Journal

2024 - Week 30 Cooking Results

Sausage

Crooked Gap brats for the win.

Chicken Fried Rice

I made entirely to much. I suppose the recipe I was vaguely basing this on, called for a pound and this was 1.4 pounds. I bought chicken breasts from Crooked Gap, and used those for this, as part of a premeditated plan. I used, celery, leeks, onions, leftover kimchi from Basic Bird, a couple of eggs and the chicken brined in soy sauce and a cornstarch and flower mixture. I made things in batches, chicken, then vegetables, then the rice and the eggs. I mixed everything together and finished it off with some sauce. Good things over all. Lots of leftovers, afterwards we headed out to see Deadpool And wolverine.

Tuna Salad

Very good Tuna, celery, Mayo a dash of mustard and a bug hunk of gochujang. Served over a good cheese on bread.

Surry Ground Steak Sandwiches

Interesting to say the least. I twas like flour paste between the chunks of burgers, but fattier. I skipped over the bun toasting part cause that seemed like it’d take a bit, and just did my normal defrost in microwave, toast on top of Toaster. The rest went pretty well. I picked up a tomato that day at the food coop.

The next day, I combined some of the meat and coleslaw, and added some yellow mustard to it and that’s what it was missing.

Sweet and Spicy Pork Tenderloin

I swapped out the chili powder with chipotle chili powder. Halved the recipe and used a Crooked Gap tenderloin that I saw in the freezer and served it with baked beans. Pretty good. For me, chili powder has almost nothing but a color add, so I tend to use a specific pepper powder.

2024 - Week 29 Cooking Results

Sausage

Crooked gap bratwurst, all good.

Bierock Casserole

A lot of cabbage, a lot of ground beef and a bit of onion. The dough came together though I did have trouble getting it on top of the dish itself. I swapped out the American cheese for a Monterey Jack. I really enjoyed this and ate the leftovers over the course of the week.

Sheet Pan Chili Crunch Chicken with Corn

I used what I had in the house, which was not the momofuku product, but a less spicy one (good for Shannon) that I picked up was the cheese shop. Not quite the same since they didn’t have the sesame seeds (probably better for me). i used Kewpie mayo (with msg). And it turned out delicious. I tossed the sauce w/ the chicken, and then the rest of it with the corn (frozen) and a chopped onion. It came out well.

Turkey-Veggie Burgers with Lemon-Basil Sauce

At the grocery store, I saw ground turkey with 15% fat, which I found interesting. For this, as they are adding things to make it juicier, decided to go with the 7% fat version as the recipe intends. Things went well, the flavor was nice, especially after the Parmesan add (more than asked for). I skip the zucchini, though. The burgers themselves were enhanced by the parmesan and made juicer by the carrot. Good over all.

Simple Skillet Sausage Pasta

It was fine? The tomato sauce got into the noddles quite well, but the process was a bit much, I could’ve used two pans and been done quicker. I had ordered sausage from Crooked Gap, but with it being county fair time, they were to busy to do stuff, so I had forgotten all about this and then ran off to Fareway to get some sausage. Which was vaguely surprising to me, but fine. Not that far away, in and out right quick.

So the Fareway near me is not a full grocery store, but the meat market. The actual closest to me is quite a hike.

I also made some lemon basil syrup. As in not lemon and basil, but the Thai Lemon Basil or Lao Basil. I haven’t tried it yet, but will in a bit. I used the recipe from one of my cocktail books that I don’t use enough. This one being a digital version of Cocktail Codex. ti said to use stems and I was going to make one with leaves and one with stems, but ran out of sugar (I had just enough sugar, plus a few grams more).

This week I got sign off on my arm from my doctor. No more check ins, released on my own recognizance. I’ll remember it’ll be better to be embarrassing in getting up then fighting a tiger (I also told near the top of my reporting line this story, which was funny).

2024 - Week 28 Cooking Results

Sausage

Bit of brat, bit of kraut, some mustard, good things.

Egg and Sausage Sandwiches

Couldn’t find the sausage patties, but hey I found those bison patties from a few weeks ago…or at least some bison patties. Bison, salt, some cheese, some kewpie mayo, pickles and mustard.

Black Bean and Vegetable Bake

So this was a nice snacky dinner. Mostly healthy, and has lots of vegetables. I did top with quite a bit of cheese, which was still good, but for the most part we just ate it as a snack.

Spicy Carrot Sandwiches

It’s been a bit since I last did this, and it is still quite good. All Grade A Gardens Carrots.

Bowties with Creamy Carrot Sauce and Italian Sausage

With fresh carrots from Grade A Gardens (mostly), I followed the recipe for the most part. I used pork sausage and a pound of it, though who knows what was left after I was picking and eating the cooked sausage. I didn’t measure most things. I did get to use my new blender and discover this is really kind of made for someone that doesn’t really know what they are doing. I ended up using the smoothing setting which varied between various speeds and etc to make the carrot puree. Combined everything together and it made for a tasty dinner. I headed out shortly after making dinner.

2024 - Week 27 Cooking Results

Sausage

Back to good ole Crooked Gap delicious brats.

Sweet and Savory Corn Casserole

After making this, I realized that there is not a lot of corn meal in it. It is definitely more focused on the corn, which is perfectly fine. Not quite what I was expecting, but it worked. I added some of the Noma corn “hot” sauce, which was a nice addition of flavor.

Shrimp Piccata Pasta

I added more anchovies and made some other minor adjustments, but as it stands it was quite good. The shrimp I got this time was a lot better then what I normally get.

Chicken Salad

Started with some pulled chicken, I admit I was hoping for smoked, and went from there. Good meal good as a snack, served on a mediocre sourdough.

Orange Beef with Sugar Snap Peas

I started with two oranges, and was able to get plenty of zest, but not quite enough orange juice. I thought about running out to getting another orange, but didn’t. This came together pretty easily. and I think it had a nice orange flavor after the fact. This was the first solid beef I’ve had since the last hospital visit.

Either I, or the website to renew my drive’s license failed, so I decided I would go in, however after looking for documentation, I was only able to find not quite enough, so I filled out the online renewal form again, and this time it went through, though my new license could arrive after my existing license expires. But while doing that discovery, I noticed that our fire resistant safe had a bunch of old documents in. The first thing I noticed were the speaker manuals, for speakers I gave away and donated. On 7/4, 7/5 and a bit of 7/6, I parsed through the paper work.

Original required summary of car of my very old car? Yep. Receipt for my first MacBook? Sure why not. my 1993 W-2. Um…I guess?

Anyways, other then me missing a rabies tag and trying to shred it (didn’t go well), things went pretty smoothly, And now there is a lot of shredded stuff that will go out over the next while or so. Some of the stuff brought back memories, some made me wonder why I kept it. The rest are documents we actually need, or things that need to be scanned in, but there is less then half left of what was in there (this includes empty hanging folders). I’ll get the scanning done at some point, but it does feel a bit better to have that taken care of.

2024 - Week 26 Cooking Results

Pork burgers

Crooked Gap pork, a bit of seasoning, pan fried and delicious.

Tuna Salad

I stepped up a bit on the Tuna quality, using Ortiz instead of a normal inexpensive brand. Which added quite a bit to the flavor profile. Some celery and other normal tuna salad ingredients, a bit lighter on the mayo and good to go. Nice meal.

Sweet and Savory Corn Casserole

Delayed. Shannon had a desire for Lachelle’s so I went and brought it home.

Shrimp Piccata Pasta

Also Delayed, Last night after a nap after getting back from the Art Festival, i just couldn’t bring myself to thing about the modifications I would need to make, so I made scrambled eggs instead.

Caramelized Black Pepper Chicken

I really enjoyed this. Rich sauce a bit peppery and just simple.