Journal

Flash, Light Painting, Photographer's Choice

A couple of attempts, a lot of failures, then a lot of experimentation with lights.  Thanks to Alan Jacobs for some ideas and a box of goodies to play with.

2016 - Week 27 Cooking Results

This week as challenging.  Starting Sunday, I started a downward descent into a very painful throat issue.  So much so that on Wednesday, I headed to Urgent Care to have a doctor opinion on the matter.  While it appears as if both from the long and short strep tests came back negative (just got the negative culture test result this morning), even though I covered the vast majority of symptoms (pretty much all of them) of Strep.  So as swallowing has been painful, it's been kind of a horrible food week.  That being said, I'm well on the path to being well, with Thursday being the bottom of the pit.  Things are still mildly swollen, sore, but swallowing bread no longer feels like sandpaper.

That being said, I had enough pain killers (over the counter) to have an enjoyable dinner with Shannon and Eric at Reed's Hollow (at least until the end when I desperately wanted to go home and take some more ibuprofen).  That food...damn.   Bison Made Right?  Go, eat it...

Celery Chicken (lets try again)

Pretty good...could've used more celery.

Skirt Steak with Basil & Garlic Scape Pesto

I wasn't feeling 100% (to say the least) so as long as I had to eat something, it might as well be something I had to chew on for a while before taking the painful, at the time, step of swallowing.  So I skipped the pesto part.  Steak was enjoyable spikes of pain here and there.

Burmese Chicken Salad

Vaguely followed this...ok I used some of the ingredients, and then ended up with a  spicy chicken salad.  I used some pickled goat horn peppers, diced fresh jalapeno, diced scallions, diced pickles, diced onions, dijon mustard, mayo and cooled, pulled rotisserie chicken.  Good stuffs.

2016 - Week 27 Cooking

Today is part of the period of the year where Chris and I are the same(ish) age, Nathan is older then me by count.  The big round number is coming up.  While I have been fairly reflective lately, it is more around emotions and feelings and subsequent reactions and less on significant digits or round numbers.  That being said, Shannon and I counting down to 10 years of marriage.

Due to an accident with a Toddy brewer (there is no place in the kitchen that isn't crowded), I've decided to try another method, so I picked up a Hario Mizudashi.  I ran my first run with the directions that I found on the Hario website (since the ones I got were in Japanese, the ones online are at least a mix of english and Japanese).  So mistakes the first round.  I assumed that I would need course ground coffee (medium or fine would've been fine, the filter is very fine).  I also am used to a 24+ hour brew on the toddy, so what was produced after 10 or 11 hours, was not the dark inky blackness that I'm used to.  It still produced a very good cold brew.  So I started the second batch today, so I can get a longer brew on it.  It'll be a mix of mostly medium ground with some course ground (leftover), so we'll see how it turns out.  It is a pretty container, though a bit tall, so it fits on the bottom door shelf (which is probably for the best, since it makes it less likely to fall over).  Anyways, experiments continue, the only issue so far is that I'll clearly have to make cold brew more often.

Because of holidays, and other events, short cooking week.

2016 - Week 26 Cooking Results

Lamb, Apricot & Fennel Seed meatballs

Even with half the fennel seeds asked for, there was still quite a bit of fennel flavor.  Why Half? I clearly overestimated how much was in the little containers (yes I feel vaguely guilty about not going to Allspice).  So I used ground mutton (it's what I had in the freezer).  Because of the amount of carbohydrates in the dried apricots, this had more carbohydrates then I was expecting.  Even so, it was quite good.

Sausage & New Potatoes

Shannon wasn't a big fan of the sausage (green curry and something) and it wasn't my favorite either.  The other thing about this was figuring out what 5oz of potatoes actually was.  Since that would be within my carb limit, it made sense, but wasn't as much as I thought it might be.  And yes, I weighed it on a scale.  Clearly my eyes don't know wtf they are seeing.

Celery Chicken

So the PBS website suffered some downtime...of some sort (clearly vaguely graceful, considering it gave me an error message), while I was trying to make dinner, so I had to call an audible.  I used the baby white carrots I picked up yesterday, some Green's mix (both from Cleverley farms) and then some Basil Feta from Reichert's Dairy Air.  And some seared chicken thighs.  Made for a really good salad.  The white carrots were a bit more earthy then I was expecting, but made for a nice accent to the rest of the salad.

Grilled Cheese with Spicy rotisserie chicken

Ok I forgot to add the spicy to the rotisserie, but even so it was a pretty good combination.  I made a lightly dressed chicken salad (chicken + mayo + dijon mustard)...with a cheese that I should've written down (French, unpasteurized, combination of sheep and cow milk, I think, why can I remember all that and not the name?).  On some of Wild Yeast Bakery's sourdough.  Magnificent.

So so on top of the celery chicken audible, I had these sour cherries I needed to use, so, Sauce!  Cherries, a bit of port and a pinch of sugar.  Over a pork loin.  Good stuff.

Also, first picture using new(ish) camera, for food.

2016 - Week 25 Cooking Results

 

Seared chicken, sunburst tomatoes, crumbled jowl bacon, arugula and garlic scape chevre over gem lettuce.

So this started by thinking about what to do with some early popping sunburst tomatoes, then I had some leftover cooked jowl bacon from the breakfast earlier that day.  This really turned out really good.  A nice combination of flavors, textures and smells.  and everything but the chicken was local and from a small scale producer.

Chorizo, radish and cilantro tacos.

A good combination of flavors and tastes.  Fresh ingredients, local chorizo.  Good stuffs.

Smashed Pork Burgers

Due to the fact that my carbohydrate intake has been ratcheted down, I find it difficult to buy a pack of (cheap) buns, where I will end up not eating the other ones (not worth the carbs in them).  So while I know my wife prefers appropriate bread, I made an executive decision to just use some sourdough bread.  I was able to make these quickly before my class (was late leaving work too), Turned out well.

Green Curry & Coconut Pork Sausage with Broccoli over rice

Shannon did not like these sausages.  I didn't feel like cooking much, so we just had sausages and a salad.  These were not...what I was expecting.  I didn't dislike them, but they weren't up to the same practiced flavor profile that I expect from Story City Locker / Lucky George.  I did end up splitting what Shannon didn't eat and having them on a sandwich later, which was a bit better (bread, mustard, pickled goathorn peppers).

Sesame Beef and Snap Peas

Again, the desire to cook was low, so we had steak sandwiches.  turned out well.

2016 - Week 25 Cooking

A bit Matta hosting happened, due to their oldest sports competition.  A nice big breakfast of French Toast (using some test bread from Joseph and some sourdough, also from Joseph), bacon, sausage, strawberries, raspberries and of course, coffee.  It was nice to see everyone and I got congratulated for fathers day many times, because the youngest Matta went with us shopping and photographing.  

I always find shoe shopping to be a bit obnoxious.  Apparently sandals too.  After seeing online that a Teva sandals could fit my wide feet, I figured I'd give them a try.  Much to my dismay, after trying 5 or 6 styles of sandals I came to the conclusion that the desire to save a quarter and not make most of the strap velcro accessible means they straight up won't fit my feet at all.  Tried some other brands to the same problem.  Frustrating as heck...  Yes my feet are odd, to say the least, but FFS.

  • Seared chicken, sunburst tomatoes, crumbled jowl bacon, arugula and garlic scape chevre over gem lettuce.
  • Chorizo, radish and cilantro tacos.
  • Smashed Pork Burgers
  • Green Curry & Coconut Pork Sausage with Broccoli over rice
  • Sesame Beef and Snap Peas