Journal

2018 - Week 17 Cooking Results

The Cheese Thing (with Italian Sausage)

While this was good, it felt incomplete.  I suppose if I had the time to let it soak it may have improved the texture over all, but maybe adding a can of tomato sauce?  I don't know it was missing something.  It was super simple to put together though.

Beef Sliders with Provolone and Balsamic Onions

I am out of local beef.  Luckily for me, DTFM starts in 6 days.  I did order some meats from the Iowa Food Coop, but my chosen provider was out of beef.  That being said, I ran out to whole foods to get some grass fed beef and went from there.  Shannon Skipped the onions, but I think they added a nice flavor overall.

Brats! (Remnant)

Good things!

Grilled Gruyere and Sweet Onion Sandwiches

I took the time to cook down the onions.  I added a bit of Salame Rosa to the mix.  I made Shannon's first, without onions, then spent the time to get the onions to the nice flavor profile they expect.  The pieces worked together very well.

Jamaican Jerk Chicken (with jalapeño instead of scotch bonnet)

I put the sauce / brining mixture together, while getting my HVAC it's regular service.  I apparently had forgotten to get green onions, so just skipped that step, for the most part I think it came together pretty well.  At the time of cooking I guess 350F or 375F, after a bit of googling, 375F translates to the grill temperature wanted.  So I headed that way.  The chicken turned out a little spicy, but not to much.  It was, maybe, a bit to salty.  I feel like I should've watered down the soy sauce a bit, but I can make a note of that for next time.

2018 - Week 16 Cooking Results

Pizza

So it has been a while and I seemed to forget how important it was to get as much liquid as possible out of the tomatoes (I did poke a squeeze them, as I do) plus I used buffalo mozzarella this time, which may have added to the liquid that eventually pooled and dampened the crust.  I went back to the standard King Arthur Bread Flour (after uses some of the other flours in my house), which behaved as I expected.  I would like to do a mix of the others or at least something, but that would probably require me to make pizza more often then is really good for me.

Kimchi Fried Grain (Quinoa)

Using leftover Quinoa, this came together pretty quickly and tasted pretty good.  Certainly a way to use leftover grains that I cook (which is the purpose).

Pork Hot Dogs

Good as always.

Mutton Burgers

On the one hand, eating the last of the mutton in my freezer is sad, on the other, it's almost Market season!  Served with Cabra Blanca.  Good Stuffs.

2018 - Week 15 Cooking Results

A couple of accomplishments this week.  After some questionable previous financial decisions, we have finally consolidated our house debt into a single loan (at least it will take effect very soon) and have plans to accelerate the pay down a bit, but also free up general monthly income.

We're continuing to aggressively (but not overly aggressively, as to continue to enjoy life) go after things we need vs not.

We have also been slowly re-organizing and cleaning the edge locations of the house.  Donate or give away things we don't actually use (camping is out, per my sleep apnea), then fill that space with things we do, or at least one of us does.  We free up space, then organize space then free up more space.  Some decisions are just things we have put off doing, but now do, cause it is what is next (some / most of this is probably on me).

As my mental state has generally stabilized in what I suspect is an acceptable normalish range, I think a lot of this is more possible and things are generally easier to do.  I do not have to work through getting myself motivated to do a thing, but generally can just get started.  I still spend an excessive amount of time analyzing my thoughts because I suspect they will be unreasonable, but more often then not, now, they are not.

Roasted Chicken Thighs Salad

While cleaning the kitchen yesterday, I simply roasted some chicken then let it cool and refrigerated it.  Then combined it with a some mayo, sour cream, mustard, celery, a bit of diced pickles and pickled jalapenos.

Thai Style Red Curry Chicken with Vegetables

I followed this for the most part, and served it over quinoa.  This added a nutty underlying taste to it, which I thought was nice.

N'duja With Eggs on Flatbread

Little spice, little fat, little eggs.  Good stuff.

Pizza

Delayed until today.  I took the dough out already to do the final rise

Taco Salad

Another easy choice.  I may need to stop eating very spicy salsa.

Turkey Torta

Buy Torta rolls from CostCo, Make tortas, easy peasy.  This worked out pretty well.

2018 - Week 14 Cooking Results

I took a short trip (less then 24 hours there) to Madison for a bit of training.  So I met up with most of my team and we had a very nice dinner at Graft.  Quite a good meal, nice time with my team mates.  Fun time.  Although it's not a lot of time for 9-10 hours of driving.

Spicy Larb with Cabbage Cup

So apparently the spiciness of larb is not on the Ok side for Shannon.  So I will have to reconsider how I make this in the future and reduce the heat.  That being stated, I went to pork burgers and put kimchi on it.  Good stuffs.

Scrambled Eggs and N'djua

Skipped

Fried Egg Tacos with Spicy Chile Jam

Quickly came togheter, Tasted pretty good. 

Pork Burgers

There was not enough pork in the freezer, so I pulled out some mutton instead.  Good stuffs.

2018 - Week 13 Cooking Results

The week was going well, was starting to concentrate on good eating behaviors again, then it took a sharp turn as work related crisis happened.  Things worked out as best as they probably could've considering all aspects.

Masoor Dal

So per a lunch conversation with some friends, I suddenly had a desire to find and make this.  Now I think I didn't realize it would be as carb heavy a meal.  I think my conclusion was that I didn't add enough spice (a number of Cook's Country / Illustrated recipes are a bit light on the spice for me), however, combined with some toasted flatbread, it was quite good.

Fried Egg Flatbreads with Nduja and greens

Skipped

Sloppy Joe's with Gorgonzola

I was talking about this at the cheese shop with another customer and it reminded me that I haven't had it in a while.  I took the extra effort to toast the cocktail buns.  This was as good as I remember.  However, I did use the last of my Lucky George White Park (I think) beef.

Spicy Larb with Cabbage Cup

Skipped

Cauliflower Rice with Jalapeño, Green Onion and Chicken

This kind of turned into somewhere between mash and rice.  Maybe I made the pieces to small or cooked it a bit long.  Even so, it tasted pretty good.