Journal

2023 - Week 18 Cooking Results

The market started up again, and I got up and went and I was a bit, tired, but after I got a bit of cold brew in me, I was much happier to be there. There is a whole not of new people with a chance this year, some struggling to get things picked up. I got some ramps, some fresh salad greens, Bangers and some cheese. Certainly less than I would’ve normally done, but I was still generally happy by the end. I was reminded by my watch I had forgotten to take my medication, so I came home, took my medication and napped off and on for the next two hours.

Sausage

The rest of those Lucky George brats. Still good.

Grilled Blackened-Fish Sandwiches

I made this in the oven, there was a little smoke, but not too much. It generally worked out.

Teriyaki Chicken Burger

Normally I would make adaptations to make a larger burger, as that is what we are generally used to, however in this case I followed closer to the whole thing. It was challenging as we had someone in the house doing a bit of a repair, and they ran a bit behind. It was really nice with the sauce, cabbage and all that. Good things.

Shrimp and Red Pepper Quesadillas

I used a bit more shrimp, the spicy old bay (I could get a giant thing of old bay as they were all out of all other volumes, and was not interested in that much). This worked out pretty well, I finished up one jar of roasted red peppers and started the next one. I skipped the lime zest but added a bit more lime juice. Good things.

Baked Mac and Cheese

I few weeks ago I had started having that craving of mac and cheese and peas and tuna. I thought it might go away, but it did not. I also was thinking of using the sodium citrate that I bought a bit ago for the splendid table partnership with Sierra Nevada that caught my fancy. So there we were, using a bit of the sodium citrate. Would it have been better with a bit of milk or cream instead of the water, even so, it fixed that need. I used about a pound of peas and a bit of tuna. Should I have used the powdered cheese in a normal mac and cheese box? Maybe, but if I can use wonderful cheese, I’ll do that. We both ate leftovers for days.

2023 - Week 17 Cooking Results

Sausage

I found some Lucky George brats in the bottom of the chest freezer, we used those. Good things.

Pasta

Used 1.5# of rigatoni (half pound of lefter + 1 more pound) and mad a general sauce. Lots of leftovers. We both had them for lunch the next few days.

Chorizo and Sweet Potato Quesadillas

Pretty easy to put together. The store had satsumaimo, so I used that, the flavor profile is a bit different but together still pretty good.

Grilled Blackened-Fish Sandwiches

Delayed!

Sheet Pan Pork Chops with Jo’s Korean Marinade and Spicy Carrots

Prepped the sauce, prepped the carrots, tossed the carrots with sauce, tossed the port with sauce. I added some pickled jalapeños to mine, to short cut the vinegar and jalapeño at the end. I really liked this. I must make this again.

2023 - Week 16 Cooking Results

Hamburgers

Beef, Crooked Gap, salt, pepper, cooked in a pan. Good stuff.

Ham and Cheddar Grilled Cheese

Some meh bread, good cheddar and some Crooked Gap ham. Good things.

Salad with Chicken

Using some of the leftover chicken from the Carolina Pimento Chicken Salad. S’right.

Buttermilk Pancakes

Good as always / Inexpensive.

Sheet Pan Spicy Chicken & Cauliflower Noodle Bowls

I made half the noodles, since I want to keep them freshly made for serving, I tossed the chicken with the gochujang and other items mixture to create a nice, sauce for the chicken et all. I prepped the cauliflower and leeks, spread them out along the pan and put the chicken on them and tossed the rest of the vegetables with the chicken and sauce. Sprinkled the spicy salt over everything and stuck it in the oven. Very nice flavor.

Pasta alla Zozzona

Unlike last time where I found guanciale quite easy, this time, however, 4 stores, 4 strike outs. I did find pancetta, but it wasn’t the same. Anyways, it is still quite good. Happy to make it, happy to eat it, and I get the need for passata.

2023 - Week 15 Cooking Results

This morning I woke up, headed to the bathroom and saw snow gently falling down through the other bedroom’s windows. Not exactly an encouraging sign of spring.

Sausage

I found out that I had used all the brat buns, so I had to cut it in half and use regular buns.

Ham Loaf and Buttermilk Mashed Potatoes

I guess this is what passed for a Sunday dinner. I used most of what was left of the (free) ham and the ham loaf turned out pretty well. I liked the topping and the ham and ground pork combination. The mashed potatoes on the other hand, were not up to my expectations. Now this could be due to the potatoes being slightly overcooked, or the butter milk not having enough fat in it (2% I think). I think it was the not enough fat. Maybe a bit of sour cream? Anyways, it was nice to put in the effort on a Sunday.

Taco Salad

Good as always.

Hot Honey Crispy Chicken

I made this wrong, I’ll have to do this again. I missed the part where the chili crunch was used, so I used the hot honey. Since I use the extra hot crunch, maybe i’d mix in the spicy seasoned salt. When re-reading the recipe, the thing sliced is cutting the breast in half, so the when I cut them into quarter to third inch slices, that was perhaps a bit smaller then it intended. Anyways, I’ll do this again.

Carolina Pimento Cheese Chicken Salad

I had some Costco rotisserie chicken that I took from the freezer earlier in the week. This came together quickly and was relatively simple. It did have the a nice pimento cheese flavor to it. I was able to make it after taking a nap after I stopped working for the day on Friday.

Spinach and Goat Cheese Quesadillas

This turned out well, though I did get interrupted by work for a bit. The spinach reduced quite a bit and made for a semi-healthful meal.

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.