Journal

2022 - Week 11 Cooking Results

Baked Ziti with Sausage

I added red pepper flakes, and a bit more Parmesan than called for. Easy to do, but came together well.

Baked Ziti with Sausage in a white baking dish, melted cheese in the center

Baked Ziti with sausage

Jambalaya

With the recent events that mad me think of New Orleans, and this looked pretty good, and I also bought a few packages of andouille sausage from Crooked Gap. The instructions were pretty clear, but as I was using basmati rice, I let it simmer for a bit more time then called for, since I didn’t want to have a an experience like a bit before where the rice ended up being crunchy. So with that adjustment it came out pretty good. Should it have tomatoes? or Be more spicy? all of these things are worth a debate, but this was sure a good base recipe.

Ground Beef Stroganoff

I am not quite sure I was in the mood for it, but I was, so I made it. It was pretty good.

Bangers, mash and onion gravy

I appear to be out of bangers, much to my dismay. I did end up using apple bratwurst. I am sad I messed up the onion gravy, more specifically, I messed up the onions. I either let them go for too long, or had them a bit to hot and the gravy didn’t recover the flavor. I was disappointed in myself, the rest was fine though.

Brats

Good as always.

2022 - Week 10 Cooking Results

Baked Ziti with Sausage

Delayed! Shannon wanted something else, so this was the easiest thing to delay.

Jalapeño Popper Grilled Cheese

The sandwiches were pretty good, but I’ll be honest, I ate most of this as a cracker dip. It’s really good as a cracker dip. Like really good. I used the food processor to mix everything and also reduced the jalapeños from 3 to 2, in deference to my wife’s heat preferences.

Skillet Chicken, Zucchini, and Cheesy Rice

Easy to pull together, and good tasting.

Brats

Apple and Bleu cheese, pretty good.

Cheese and Bologna Grilled

I had some bologna from Ebersole Cattle Co a bit back, and finally pulled it out of the freezer to use. I’ve been craving something like this for a bit and it certainly fit the need. I’ve had better and worse bologna, but this was on the pretty good side of it. It shared space with Prairie Breeze and “sourdough”. Pretty good. I slowly ate the rest of the bologna in the pack as snacks over the course of the week.

2022 - Week 9 Cooking Results

Chicken and Corn Chowder with Sweet Potatoes

This is one of those things where Cooks Country/Illustrated, implies a thing, but doesn’t actually say it. Would I prefer to have just corn meal and some other ingredients, rather thin jiffy corn mix? (which I threw away part of cause what am I going to use the rest of a tiny box for). Yes short cut, but seriously, give another option. Also with their clear limitation that you can only have 3 steps, it creates sub steps in a “paragraph” that is not great to read when you are doing actual steps.

That all being said, it made a really good stew and I like the method (other then my general complaint about the corn mix), more then I was expecting, but it made for really good leftovers, if I’m honest.

Tomato Rice Bake with Smoked Sausage

Relatively easy to put together, though I did end up putting the sausage in a circle in the pan, which made it took a bit longer. The only issue, overall, was the rice was unevenly cooked. While mine ranged from done to underdone, Shannon’s ranged from done to a bit crispy. I can see the flavor in it, and when I put it away I added a bit more chicken stock, hoping that it’ll soak in so when I reheat the leftovers, they’ll get done enough. I can see how this should go, and it seems like a good plan, but maybe a bit more time being covered like and hour and fifteen minutes. Or perhaps, partially cook the rice before hand.

I used a package of Spicy Smoked Sausage from Red Table Meat. My second time.. It is quite delicious.

Baked Potato with Green Onion Sausage

I noticed I had a lot of green onion sausage, which I would normally use for pizza, which I haven’t been making lately. Because of this I though it would be good for a baked potato, and i it was!. Clearly an easy dinner. Shredded Prairie Breeze, Sour Cream, green onion sausage.

Pasta

Just my normal random pasta, good as always.

2022 - Week 8 Cooking Results

Chicken Pasta e Fagiole with Smoked Paprika

Came together quickly. I subbed out the pancetta, because I couldn’t find it, for bacon, but mostly followed it for the rest of it. Except the ground chicken, the only had the super lean nobody really wants to eat ground chicken. I think it could have use a bit more smoked paprika. Still pretty good though.

Chicken and Corn Chowder with Sweet Potatoes

I was tired after a long day, and made that same eggs and sausage dish from last week. I’ll try this next week.

Dan Dan Mian

So, I went and bought some Sichuan peppercorns, just sort of experimenting with those flavor profiles. I guess this pushed it a little too much far for Shannon. Which I understand. It made water taste odd, and left my mouth a bit numb. It was certainly tasty. I would be curious on how it would be from a restaurant. Anyways Ill be looking for more use of the peppercorns, but a seriously toned down instance.

Shepherd’s Pie

I’ve made this several times, i vary a bit this way and that. I added Parmesan to the potatoes along with the egg a bit more Worcestershire sauce and other adjustments. Still good.

Taco Salad

Good as always.

2022 - Week 7 Cooking Results

Pork Sausage and Eggs

Some Red Table Meat sausages, cut in half, fried and then made some fried eggs and put them on English muffins. Good things.

Buffalo Chicken Chili

After a recently heard episode on how terrible rotisserie chicken can be, this was a follow up to that. It was easy to put together, given the relatively cheap chicken, I had some nice blue cheese that I put on it. I used Lola’s to replace whatever they called for, and it was nice and spicy, but not to much. I ate it for days afterwords.

Spiced Beef Pitas

I didn’t make the patties, I just had the ground beef and mixed it with the spices. We had it on sourdough pitas, without cutting them open. Pretty good.

Sweet and Spicy Pork Lettuce Wraps

They had a Duroc pork tenderloins at the store, so I used those, instead of the normal ones (it’s hard to get just a tenderloin from a farmer since there is just two per pig). This was easy to put together and as I moved through the recipe I saw the simple logic of it. Could I have swapped out for ground pork, I suppose, but this worked out fine. I served these on the sourdough flat bread with arugula and it made for a tasty dinner.

Fettuccine Alfredo with Chicken

I pulled out a few stops, but was a bit betrayed by my own desires. I wanted to make extra so that Shannon could have some for leftovers, but there were no other choices for non-dried pasta, or extra of that same type. I started the night by making some garlic bread, getting things made together and then when I had everything almost ready, I started the chicken breasts for the pasta, then brought water to boil and started cooking the Alfredo sauce. Certainly a lot of pans for a Monday night. Dinner went off pretty well, a bit of leftover garlic bread, but no leftover pasta. And because of that I had leftover cream for coffee.