Journal

2022 - Week 6 Cooking

After a significant amount of time nestling at home, we are planning a vacation, it does coincide with a family reunion, but judging by the most recent family reunion, we’re planning our own activities, because why would we go to a place and just hang out with family and not explore the surrounding area (we arrive before and leave after)? Honestly, it is because nobody wants to take leadership, including me, so it becomes a plan of: some one gets annoyed, forces a decision, then vague plans get put in place. At least some people are moving.

2022 - Week 5 Cooking Results

Simple Fried Rice

I added more carrots, added celery, more ham. I added some Sichuan pepper on top of it. Perhaps a bit more oil. Still a bit basic, so I added some soy sauce and some sabal oelek.

Chicken Orzo

This was simple and good enough for both of us to eat it as leftovers, well me after I finished eating the Tingly Lamb.

Mongolian Beef Pasta

It was. Meh? I used some leftover pasta (as in half of a box that was left). Not that flavorful.

Tingly Lamb Ssäm with Quick-Pickled Celery (Today)

There is something that feel good about making something that takes a while and tastes quite good. I started a bit later then I should have. I did have some problems cutting the meat off the bones, but eventually got there. After searing the meat, cooking the veggies, and deglazing it with boomtown lager, the braise started and eventually the house starting smelling wonderful. While that was going on I prepared, the relish and took out some sourdough flatbread. Then while the meat warmed up, and I waited, the released smells brought joy. Time passed. Pulled out the meat, shredded it, back in at a higher temp. As the liquid evaporated, it was almost time to eat. Then it was.

Hamburgers

Ended up being pork, got a nice sear on them and served them.

2022 - Week 4 Cooking Results

Ham & Egg Sandwiches

English muffins, ham, egg and I added a wee bit of spicy mustard to it.

Taco Salad

Another good, relatively good meal.

Brats

Fresh Apple from Lucky George. Good things.

Ramen with Spam

I used ham instead, since I had some out. Chopped it up and cooked it up with some leftover onions, green peppers, and some freshly diced celery. I worked up the noodles and sauce using both of my electric kettles. It made for a pretty quick dinner.

Tingly Lamb Ssäm with Quick-Pickled Celery

Lamb still a bit solid, waiting for Sunday.

2022 - Week 3 Cooking Results

Curry Chicken Salad

Yeah I didn’t do all that stuff. I just added madras curry powder to the mayo and chicken.

Soy & Cider-Braised Chicken with Glazed Sweet Potatoes

I used skinless thighs and with that made some adjustments, accordingly. I tossed the chicken with the spicy seasoned salt, then used vegetable oil to replace the rendered chicken fat (not a great replacement, but what can you do). And cooked the onion, jalapeño and garlic. I used a Normandy Cider (rest for me), to deglaze the pan and then followed the recipe after that. Only I braised for a bit longer, because the chicken was raw, when I put it in for braising, as opposed to partially cooked.

I was surprised that my normal grocery store had white sweet potatoes, but I was not that surprised that they weren’t in the system, so I got them at a bargain, I’m guessing. Never bought white sweet potatoes before.

As a note, I overbought chicken stock a bit ago, and finally have made it through them all, with this dish (well half of the last box).

I made jasmine rice but instead of pepper added the spicy seasoning.

I really enjoyed this.

Baked Mac and cheese

This is a return to a favorite. This is a nice base that you can flex a little bit on, without having the sauce break or etc.

Bacon, Egg, & Cheese Breakfast Potatoes

I forgot to add the chili crunch at the end, but these were still quite good.

Pork Burgers

These ended up being lamb, since I found ground lamb first. Good as always.

2022 - Week 2 Cooking Results

French Bread Pizza (using up the rest of the marinara sauce)

Made a bit of garlic butter, then added the sauce, cheese and pepperoni to the top. Simple and ok.

Brats

Good as always.

Thai Red Curry Noodle Soup With Chicken

I used the rest of a jar of red curry paste, which wasn’t as concentrated as some others and some angel hair pasta (the other half of a box from a bit ago). This came together quickly, though did use a lot of pots. Pretty good, though the chicken did settle tot he bottom of the leftover container so I didn’t get a lot of chicken, until the last lunch serving of leftover. I added Sambal Oelek to mine.

Vidalia Onion Pie

I will state for the record that sometimes when you reduce the “steps” it makes it hard to read the recipe. I think sometimes the Team at Cooks Illustrated has a limit to how many “steps” they can make so instead of do this thing and this thing and also this other thing, it should be do this, start this, do this as actual steps.

That being said, this was actually pretty good. Mostly onion based, with cheese, eggs and some heat. I used the pie pan I have (which if I remember right is from Shannon’s kitchen collection).

Split Pea and Ham Soup

I’ve made this a few times. I added more celery, carrots, and ham. This was done on Saturday, which was pretty much, eat, shovel, recover from shoveling, make dinner. It’s a quite a good soup.

2022 - Week 1 Cooking Results

Shredded Lamb Noodle Soup Recipe

So, this required a pressure cooker. And so I went from going to make this on Monday, to starting to make it Monday night. So after Shannon went to bed, I started by salting the lamb shanks and then made some appropriate sized bags.

As a note, I need better scissors for cutting the plastic related to making bags.

I added the shanks to multiple bags, added some olive oil and then vacuum sealed them and put them in the water bath for 16 hours at around 150F.

After that was complete, I made the broth. I had to make a bit of a audible since they didn’t have anise pods, I had to guess as to how much ground anise I had to use. I added everything back to the pot and simmered for a couple hours or so.

I then made the topping. Iðunn is not a huge fan of my blade coffee/spice grinder that I used. This is where things started to become so very delicious. I started to combined the pulled lamb with the other ingredients and wow…just wow. That was very tasty, and a bit numbing.

Bringing everything tighter, with noodles, and the stock and the lamb it was quite a meal and worth the effort.

That being said, I used the lamb on ramen twice this week.

Sloppy Sammys

I used some ground chicken. I went to the grocery store on a Monday, as opposed to my usual Sunday, and it was quite a bit more crowded then I expected. Though I do suppose that is to be expected. There were a number of people that really didn’t notice their surroundings and so I did have to patiently wait for a number of things, including the ground chicken. Other then that it was a normal dish. Mustard, diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, onions, spices herbs.

Spam, Egg and Cheese Sandwich or just Egg and Cheese bagel

So my younger chef brother dropped by and dropped off some sourdough bagels and a loaf of bread. I stuck the bread in the freezer.

Those bagels…

I honestly thing that him finding the flavor just speaks to our genetic connection cause it’s just a small and taste of heaven. There have been a handful of bagels around here and some of them are pretty good…but this…

I bought some spam from CostCo, and what to start using some of them. The idea was, originally to use them in dishes in places where they were used, but none have crossed my path recently.

Spam gave a nice fatty cooked flavor to it and the rest of it was pretty good over all. A good quick meal.

Crunchy Cheesy Bean Bake

I added about twice the mozzarella, and half of a large yellow onion. Other then that I followed the recipe pretty closely, except the fresh thyme sprigs. This didn’t take to long to do, though more then thirty minutes, it was quite tasty and filling.

Sausage Sandwiches with Marinara and Mozzarella

A few steps to step up the flavor of a jar of marinara, I got and extra ball of mozzarella and used that instead of the deli mozzarella. and only made 4 instead of 6. I used buns from a place in Ankeny that I order from my coop from time to time. It came out pretty tasty. Not to much labor, and a nice simple process to follow.