooker Asian Chicken
Week 43: American Southwest — King City Pink Beans are heirloom beans from King City, California.
Week 44: Halloween — White beans with tomato confit and parmesan, an easy dinner for Halloween night.
Week 45: Drying — Oven-dried Apple Chips.
Week 46: Gourds — Pumpkin Bread.
Week 47: Venezuelan — Pernil.
Week 48: Grains — Farro. Simple dish to use up leftover Thanksgiving turkey: farro, broth, cabbage, turkey, and parm.
Week 49: Clear — Spring Rolls with rice paper wrappers.
Week 50: Root Vegetables — Roasted Root Vegetable and Farro Salad.
Week 51: Hungarian — Slow Cooker Hungarian Goulash.
Week 52: Crossover, pick a theme from /r/52weeksofbaking, Week 49: Yeast Leavened — Cloverleaf Rolls.
2022 Cooking Challenge Completed! 🧇
Week 1: Weird Al — Tamale Pie is a dish that Weird Al enjoys.
Week 2: Noodles — Venison Stew served with noodles.
Week 3: Turkish — Turkish White Beans or Kuru Fasulye served with Turkish Rice Pilaf.
Week 4: On a Stick — Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic made with drumsticks. Served with roasted potatoes and broccoli rabe.
Week 5: Plant Milk — Christmas Lima Bean Curry with coconut milk. Served with rice cooker Wild Rice.
Week 6: Medieval — The British Museum’s medieval feast recipes include cabbage chowder and rose pudding, which provided inspiration for Slow Cooker Cabbage Soup and Slow Cooker Rice Pudding topped with roasted pistachios and rose petals.
Week 7: Molding — Slow Cooker Buffalo Chicken Dip with cauliflower and lots of moldy blue cheese.
Week 8: Flu Remedies — Mexican Meatball Soup or Caldo de Albóndigas.
Week 9: Thai — Slow Cooker Thai Curry with easy Rice Cooker Coconut Rice.
Week 10: No Recipe — Heirloom beans. Much of our cooking is “no recipe” cooking and beans are particularly easy. See images of Whipple beans and cassoulet beans.
Week 11: Inspired by Art — Cherry Butter with Bon Appétit’s Best Bread. Inspired by Ukrainian folk artist Maria Prymachenko’s colorful and imaginative paintings including May I Give This Ukrainian Bread to All People in This Big Wide World and Don't Feast Your Eyes on Other People's Bread and By Beloved Plows the Field.
Week 12: Vinegar — Ukrainian Borscht served with Pampushky (Ukrainian garlic bread).
🇺🇦 Week 13: Ukrainian — Holubtsi adapted from Ukrainian chef Olia Hercules.
Week 14: Geometry and Shapes — Homemade star-shaped tortilla chips served with Mexican Sofrito Beans.
Week 15: Umami — Slow Cooked Tomato Sauce with pasta.
Week 16: Layered — Slow Cooker Lasagna.
Week 17: Deconstructed — Smoked Chicken Pieces (a smoker is a slow cooker).
Week 18: Garlic — Porchetta-style Pork Tenderloin. We smoked the meat, but it can also be prepared as Slow Cooker Porchetta.
Week 19: Ghanaian — West African Peanut Stew with chicken and okra.
Week 20: Zero Waste — Cranberry beans are versatile and great for using up vegetable scraps, see cranberry bean recipes.
Week 21: Stone Fruit — Cherry Cobbler.
Week 22: Desert — Zero Waste Food Desert bowls. The remainder of the clean-out-the-fridge cranberry beans (week 20) plus leftovers from other meals all made it into one pot: leftover cranberry beans, slow cooker lima beans, ham, a couple of smoked ribs, collards, etc. During the early pandemic in 2020, we learned to make good use of food scraps. The pandemic briefly illustrated what living in a food desert might be like.
Week 23: Stinky — Asparagus Soup.
Week 24: Dinner and a Movie — The original Top Gun bar scenes were filmed at Kansas City Barbecue in San Diego. We made smoked ribs and brisket, cold lima bean salad, and potatoes.
Week 25: Irish — Slow Cooker Steel Cut Oats. Steel-cut oats are also called pinhead oats or Irish oatmeal.
Week 26: Blended — White Bean Dip made from basic Slow Cooker Beans.
Week 27: Made the Wrong Way — Slow Cooker BBQ Ribs were something we deemed “made the wrong way” versus smoked ribs, but we were pleasantly surprised with the results.
Week 28: Gullah-Geechee — Okra Soup with tomatoes, lima beans, and corn.
Week 29: Shredded — Pulled Pork Sandwiches.
Week 30: Back of the Cupboard — Slow Cooker Artichokes with a back-of-the-pantry packaged dip mix.
Week 31: Butter — Slow Cooker Butter Chicken is easy, yet flavorful.
Week 32: Chamorro — Kådun Pika is a Chamorro dish that's very similar to Philipine adobo, simply add a sautéed sliced onion to your favorite Slow Cooker Chicken Adobo recipe.
Week 33: Allergies — Slow Cooker Corn Chowder.
Week 34: Oats — Oat Groats can be cooked in various ways resulting in different textures.
Week 35: Burmese — Be' Baung is a simple Duck Stew with ginger, turmeric, and soy sauce.
Week 36: Smashed — Nachos with smashed Slow Cooker Pinto Beans.
Week 37: Honey — Slow Cooker Honey Garlic Chicken served with rice.
Week 38: Cultured — Reuben Sandwiches include Slow Cooker Corned Beef and cultured sauerkraut.
Week 39: Soaking — Soaked yellow eye beans used in Slow Cooker Baked Beans.
Week 40: Make a Dish from r/52weeksofcooking — Slow Cooker Shredded Chicken in a simple rice bowl is similar to many entries through the years, including entries from: Made Healthy, Tex-Mex, Dorm Food, No Recipe, Shredded, Made Two Ways, Rice, Mexican, Poaching and more.
Week 41: Malagasy — Romazava is the national dish of Madagascar. The meat and greens stew is served with rice.
Week 42: Low and Slow — Cuban Medianoche sandwiches. We used smoked pork shoulder, but you can also use Slow Cooker Mojo Pork.
Week 43: Punny Names — It’s Chili But Hot, so Cumin Get it! Slow Cooker Chili made with vaquero beans. We also liked “Give 'Em Pumpkin To Talk About” for Slow Cooker Pumpkin Soup.
Week 44: Greek — Slow Cooker Greek Chicken, an easy stew with cauliflower, olives, and feta.
Week 45: Poaching — Slow Cooker Fish Stew, easy stew with potatoes and Mediterranean flavors.
Week 46: Potatoes — Slow Cooker Baked Potatoes. We prefer oven-baked potatoes, but for this challenge we used the slow cooker. Potatoes with various toppings are an easy midweek dinner.
Week 47: Macanese — Tacho is a winter stew combining cabbage with pork, sausages, and other meats. Learn more about Macanese cuisine. See a picture of traditional tacho from the Four Seasons Hotel in Macau.
Week 48: Leaves — Thanksgiving Dressing with fresh sage, thyme, rosemary, and parsley.
Week 49: Modernist — Sous Vide Steak. The Wolf slow cooker includes a sous vide setting.
Week 50: Rosemary — Smoked Turkey (a smoker is a slow cooker).
Week 51: Georgian — Brunswick Stew. The initial plan was to make Kharcho, a beef soup from the country of Georgia. But a freezer full of venison prompted us to choose a traditional wild game recipe popular in the American state of Georgia.
Week 52: Broiled — Slow Cooker Chicken Wings.
2021 Cooking Challenge Completed! 🍥
Week 1: Last Meal — Red Beans and Rice was the last meal we made using the slow cooker before the new year.
Week 2: Meat Substitute — Lentil Soup made with black lentils and paired with rice is a high-protein meal.
Week 3: Indonesian — Spicy Beef Rendang and Nasi Kuning, or Turmeric Coconut Rice, served with a cool Pineapple Cucumber salad.
Week 4: Confit — Duck Confit or Chicken Confit cooks long and slow in a slow cooker.
Week 5: Whole Spices — Corona Beans cooked with whole guajillo peppers for a little spice.
Week 6: English — Slow Cooker Bread Pudding (i.e. Bread and Butter Pudding) is an easy dessert.
⚜️ Week 7: Mardi Gras — Chicken Sauce Piquante is a popular Cajun stew served over steamed rice. See more Cajun slow cooker recipes.
❄️ Week 8: Comfort Food — Lots of ideas for this theme, but when faced with epic winter weather, a pot of beans was instinctively started. During the pandemic, simple “beans and rice” reached comfort food status in our home. This week, bayo chocolate beans were cooked prior to a days-long power outage and chickpeas after power was restored. Both were very comforting on either side of harsh winter weather.
Update: In a May 2021 NYT interview, Chef Alice Waters expressed the same sentiment about the pandemic and “a big pot of beans.”
Week 9: Korean — Flavorful Galbi Jjim, or Korean braised short ribs, are easy to make and very tender.
Week 10: Foam — Chocolate Lava Cake served with whipped cream and fresh raspberries.
Week 11: Hard to Pronounce — We used the ancient legume cicerchia (chee-CHAIR-key-ah) in a Jota Triestina recipe.
Week 12: Banana — Plantains were added to Pollo Guisado, a Puerto Rican stew.
Week 13: Stuffed — Asian Cabbage Rolls with pork, ginger, and carrots.
Week 14: Forbidden Fruit — Slow Cooker Pasta Sauce for Pasta alla Strega Nona. When compiling a list of favorite children’s books about food and cooking, we were reminded of Tomie dePaolo’s Strega Nona. In the story, Big Anthony is overcome by temptation and ignores Strega Nona’s instruction: “The one thing you must never do is touch the pasta pot.” The consequences are disastrous!
Week 15: Chocolate — Mole Sauce with Mexican chocolate for Chicken Mole Enchiladas.
Week 16: Hunan/Xiang — General Tso's Chicken (takeout) with slow cooker rice.
Week 17: One Bite — Slow Cooker Kielbasa Bites with BBQ sauce.
Week 18: Lime — Cilantro Lime Rice with Hidatsa Red Beans.
Week 19: Ecuadorian — Locro de Papa is a traditional potato and cheese soup, topped with avocado, queso fresco, cilantro, and roasted pepitas.
Week 20: Julienning — Tangle of Tart Greens from The Inn at Little Washington Cookbook served with smoked BBQ chicken (the smoker is a slow cooker).
Week 21: Eggs — Slow Cooker Frittata, aka slow cooker crustless quiche or slow cooker omelet.
Week 22: Across the Border — Carne Deshebrada. Mexican shredded beef served as tacos along with Pinto Beans.
Week 23: Picnic Food — Ina Garten’s Chicken Salad Contessa served on croissants, made with a whole slow cooker chicken.
Week 24: Inspired by a Restaurant — Cochinita Pipil. Mexican slow-roasted achiote pork in banana leaves, inspired by Fonda San Miguel. Served as tacos with fresh corn tortillas, quick-pickled red onions, queso fresco, and Rancho Gordo’s Ayocote Negro beans.
Week 25: Italian — Bolognese sauce served with tagliatelle.
Week 26: Folding — Rice Pudding Soufflés made with Slow Cooker Rice Pudding.
Week 27: Floral — Pasta e Ceci Neri (pasta with black chickpeas) with Sumac. Sumac has floral notes and both sumac and chickpeas are flowering plants.
Week 28: Danish — Labskovs is a delicious meat and potato stew mixed into a mash. One of our new favorites.
Week 29: Grilling — Fresh wild-caught sockeye salmon served with Slow Cooker Baked Beans and a favorite salad.
Week 30: Camping — Our favorite camping trips have been BWCA canoe trips. It is common to take frozen items for the first night’s dinner — food thaws as you paddle and hike, then is ready to heat or grill at dinner time. We cooked heirloom Mantequilla beans and used Souper Cubes (see on Amazon) to make “bricks” for easy packing.
Week 31: Coconut — Chickpea Coconut Curry served with rice.
Week 32: Armenian — Ghapama. Baked stuffed pumpkins are a traditional Armenian dish served at holiday feasts.
Week 33: One Color — Tomato Confit is a perfect way to use up an abundance of summer cherry tomatoes.
Week 34: Peaches — Peach Butter or any stone-fruit butter is another great summer recipe.
Week 35: Kenyan — Pilau Rice.
Week 36: Yeasted — Slow Cooker Chili with beer and Rancho Gordo’s Domingo Rojo red beans.
Week 37: Shells — Slow Cooker Macaroni and Cheese using Conchiglie, or shell-shaped pasta.
Week 38: Earth, Wind, and Fire — Coq au Vin. The Intouchables, a French film, opens with Earth Wind and Fire’s song September and includes a dance scene set to EWF’s Boogie Wonderland—so we made a French dish. Highly recommend the movie!
Week 39: Made Two Ways — Salsa Verde Chicken served as (1) stew with the addition of corn, beans, and chicken broth and (2) tacos. We are fans of cook once, eat twice recipes.
Week 40: A Recipe You've Been Wanting to Try — Whole Cauliflower.
Week 41: German — Kartoffelsuppe (German Potato Soup) is a simple Winter Vegetable Soup that can be served as is or pureed.
Week 42: One Pot — Cassoulet.
Week 43: Single Use Gadgets — Mandoline used to make a Shaved Cauliflower and Celery Salad.
Week 44: Native American / Indigenous American — Slow Cooker Posole is an easy recipe with hominy and chicken or pork.
Week 45: Brining — We used a brined ingredient, Colatura di Alici, with braised lamb and Brussel sprouts.
Week 46: Seeds — Scarlet Runner beans.
Week 47: Tunisian — Lablabi is a delicious chickpea harissa soup showcasing common Tunisian spices.
Week 48: Ketchup — Homemade Ketchup is easy and delicious.
Week 49: Leftovers — Last week’s ketchup was so tasty that we actually tried it with scrambled eggs in place of our usual condiments. And just for fun we cooked the eggs in a rice cooker.
Week 50: Turmeric — Feel Better Soup with turmeric, ginger, garlic, cayenne, and citrus.
Week 51: South Indian — Masoor Dal or split red lentil soup is an easy weeknight meal.
Week 52: Toasting — Leftover Root Vegetable Soup with Toasted Pepitas as a crunchy topping.
2020 Cooking Challenge Completed! 🔪
Note: When we started this challenge back in January 2020, we did not yet know what the year would bring. Staying home during Covid was bearable partly due to this fun weekly project.
Week 1: Hindsight 2020 — Teriyaki Chicken. This dish is super easy, but we often take the lazy route and pick up a bottle of ready-made teriyaki, so this week’s theme prompted a return to scratch ingredients.
Week 2: Miso — Miso Chicken Soup is quick to make, so why use a slow cooker? Well in this case, we combined the initial ingredients in the slow cooker at 4:30pm, went to a meeting, got home around 6:30 and finished up the soup in 10 minutes. Easy!
Week 3: Russian — Beef Stroganoff. Another quick dish, that is easily adapted to the slow cooker by using chuck roast versus tenderloin.
Week 4: 24 Hours — Chicken and Dumplings. After the NYT sent out a recipe for chicken and dumplings with squash (no!) as a suggested ingredient, we cooked a favorite childhood meal from a 24-hour diner.
Week 5: Rice — Rice Pudding. Nothing could be simpler than making rice pudding in a slow cooker.
Week 6: Jamaican — Jerk Chicken with Rice and Peas. Authentic jerk chicken is grilled, but if you don’t own a grill, then using a slow cooker will work in a pinch.
Week 7: Braising — Short Ribs. Braising is what the slow cooker does best. And Rice Cooker Polenta is a great side dish.
Week 8: Used to Dislike — Baked Beans. This vegetarian side dish cooks low and slow in an oven or slow cooker. Made with Yellow Eye beans from Ranch Gordo.
Week 9: Brazilian — Feijoada is considered a national dish of Brazil. It is super easy to make and great for feeding a crowd.
Week 10: Fermented — Kimchi Chicken Stew. Fermented kimchi gives this easy slow cooker Korean-inspired stew a spicy kick.
Week 11: Kawaii — Slow Cooker Cinnamon Apples served with ice cream and a sweet cobbler biscuit topping decorated as a cute bunny face was our attempt at kawaii food. Image here, cookie cutter available on Amazon.
Week 12: Peppers — Slow Cooker Stuffed Peppers are a great way to use up leftovers. An easy favorite is to mix rice with extra meat sauce from a large batch of Sloppy Joes.
🦠 Week 13: Deep Frying — Beignets. This week was a bit of a stretch due to the theme, our meta, and the difficulty of getting groceries while quarantining and self-distancing for Covid. Our original idea didn’t pan out. But NOLA beignets and slow cooker hot chocolate worked well because it meant not worrying about the cocoa while we fried beignets.
Week 14: Alphabet — Pasta e Fagioli made with Ranch Gordo’s Marcella beans and alphabet pasta.
Week 15: Beans — Corona Beans seemed apropos this week. The beans with tomatoes, parmesan, and toasted homemade bread were delicious.
Week 16: South African — Bunny Chow, a popular South African dish, is Curry served in a Bread Bowl. The proper way to eat a “bunny” is with your hands.
Week 17: From Scratch — Lemon Garlic Chicken with homegrown loquats added to the sauce. See our big list of loquat recipe ideas.
Week 18: Ginger — Honey Garlic Chicken (with Ginger) is an easy family meal. Note, we also used loquats here.
Week 19: Sri Lankan — We briefly considered cooking with trendy jackfruit, but went with Chickpea and Spinach Curry and Pol Sambol (coconut relish) as an accompaniment.
Week 20: Puree — Loquat Apple Butter made with spring fruit from our backyard.
Week 21: Flour — Thomas Keller’s Slow Cooker Apple Butter used as a filling in Pecan Sticky Buns.
Week 22: Nepalese — Dal Bhat (lentils and rice) is considered the national dish of Nepal. We used the Nepali spices Jimbu and Timur and served the dish with quick-pickled shallots.
Week 23: Crunchy — Chex Mix is an easy-to-make crunchy snack and making it in the slow cooker is even easier than the oven.
Week 24: Black and White — Smothered Pork Chops. The initial plan for this week’s theme was a black bean soup with crema. But George Floyd’s murder took us in a different direction. We referenced the cookbook Colorful Louisiana Cuisine in Black and White. The book’s introduction says: “This cookbook was written by two Louisianians, one black and one white, one a descendent of slaves and the other a descendent of a plantation family who owned slaves. …. With this cookbook we are attempting to bring all Louisiana cultures together and show that through the years, black and white recipes have been intermingled to make for Bon Appetit Louisiana.” Both authors included a recipe for smothered pork chops.
Week 25: Australasian — Lamb Stew made with Atkin Ranch’s 100% grass-fed New Zealand lamb.
Week 26: Proofing — Beans on Toast made with Alexandra Stafford’s Peasant Bread topped with Rancho Gordo’s Alubia Blanca Beans.
Week 27: Retro Recipes — Split Pea Soup is a classic. We make a Jacques Pépin recipe in the slow cooker.
Week 28: Soul Food — 4th of July menu celebrating Soul Food: smoked ribs, collard greens, lima (butter) beans tossed into a marinated cucumber onion tomato salad, mac and cheese, cornbread, watermelon, peach cobbler with homemade vanilla ice cream, and red drink (hibiscus limeade). Adrian Miller’s book Soul Food was a wonderful resource providing rich history on select dishes. Also North Louisiana’s official meal consists of many dishes that are considered Soul Food.
Week 29: Emulsification — Gumbo is a favorite dish that is well-suited to simmering in the slow cooker for the afternoon.
Week 30: Cartoon — Ratatouille was an obvious choice for this week. We make a traditional chopped ratatouille, while the stacked dish in the animated movie is a version called Confit Byaldi.
Week 31: Cucumber — Cucumber Salsa with slow cooker shredded beef tacos.
Week 32: Finnish — Meatballs served with mashed potatoes, lingonberries, pickled cucumbers, and braised red cabbage. And a quick canapé of rye, cream cheese, dill, and smoked salmon.
Week 33: Food in Disguise — My kids are healthy eaters, so there’s no need to disguise veggies in other foods. But just for fun, pureed kale and spinach were added to pasta sauce and nobody suspected a thing.
Week 34: Figs — Moroccan chicken with figs served over couscous.
Week 35: Chilean — Porotos Granados is a Chilean stew made with beans, corn, and squash. We used mayocoba beans and smoked paprika.
Week 36: Caramelizing — French Onion Soup with slow cooker caramelized onions makes an easy dinner.
Week 37: Bacon — Slow cooker baked potatoes topped with butter, cheese, sour cream, and bacon.
Week 38: Yemeni — Authentic Chicken Mandi is cooked in an underground pit, but we used traditional Hawaij spices and liquid smoke to make this Yemeni-inspired recipe.
Week 39: Dipping — Spinach Artichoke Dip is a quick-to-make appetizer.
Week 40: Local Specialty — Smoked Brisket. A smoker is another form of slow cooking.
Week 41: Lebanese — Loubieh or green beans stewed with tomatoes. Add beef or lamb for a hearty weeknight dinner to serve with rice.
Week 42: Microwave — Mexican Molletes made with leftover slow cooker beans from the freezer, defrosted for a bit in the microwave, then reheated and mashed on the stove. As Chef Pati Jinich asks: “who doesn’t like bread, who doesn’t like beans, who doesn’t like cheese?”
Week 43: Food Mashups — Tomato Soup served as Pizza Soup.
Week 44: Apples — Sausage with Sauerkraut and Apples is a satisfying and easy one-pot dinner for fall.
Week 45: Sous Vide — Sous Vide Egg Bites are easy to make in the slow cooker for a make-ahead, high-protein breakfast.
Week 46: Seasonal — Poached Pears make an elegant dessert, served with vanilla bean ice cream. (USA - Autumn)
Week 47: Mushrooms — Chicken Marsala takes on deeper flavor when dried porcini mushrooms are added.
Week 48: Gourds — Spaghetti Squash Casserole with Gruyère and basil.
Week 49: 30 Minutes — Slow Cooker Apple Cider heats up quickly in a slow cooker with a sauté feature.
Week 50: Sage — Pork Roast and Delicata Squash cooked with Sage, Rosemary, and Garlic.
Week 51: Jewish — Sweet-and-Sour Brisket inspired by The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.
Week 52: Garnish — Potato Soup loaded with baked potato toppings.
