Journal

2019 - Week 50 Cooking Results

Vegan Coconut Lentil Soup

This had the strong taste of spinach. I’m not sure if that was the intent or not. It didn’t have that mild baby spinach taste, but a strong spinach flavor. It did have an undercurrent of spice that added a bit of heat. Still…it’s not necessarily the most delightful flavor combination.

Easy Hawaiian Shoyu Chicken

It was easy, that is for sure. I liked the flavor of savory and sweet. We ended up serving this over rice. I used a bit of the sauce that was left to flavor the rice. It was flavorful. Near the end of the cook time I did have to add a bit of water, and that may have messed it up a bit, but even so, it was quite tasty.

Honey-Soy Glazed Salmon

Simple to do, a bit of baking and done. Pretty good taste as well.

Bison Burgers

Spices, and Bison and buns, oh my!


Snickerdoodles

I made these for Shannon’s work party. It was relatively simple to make and certainly a lot less time consuming then other cookies that I’ve been making recently. They spread out a little bit more then I expected so I probably should’ve added another sheet pan, but as it stands it was almost fine. I ate half a cookie that night to taste test, and left the other half to Shannon. The rest went to her work party (none came back).

2019 - Week 49 Cooking Results

West Indian Rice and Beans Recipe

A good way to eat beans. Quite simple, a little bit of heat. Not too much attention needs to be paid while cooking.

Vegan Coconut Lentil Soup

Delayed. After seeing this as the thing to make after my Saturday nap, decided to delay instead.

Spicy Peanut Noodle Salad With Cucumbers, Red Peppers, and Basil

This had a building spice to it, even without the this bird chilies. I ended up using udon noodles. I really quite liked it, I think it ended up being a bit to spicy for Shannon.

Kimchi Chahan

I ended up doubling the recipe, which was a good thing. It was a nice filling meal with a good flavor.

Garlic-Ginger Chicken With Cilantro and Mint

I ended up baking this after an extra long marinade (unintentional). The night I planned to do this, I was both tired and mentally tired so I brought home food instead after working quite a bit later then normal. So I made it a bit later and it, baked, came out pretty good, a nice spice mix to it. We ended up putting them on buns. Good things. I did not find amchur, so it was minus that.

2019 - Week 48 Cooking Results

Pumpkin Soup with Sage and Ham

This was ok. More liquid than stuff. I think if it had more stuff in it it would probably be better. So more stewish, the soupish I suppose.

West Indian Rice and Beans Recipe

When I arrived home, I didn’t feel like cooking, which was strange since I wasn’t cooking that much this week. So we ordered out. So, Delayed.

Menemen

Simple to put together. I couldn’t find the pepper it called for so I swapped out a jalapeño. That being said I used a grade a onion as part of it. Adds more vegetables and reduces the eggs. Though it still has more eggs then what I should probably eat. I liked the flavor combination and very quick to make.

Vegan Coconut Lentil Soup

Delayed.

Irish Stew, still debating for this or this

I ended up making Soda Bread with pepitas as well. It was a simple recipe and seemed like a good match for the stew. I made it earlier in the day. I started to make the stew about an hour or so later and most of it was just letting it simmer on its own in the oven. I had some mutton from lucky George and just went from there. Did I have the bones? No. But even so it turned out to have that nice rich taste to it. Good to eat while we have a slightly before December lightning storm.

On butter.

While I didn’t make the thanksgiving meal this year, I was asked to make a couple of types of butter. While only citrus butter was asked for, I thought for a couple of things. It was hard to search for, since so many things contain butter. Eventually I found a few things to base off of, but I also rolled with my gut.

I had a couple of thick slices of extra fatty La Quercia prosciutto. I used this to render the fat off of them in a pan. I then chopped off the prosciutto a bit then processed the butter, rendered fat, and prosciutto. I ended up adding a bit of salt, then maybe a bit more, and even then I think I could’ve added another thick slice to to add more prosciutto flavor. It was gentle, in flavor, and was overpowered by strong bread.

I made my standard honey butter.

So on the citrus butter front. I found a recipe (removed the tarragon), added a bit more citrus zest and juice and then mixed it up. This one stood out the most. It was a quite good addition. That being said, going to the Mattas’ and having a nice meal was quite nice, they clearly run a tighter thanksgiving ship then I do. I was glad that I got to try the cornnut stuffing that I heard about.

2019 - Week 48 Cooking

There is a clear dual feeling I’ve been having over the last few weeks. I feel as if I should be planning and about to finalize a big meal plan, and I also feel the relief of not having to do so. As I, however, look at how much money is available to spend on this, I completely understand why I made this choice. That being said, I’m still debating on taking some time off, though there is something about working on that Friday after Thanksgiving (when almost nobody will be there) that will be inherently productive. I’ll probably make the call later in the week. I volunteered to take on call this week, as it’s the first time I’ve felt I’ve been able to in a long while.

2019 - Week 47 Cooking Results

Pumpkin and Yellow Split Pea Soup (Green split peas, checked multiple stores, no yellow)

I added a bit more cook time, since I missed the part that I should soak them. It was…ok. Not great, not bad. I ate leftovers for the next while for lunch since it was quite a lot. There is still some left.

Pasta with Creamy Pumpkin Sauce and Toasted Hazelnuts

I liked this quite a bit. After searching the store for hazelnuts, I googled and found out they were also called filberts (and apparently cobnuts). They had filberts in the store. I suppose hazelnuts are a prettier name. I really enjoyed this dish. It was relatively quick to do (longest part was rubbing the skin off the hazelnuts). I do love a good pumpkin dish.

Easy Teriyaki-Glazed Salmon, Cucumber, and Avocado Rice Bowls

This was easy! Though the salmon didn’t glaze as I thought it might. The teriyaki was a little more liquid then I suspect the one they used was. So that was probably why. It was easy to do though. And made for a good dinner.

Chicken over salad

This turned into sandwiches, per request. I tossed the sliced sous vide chicken with a little bit of barbecue sauce (not much at all) to add some salt to them (as I didn’t while cooking) and we had them on nice buns. I had a nice big side salad.

Single Brat per person (I gotta slowly eat this pork)

I miss pork.

2019 - Week 46 Cooking Results

Chickpea Pot Pie er to much dairy fat Chicken Pot Pie, Modified

So I’ve been trying to make one really worthwhile dish a week. And this was it. I was going to shorten some steps (mainly the strengthening of the stock) but I ended up following the recipe fully. I will state that I do like that they had weights in it, as I have a scale and it does make things easier to replicate. It really turned out out delicious. I’m still uncertain about the biscuits, even if they tasted good. I’m not quite sure I got the texture right, or if there is a shortcut method to easily integrate butter into the flour mixture.

Light and Fluffy Buttermilk Pancakes

When you think yeah, that’ll be good, we haven’t had pancakes in a while, then when starting to execute you see whisking to stiff peaks, then you shrug and just continue as normal. Still good, no egg separation or whisking (beyond the mixing). Still good. I skipped adding butter to mine and added just a bit of syrup (bourbon barrel aged).

Southwest Chicken Casserole

I planned to make this Friday. Work ran over quite a bit (left work 2 hours after I intended to). So this’ll have to be delayed or rethought.

Pumpkin and Yellow Split Pea Soup

I uh…missed the part where this will take 4 hours. This is a weekend thing. I already had my Saturday selected one to go, maybe Sunday?

Taco Salad

Good quick, used bison.

Fish

Some tuna steaks, a little over done in the oven (trying a new recipe). I’ll have to try again.

Sloppy Bison

In the random levels of the ingredients that I use for this, it was pretty good. Do you loose something with out having as much pork or beef fat, sure, but the tomatoes and other spices make up for it I think. I went ahead and ordered some bison from an Iowa herd (this set was from CostCo) from the Iowa Food Coop. Surprisingly, it was a very similar price to my local grocery store. More bison will make the way into things.