Journal

2021 - Week 40 Cooking Results

Mac and Cheese with Bacon and Wenk's Yellow Hots

So I bought a few Wenk’s peppers and used those instead of your standard jalapeño, This came together ok. I did like putting the salsa on top, that was pretty nice. Plain it was just ok.

Breakfast Torta With Bacon, Eggs and Guacamole

I forgot to buy the guacamole. I remember being in the section of the grocery store, but didn’t actually add it to the cart. Other then that, it turned out pretty good.

Bacon, Egg, & Cheese Breakfast Potatoes

Good to do, takes a bit of time, but a variety of flavors and textures. Spicy seasoning, then the Chili crunch. I used some leftover fresh cheese and called it good.

Grilled Pork Tenderloin with Peach Salsa

I sort of vaguely followed this, as I didn’t feel like going outside to pick mint, for whatever reason, so I chopped up the Iowa White peaches, some more of the Wenk’s peppers, and uses mostly momofuku seasoning salt and brown sugar. I baked them, instead of grilling them. It was quite good…maybe a bit salty. I also made peas.

Chicken Burgers

I put some seasoning in there, heated it up relatively slowly in the pan . It was pretty good.

2021 - Week 39 Cooking Results

Brats

Good as always.

Lamb Burger

Lamb…mmmm.

Pasta With Tomatoes and Tuna

Strangely enough, the kids (cats) didn’t bother me about the tuna. I think Mani was upstairs and Loki was napping on Shannon, but usually i crack open one of the cans they’re there within a few moments. I used Ortiz tuna. This came together pretty quickly, the longest thing was boiling the water to cook the pasta. It was enjoyable, a simple meal, if I kept good tuna in the house. Loki did notice the tuna smell later and was very interested in dinner.

Golden Macaroni and Cheese with Butternut Squash Puree

I was thinking it was going to be cooler this week, but with temps heading back up then down, I figured this would be a good way to use the butternut squash I bought. It was pretty good. between using short cuts (grating the cheese in the food processor), it came together in a sort of lazy way. I did start around mid day, with the squash roasting.

Kimchi and Ham Steak Fried Rice

I made to much rice for the curried fried rice last week, so this was a way to use up the rice. I debated bet ween a spam or ham steak version of this, and ended up with the ham. It was pretty good. I added more rice to the leftovers so I could use more of the way to much rice I made.

2021 - Week 38 Cooking Results

Thai style curried chicken fried rice

Fun story. The chicken had defrosted and apparently the package around it was a bit of a whole in the package, so I spilled the chicken water on me, one morning as I was moving things around. That was, unpleasant, I misread the amount of chicken needed, so I used the amount to make a chicken heavy version. It turned out pretty good.

Pasta With Tomatoes and Tuna

I was busy on Tuesday (work), I was busy on Wednesday (work), Thursday we went out to eat to celebrate, Friday we were full from eating smoked meats for a late lunch, and Saturday we went to the Cheese Bar…So, Delayed!

Thai Coconut Chicken Soup

Soup got vetoed, not quite cold enough, yet. So this means I’ll have to put this away for another couple of weeks.

Pork Burgers

New pork breed, still trying it out. It was quite fatty, as it lost quite a bit of volume as it cooked. Not that it’s a bad thing, but probably fattier then I would have picked.

2021 - Week 37 Cooking Results

This week has been probably the busiest we’ve had in a while. Wednesday was disrupted by a task that was supposed to take 1.5 hours, taken just over 7 hours. Friday we had a nice movie night, just outside the Varsity, to watch Moonrise Kingdom. Saturday we went our separate ways, Shannon had a hair appointment and I went with Josh to meet with the Mattas to pick up some beer (special release + some others) in Iowa City (thankfully missing the worst of the football related traffic). Saturday night we were back outside the Varsity, for one of the premiere screenings of Storm Lake. We both enjoyed the covering of the reporting, the local interests, and the struggle to keep the paper above water. The after talk where Art Cullen mentioned the real idea put forth in the movie was the civic engagement. Which is something that is not present in a lot of places anymore. One thing that can be done is to donate to the Western Iowa Journalism Foundation.

Spicy Carrot Sandwiches

Been a while. Fresh carrots from Grade A gardens. This may have added a bit of extra sweetness.

Thai style curried chicken fried rice

Delayed.

Thai style turkey sliders

I didn’t see ground turkey, but I saw chicken, so I went with that. I made things as directed, other then with chicken, and they were pretty good. I liked the quick pickled onions and cucumbers. Pretty good.

Brats

New pork breed, not sure I have an opinion yet.

2021 - Week 36 Cooking Results

Butter cooked fennel, roasted with Parmesan, served with eggs (suggested by Jill at Blue Gate)

I’ll need to make this for myself for lunch. Fennel as a background ingredient is ok by Shannon, but right up front, not so much.

Roasted Roma tomato sauce, ciabatta, mozzarella, Italian Sausage (?)

The roasted tomatoes from last week, with some fresh mozzarella from Lost Lake and some Italian sausage, these became ciabatta pizzas, I guess. Even so it just made a good relatively quick evening meal. The tomato sauce was very bright, and the combination was quite delicious.

Taco Salad

I kept looking in the fridge thinking i had missed something in the prep of this. I used some cherry tomatoes, some small peppers, a hatch pepper, but I kept looking, knowing I had missed something. Eventually I called Shannon up. When we settled in to eat. Beans…I forgot to add beans to the tomato, onion, chorizo mixture. On the one hand, a bit upset with myself, on the other I was glad my brain wasn’t wrong, even if it couldn’t remember.

Tagliatelle with Corn, Tomatoes, "Onion-Bacon"

So when I mentioned onion bacon to Shannon, she stated, “Couldn’t you add real bacon”, and so I did. I couldn’t find tagliatelle, anyways. With fresh blue gate tomatoes and some other vegetables it made for a pretty good meal, only with 3 slices of bacon. Pretty good over all.

Today while, I was pressed to trim my cookbook collection as we, on the reorganized the living room, moved the bookshelves in the dining room to the living room. I trimmed a few books, which were basically sub-sets of bigger books I had, or books that were out of date, or frankly things I wouldn’t end up using (low sodium, blah). That being said I divided them into a few general categories. Dessert, General (ish) (basically larger collections or multiple types of courses in one book), Single topic (fermentation, appetizers, sausage, etc), and alcohol. With that I tried to put them all together on the shelves, and was able to do so, even providing a bit of room left for the book shelf games and all that. I perhaps have a bit of room left for a couple more books, but not to many