Journal

2023 - Week 52 Cooking Results

Sausage

Brats! FTW!

Eggs

Skipped.

Skillet Kielbasa Macaroni and Cheese

I used some 2 year Shelburne cheddar, and some store bought Monterey Jack. I pulled out some Kielbasa from Crooked Gap out of the freezer and moved forward with that. I may have added more bread crumbs, and they weren’t fresh (as I had baked them off before, or not (depends on the batch) and stuffed them in the freezer). It worked out pretty well. I suppose by adding an extra 5 minutes you could’ve toasted the bread crumbs. Anyway, quite nice.

Maple-Glazed Pork Roast with Smoked Paprika

In thinking about maple syrup, I was like meh…so I added paprika to a mixture of dijon, honey and yellow mustard, and run this about the same way. I think that the pork loin they use is thinner than the one I had from the CostCo purchase, so it took quite a bit longer to cook. But I took the whole thing and broke it down into meal type sizes to use over the next while here and put most of it back in the freezer. I served it with mashed potatoes and it was a pretty nice last meal, made by me, for the year.

The boost to the anti-depressant seems to have helped, I’m also going to get a light lamp, as a sort of mini-booster. I’m debating on where to put it. On next to where I do my exercise or where I work. Who knows. I felt good, generally, socializing with family and friends. Other then being uncomfortably warm in one situation, Yule was relatively nice. I got to see my newest niece again, which is nice.

2023 - Week 51 Cooking Results

Sausage

All pork hot dogs. All Good.

Egg n Sausage English muffins

Little pork morning sausage patties that combine with eggs so well. Good Meal.

Burger

Pork, used a bit of the pork seasoning that I bought for the pork loin for Thanksgiving. Combined with some chips with sea salt, locally made butter buns out of the freezer and a good dinner.

Snickerdoodles

These were a bit bigger then they should be and spread out a bit more, each cookie needed to loose about a third of the total volume that I gave them. I was also unsure as to how much sugar and cinnamon should’ve gone on there so some got some deep coatings and others a lighter touch. The method itself was nice, and made sense for what they were doing. Made for Shannon’s work party. They were ok, but a bit thin and wide.

Chicken and Corn Chowder with Sweet Potatoes

Other than the yellow corn muffin mix, which I really wish would be replaced with something else, this is quite a nice soup and easy to make. I ate the last of the leftovers for Saturday lunch.

Cheesy Bean and Tomato Bake

It’s fine. Clearly a recipe written for a youngster. I adjusted the herbs and spices up, quite a bit.

Spicy Chili Coconut Shrimp Noodles

Not my first time making this, won’t be my last. I was forced to swap out the spicy chili noodles with soy and scallion, since that’s what I have (I suppose I could have done sweet and spicy), but it still worked well. Made for a good dinner.

Earlier in the week, I had a discussion w/my mental health provider and we discussed SAD or MDD with a Seasonal Pattern on the most recent Depresh Mode. And we talked about how I noticed a pattern between thanksgiving and usually the first snow, where I do have an extra dose of sadness during that time. I’m often brought to the picture of me about to brulee and how much I remember feeling dead inside during that period of time. I had my dosage upped a bit and may go back down after winter is over. This is the first change in quite a while (almost exactly 5 years). Things I learned. First, many people up their dose in the winter, second I don’t have to live with it.

2023 - Week 50 Cooking Results

Sausage

All pork hot dogs, cause that’s what I grabbed. All Good.

Taco Salad

Yep, good.

Hearty Beef Stew

I just felt like making a good beef stew. I started off fairly early in the afternoon to allow for the long simmering times and not having to eat to late. I even asked Shannon if it was ok if I make it, as she is not generally a fan of big hunks of meat. It’s the kind of slow cooking that feels good right now. I get to take a bit of time here and there and menu plan while things are cooking.

While I had doubts about the liquid level, it did work out and have enough to add the potatoes and carrots after the first simmer period in the oven. I added a bit more stock cause I had a bit more beef (hunks were under or over what I wanted). After adding some peas and corn, I brought the flavor profile up by added quite a bit of pepper and a bit of salt. Good meal, good use of a Saturday.

Thai Coconut Chicken Soup

So I was looking at what to make for the coming week and this one came to mind again, cause of the sweet potatoes. Here I am thinking I’ve had this recently, but little did I know. Quite good, good as leftovers too.

Baked Macaroni and Cheese

While normally I would use elbow, I had an open bag of Ditalini, so I used that instead. I added a bit more mustard and smoked paprika, and it came out very well like it always does.

Buttermilk Pancakes

Always good. After taking a fairly long nap, as I have been doing this, recently, I got up and got going on this. Quite good.

I have been taking a lot of naps in the afternoon, even after getting, what counts for me, as a good night of sleep, I thought that perhaps I was anemic again. After a quick blood test (thanks doc!), this was proved to be not the case. I may have misread some of the early results. I’ve reached out to my mental health nurse practitioner, and am hoping for a bit of a bump here shortly.

2023 - Week 14 Cooking Results

Sausage

Again with the bacon and cheddar, good things.

Sloppy Sammys

It’s been a bit or at least seems that way, since this was at some point on the semi-regular basis. I used mustard powder, tomato sauce, some leftover tomato paste, and some herbs and spices. I topped mine with some jalapeño peppers and cheese. So the cheese I bought on a whim, was a whiskey touched Irish cheddar (not at the place where I buy cheese normally). I don’t remember the exact phrase and it was, muddled. No real whiskey flavor, no real cheddar flavor, just a mess. I was disappointed.

Ham Loaf

Delayed until Sunday.

Kimchi Fried Rice

I planned to make this on Friday, but when the Cheese Bar posted about “Tuna & Anchovy Deviled Eggs” I was like I want those. So this got delayed until Saturday.

I made the rice earlier in the week and was using the rest of some spicy momofuku season, which was just to much (my bad). It made it to spicy for my wife, which was not my intention. I used spam instead of ham, and I prepped the items while the Bryan from Riftworks was working on the stairs. I got everything prepped and so when it was actually time to make dinner it went pretty quickly.

Overall, I liked it, it was a bit more spicy then even I expected. I guess I’ll be having fried rice this week for lunches, cause I got a lot more rice to go through.

Gochujang Chicken and Tortellini

Unlike the Sloppy Sammys, I felt like I had to check to make this again. It is so good, and so easy. I knew Shannon would take the leftovers so I let her take them. Again, so good.

Grilled Ham and Cheese

I used the leftover deli turkey, and some 3 year Shelburne cheddar, which was actually good. I got some ok bread and it worked out.

The stairs.

So a bit ago, coming down the stairs, I had step through the third stair from the bottom. A thing that did make me feel better, was that someone pointed out that it had three nails on one side, and one on the other. After many calls, searching for advice, failure through a popular find help for your home site, A no call no show after scheduling, I got a few people to come in. For Bryan, at Riftworks, it was a quick turn around from the form to scheduling. After an injury delay, he got to work, and completed the stair repair and reinforcement of all the stairs. It barely creaks now, I’m very happy with his work.

I did embarrass myself, as I (cough) messed up the check (number of amount didn’t match written out amount). So He’ll be picking up a real check today.

Between the time that it was broken and by the time it got fixed, I saw my therapist and coincidentally my nurse practitioner and one of the things that I am generally proud of is this is they type of thing that would’ve have sent me into a spiraling depression, meaning I’m in a decent place.

I took Friday off, over a couple of large projects go live dates this week where things were a bit busy and exhausting.

2022 - Week 47 Cooking

I got my plan ready, started ticking off boxes. Looking forward to the efforts this week and having family over. The anxiety (?) or edge depression, or mix of both I’ve been feeling has cooled off quite a bit as I have my plan in place and have a whole week of using a different part of my brain ahead of me. I’ve turned off my work calendars and am ready to just have to work on the physical and planning and a bit of math.

Every time I do something like this, my respect grows for those who work in the restaurant industry on making meals that are quite fantastic many nights a week and they don’t have months to plan for every week.

Easy cooking week ahead cause…lots of other work to do.

  • French Toast (Using leftover Challah)

  • Ham Steak and Scrambled Eggs

  • Brats

Mental Health, an update

I occasionally talk about my depression, but, it’s time to be public about it, and my struggles.

I’ve been therapy for years, initially a couple of times a week, then weekly, monthly, now every other month.

I have been on an anti-depressant of varying strengths for longer (initially prescribed by my PCP, then upped with a Mental Health Nurse Practitioner or two, whom I see every so often).

My depression (Recurrent MDD) generally expresses itself as anger, mostly at myself, but it also boils enough to splatter on to others. To combine that with anxiety, also can be helpful in my chosen career, but can be overwhelming at times.

I know that I set routines to try to keep my brain in general check. 6 days a week I make sure I get some sort of exercise, I read books about the issues, I listen to Depresh Mode with John Moe, and Before that The Hilarious World of Depression. I try to make sure I go to bed at a regular time, wake up at a regular time, not intake to much caffeine.

Sometimes, I do need just extra time. In the past month I have taken a couple of days where I specifically have planed to do nothing. No video games, no TV, just resting, maybe some music. These sort of help bring me back down to a normal where I can try to look and understand what’s going on. But then again I don’t always get it.

Recently I stated openly to my co-workers, some of whom I had talked individually about it, and they were open, accepting and understanding, which I am grateful for.

I will perhaps write more, as I have time to write about how things can feel, battles, speculation, and probable genetic components.

I will first like to thank someone who helped me, when she had her own struggles, and just opened my mind to the fact that perhaps, this was the case for me as well, more then 20 years ago, when I was trying to manage my mental health between a ever changing balance of caffeine, nicotine, alcohol and cannabinoids, not that I told her that. I think somewhere between the first and second years of college? So thanks K.

Written Saturday - Monday.