Journal

2021 - Week 15 Cooking Results

Yellow Fin tuna

Brushed with a bit of soy sauce, baked, served.

Street Toast

Shannon had a bit of a day, so wanted something a bit more comforting, so I headed down to Lachelle’s to pick up dinner. Delayed!

Bacon, Egg, & Cheese Breakfast Potatoes

Once again a good breakfast for dinner. I had a lot of leftover potatoes after the fact, which made for some good meals. Covered with some chili crisp. Good things.

Grilled Korean Bulgogi Burgers With Kimchi Mayo (Saturday)

I made the Bulgogi as directed, and the Kimchi mayo, too. However, to allow Shannon options, I let her add as much of the bulgogi as she wanted. It added a nice layer of savory salty sweetness to the dish. With the kimchi mayo, and the bulgogi it was quite nice. I suspect the daikon might add a bit to it, but really, I didn’t feel up to the effort.

Taco Salad (no meat)

Pretty much the same, except double beans, no chorizo. Good. I added a bit more spices to max up for the lack of chorizo, and it worked out pretty well.

2021 - Week 14 Cooking Results

Buffalo Chicken Macaroni and Cheese

I don’t think this was quite right. Unlike the other variations of the stove top mac and cheese, this one used 8oz of macaroni instead of twelve…and it really seems like it needed 12 oz of pasta. I tried my best to get it to work, but ended up with over cooked pasta. I still tasted ok, but the texture was off.

Yellowfin tuna

Delayed! didn’t take it out of the freezer until Wednesday, we’ll have it tonight.

Deviled Ham Salad Sandwich

Simple, food processed, and done. I used leftover buns from easter dinner to serve them. It was pretty good.

Pasta alla Norcina

This was quite good. I suppose it would have never been different had I made the sausage, instead of the standard Italian sausage that I used. Even so, it was a nice creamy sauce, with a rich flavor and quite a good dinner. Paired, by suggestion, with Uni White from Stolpman Vineyards. Good meal for a Saturday night.

2021 - Week 13 Cooking Results

I went on way more trips then I normally would during a week. I went out and met up with a couple of other fully vaccinated people for lunch. I went at the Mooby’s Pop to bring food and swag home for the both of us., a Lua beer pickup and Easter Dinner pickup from the Cheese Bar.

Chicken Salad

A bunch of stuff, selected because I know they work together. A little yellow mustard heavy this time, but still good.

Ham and Egg on an English muffin

Quick, easy, simple, good.

Bacon-Jalapeño Stovetop Mac and Cheese

As a stove top mac & cheese recipe, I think this combination is probably one that would leave the most room for a variant. I’m not sure how much the bacon fat would play into the creaminess of the sauce, though. Making a pound of pasta, unlike the others I’ve been doing lately where it uses 12oz at a time, is far more convenient then having a box around with 4 ounces left (waiting for the cupboard cleaner pasta or enough of the same type of pasta that you build up enough leftover to have enough). I was pretty happy with this dish. I was frightened that it would be a bit too spicy for Shannon, but it wasn’t. I didn’t use American cheese, but ended up with some Holy Cow.

Pasta Prosciutto e Piselli

Sort of a fancy ham and cheese and peas pasta. I suppose I’ve made this as a mac and cheese before without much thought. This was quite good though and worth the extra effort. I made no effort to find prosciutto cotto, though I did use a ham I had in the freezer. I pulled the ham out because it’s around a holiday where most people would eat ham. It created a nice sauce, had a good flavor and texture, and was good to eat.

Pasta Prosciutto e Piselli

Quick and Easy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Shannon’s work and a potluck (after having a number cancelled potlucks) and these looked like something I could make with stuff mostly on hand. I did end up having to buying a bit more chocolate so it was about 11.5 oz of 70% chocolate, and then one bar of Intense Orange Dark Chocolate. I probably added a bit more nutmeg then asked for, since I grated fresh nutmeg directly into the batter. it ended up having a nice warming complex smell. They went over pretty well at Shannon’s work and I handed out a few to people I see form time to time.

Quick and Easy Chocolate Chip Cookies

2021 - Week 12 Cooking Results

Ahi Ahi Tuna

A little salt, pepper and a hot pan with oil. Good and easy dinner. Getting better at getting mixed sizes done in about the same time.

Pasta Cacio e Uova

There was too much parsley. Even with me pre-cutting down the parsley, there was too much parsley. I think I cut it down by a half. That being said, it was a nice flavorful dish, and if you ignore the overwhelming parsley, the sauce was nice and smooth and coated the pasta quite well.

Shepherd’s Pie (Intended for last week, but timing didn’t work out)

I couldn’t find a second frozen pound of lamb or mitten in the freezer / got tired of looking so I ended up using a mixture of lamb and goat. It was pretty good. I’ve made it a number of times before, and will continue to do so.

Shepherd’s Pie

Shepherd’s Pie

Hong Kong Style Spam & Egg Macaroni Soup

Whomever wrote this recipe, does not have to do dishes. I ended up using two eggs, one for each person. I fried the spam in the same pot that that I was going to make the soup part. I ended up probably using more corn than called for since who has cans of corn? Came together pretty well, fairly simple but warming on a cooling day.

Chicken Salad

Delayed. We ended up going to Lachele’s Fine Foods, since I’ve heard many people sing its praises, and they were not wrong. Quite good. Definitely going back.

2021 - Week 11 Cooking Results

The week got a bit weird, as far as cooking goes. Due to timing and forgetfulness, two out of four items did not get made. I did, however, take a nice scenic drive to Decorah, Cedar Rapids and back home again. It was nice to just have different input then my normal patterns of the last year or so. There were several things along the way, where, had I not been on an appointment time (2:PM pick up in Decorah), I would of stopped to take pictures of: small cemeteries, barn squares, buildings and various kitsch. I previously thought that I hadn’t left my residing county in just over a year, but I was mistaken, we had taken a day trip that is in the county over. I saw the devastation that the 2020 derecho left to the neighborhood that my parents’ and brother’s neighborhood. Once a well tree covered neighborhood, it just looked barren. The way home, while familiar, was still a nice change of pace, since, again, I haven’t driven any significant distance in over a year.

Ahi Ahi Tuna

Delayed. Shannon was going to have fish the next day, so she didn’t want to have it on Thursday.

Pasta Cacio e Uova

Even though I had Pecorino Romano on my grocery list, I thought I did have any cheese on my list, so I didn’t buy it.

New World Kitchen Burger and Alt Bacon

I didn’t do much, though I removed the vegan-iaty by putting them on butter buns, then because butter, added cheese. It was ok.

Eggs, maple sausage

Leftover maple sausage from a Cheese Bar take home dinner. Good things