Journal

2014 - Week 30 Cooking Results

BATs (Bacon, Arugula, and Tomato)

So I ordered some La Quercia meats at their annual event at, and that included some bacon (they call it Smoked Prosciutto, but used to call it bacon).  That with some tomatoes from Blue Gate and some Arugula from Cleverley Farms and some La Mie bread.  A great intro to the season.  The only sad not here is that I have no tomatoes right now.  I will be taking some bacon out of the freezer for the purpose of hopefully getting some tomatoes sometime this week even if it's late in the week.

Mini-Pizzas with Quark, Comte, 'Nduja and fried potatoes

So this was the suggestion of Brent and CJ at the cheese shop.  It was ridiculous good.  Again I may have added too much cheese, but the combination of flavors included the mildly fried, then baked sliced potatoes, combined with the La Quercia 'Nduja, quark and comte...holy crap.  Anyways, hooray for the Cheese Shop and the wonderful people inside.

Brats with Green Chile

Simple meal for a prep to go To CR.  Good stuffs.

Pork Loin Chops with Green Chile

I admit, I forgot about the chile, but it was still quite good.  I cooked the pork loin chops so they had a nice sear on them, and served them with some corn, with an arugula and feta salad.

2014 - Week 29 Cooking Results

Moroccan Chicken Burgers with feta and Carrot Slaw

Little basil feta, some carrot slaw, it made for a good meal.  Sped up the process by using the food processor to grate the carrots.  Made off good.

Sloppy Joes (Local grass fed beef, local onions)

Made it a bit less spicy than I normally do.  Just didn't feel up to it that day.  But it was a combination of the spices I used.  Asian and Latin, but without a lot of heat.

Farfalle with Sausage and Fennel

I liked this.  I added some of the fennel fronds to the dish to make it more fennely.  Perhaps not so popular with the wife.  I thought it was a good combination.  Maybe without the fronds...

Pizza (some type to be determined)

So after going after some mozzarella (fresh), failing, and getting some great suggestions for alternatives from CJ and Brent at the cheese shop (very good by the way).  I later really decided that I did have my heart set on the Green Onion Sausage Pizza, so I headed over to a secondary source of mozzarella (not as good).  But it did have a good end, however, I still will follow the advice and CJ and Brent, because it sounds amazing.  Next week though.  I may have added too much cheese to the pizza...  Good anyways.

Lamb Burgers (probably in flat bread)

I added some of the harissa and some salt and pepper to the lamb.  Then we had them with in the flatbread...good stuffs.

Reading back over these these descriptions are kind of crappy.  I dunno I don't feel up to it.  I had a good day.  I delivered some bacon to a friend at the market (ran into him later said it was the first good bacon he had in months).  This made me feel pretty good.  Next week I'll probably be delivering some cheese for another friend at the market.

2014 - Week 28 Cooking Results

Cream Sauce with Sausage and Peas

So, funny thing.  I bought a bottle of wine (which has been more and more of a rare thing for me, since I've gone down the beer rabbit hole).  I opened the wine for the making of the dish, and didn't notice that this small piece from the lip of the bottle had fallen to the floor.

Quite a bit later, I stepped on this tiny piece of glass with my right foot.  The skin on the bottom of my feet have a very tough skin, so I just thought ti was maybe something like a piece of a gnawed off cat claw or something.  So take my right foot to brush off on the top of my left foot and proceed to cut the hell out of my big toe on my left foot.

I start bleeding quite a bit, so much so I that I had to call Shannon up to help (I didn't want to track blood all over the house).  There were spills and droplets all over the kitchen.  After a bit of cleanup and some wound care (who knew that first aid kit my parents gave me would come in handy?) the blood was no longer coming out rapidly.  And after a little bandage tape to keep the bandage on, the problem was reduced.  I then had quick clean the floor in the kitchen and bathroom, as not to let the cats get the taste for human blood (Loki was curious, Freyja was no where to be found).  After all that, I could finish cooking dinner.

That being said, this may or may not have come out quite right, but it was good.  Nothing like the mixture that I made in the dark the previous week.  Good things.  Admittedly we didn't find out exactly where the glass came from until much later, so we hopefully didn't eat any glass (I ended up pouring out most of the bottle of wine).

Pasta with Chorizo and Chickpeas

This, was fantastic.  This was the favorite thing that I've made with the Crooked Gap + Story City Locker Chorizo.  It really brings out the flavors of the chorizo.  Quite quite good.

Moroccan Chicken Burgers with feta and Carrot Slaw

Delayed!

Grobe Bratwurst (Strudl Haus)

So I've been slowly working down the list of these, and I like the Grobe (so much I brought some home for a dinner).  So yeah, good things.  Though it does look like the cut off part of one so that it came out as exactly a pound.  A bit silly.

Slaughterhouse Burgers

These were pretty good.  A differing formulation of the standard Gateway burger.  I'd have it again, but I really like forming my own for the most part.

2014 - Week 27 Cooking Results

Pork Larb Lettuce Wrap

I saw how beautiful and delicious the heads of lettuce from Cleverley Farms were looking extra delicious (and early to the market).  So the first thing in my head was the Larb.  Now there were a number of recipes for larb, and I chose this one, because of the user of pork, which is our primary meat source right now.

So a side note here.  It seems almost random as to the heat level of jalapeno peppers.  Some you get that are as mild as a green pepper and other's closing other actually very hot peppers.  It is annoying to deal with.

Anyways, after 3 stores (normal, one I went to for bread and the one just a couple of blocks over), no thai chilies would avail themselves to be found, so I swapped with jalapenos.  It was a pretty good meal, the problem being with the heat level control.

Cream Sauce with Sausage and Peas

So this night was a total mess.  Leave work late, get a call late, then a random power outage (the store was over, almost finished with the work from home everything loses power.  Anyways by the fading light of day, because Verizon's service decided to go from the normal LTE I can get outside, to basically no data.  Can't load a recipe so I basically threw something together.  I'll have to make this again.

Pork Burgers

Om nom nom.

Cashew Pork with Snow Peas and Ginger

Good stuffs.  fresh snow peas.  I added a bit of broccoli that I had gotten that day.  Came together pretty quickly.

Pasta with Chorizo and Chickpeas

Delayed.

2014 - Week 26 Cooking Results

Grilled Cheese with Garlic Scapes

Ok so I still had some of the chive blossom chevre left, so I used that, but I still have the Garlic Scapes Chevre, so yeah this'll get done next week.  I'm really liking the way these are turning out.  Basically it's Country Italian with Prairie Breeze and differing flavors of Chevre.  Good stuffs.

Lemongrass Chicken

So this was easier than I thought, though, when I went to go make it on Friday, it said you need to marinate the meat for a couple of hours to 24 hours.  So I packed it up, to marinate, and a bit after getting back from the Des Moines Art Festival, I cooked them up.  Good stuffs.  Simple, nice quick.

Chipotle Rubbed Salmon Tacos

After starting the Lemongrass Chicken, this is what I moved to.  This also came together quickly.  I could've sworn I had some chipotle powder, but looking in the drawer, I did not, so I swapped out for Jalapeno powder.  This, of course, added a similar amount of heat, but not the smokiness.  I suppose I could've added a spice that had been smoked, but I didn't really think about it at the time.  These turned out pretty good and that takes us to the end of the Salmon.

Chicken Salad

I've been craving chicken salad, especially chicken salad with dill.  I added a good amount (not to much) and it made for a good meal.

Stir fry with Curry Sauce

So I thought I had soy sauce, but I only had a tiny amount left, so I winged it.  Not that this recipe didn't already call for winging it to some extent.  So I just vaguely followed the directions and riffed with what was in the fridge.  It worked out pretty well.

2014 - Week 25 Cooking Results

Lemongrass Ginger Sliders

I really liked this.  I used some of the Crooked Gap pork and then mixed in the spice mixture.  Good stuffs.  I used some of the leftover meat and had a sort of tacos on Saturday for lunch.  But the meat combine with some greens and a bit of mayo on ciabatta buns.  Good stuffs.

Lemongrass Chicken

Delayed...  We had Grilled cheese with the Prairie Breeze and Chevre.  We were both a bit tired.

Sloppy Sammys (Yay I went to the spice store)

Yay!  Om nom nom.

Roast Chicken Tacos

So I used some of the leftover tomato from the Lemongrass sliders and chopped them up, and used it to help reheat the rotisserie chicken from the day before then added a bunch of spices.  I remembered to pick up Quark this time and made some delicious tacos.

Spicy Orange Chicken Stirfry

Fresh sugar snap peas...that's all that really matters here.  It was a good, a nice recipe.

2014 - Week 24 Cooking Results

Tortilla Española

Ok I'm going to have to give up on this a bit.  On Friday, after not eating (just got distracted) and working in the yard for a good chunk of they day, Shannon picked something up on the way home, because I just was totally spent.  After eating and drinking literally a gallon of water, I felt quite a bit better, but still pretty much gone.

Green Onion Sausage and Green Onion Pizza

Double green onion...mmm...pizza.

Grilled Cheese w/ Chive Blossom Chevre

So I had some of the wonderful Country Italian Bread from South Union Bakery (my brother is now a supervisor there), some Prairie Breeze, and some of Lois's Chive Blossom Chevre.  This led to some wonderful combination of that savory cheddar style flavor from the Prairie Breeze and some of that creaminess from the chevre, plus a little of that chive blossom flavor.  It was a good combination of flavors.  I've got a little bit of the chive blossom chevre left so I'll probably sneak another round in here, maybe for a breakfast.

Lamb Burgers

om nom nom nom.

Pancakes with Breakfast Sausage

It was warm, I just couldn't see doing pancakes, so I made egg and sausage sandwiches.

Balsamic-Glazed Pork Cutlets

This turned out very well.  It worked well with the Crooked Gap pork cutlets.

Tree Trimming, before and after

So a lady from the city stopped by, and at first, my neighbor was all excited because she thought her numerous complaints about the lack of curbs on Franklin Avenue had finally had some notice taken.  But it was not that.  Apparently someone had complained about the obstructed view from 43rd to Franklin, while going left.  This was certainly a justifiable complaint.  Most springs and fall we cut back the tree sprouts that come up from around the tree in our front yard.  So, this picture here, is a nice view of what the tree looked like a year ago (I got tired of looking for a picture of my own).  It's gotten a bit bushier since then.  I saw the point and started to get to work.  I got the view cleared and on the advice and help of my neighbor across the street (Lonny) we proceeded to cut back all the other parts of trees and used his electrical saw to trim the tree and make it look, well, tree like.

Tree After

There are a lot of cut pieces left over.

The cut leavings

I have to say, that the tree does look a lot better but the 2 days of effort (so far) have really been taxing to myself.  Anyways, one more thing to do, and it'll be all gone.

Update 06/15/2014 1:17 PM

Thanks to Sean of Juan O'Sullivan's for coming by and hauling away and helping load the brush pile.

2014 - Week 23 Cooking Results

Tortilla Española

hunh, I had thought I had made this earlier in the week, but clearly did not, I guess I'll delay it again.  Good thing onions and potatoes keep a while.

Spicy 50/50 Burgers

Little bit of beef, little bit of Spicy Graziano Sausage, made for a pretty good burger.  I'd like to try this again when I have some grass fed beef and combine it with the Crooked Gap Hot Italian sausage, just to see how it works out there.

Mexican Tortilla Casserole

It was ok.

Chive blossom & chive pizza

Delayed until today / changed cause the chive blossoms are gone.

Salmon and Wasabi Arugula Greens

I think this worked out pretty well.  I'm getting better(ish) at the fish, I still feel like I need like a whole week of fish to come out like I would want, just to get that practice, but we have it so infrequently (cost, availability, etc) that it just, sometimes seems a crap shoot from time to time.  Sauteed in butter.

Pork and Sugar Snap Pea Stirfry

This was quick and quite good.  I added sriracha to it later as well which made it even better.

2014 - Week 22 Cooking Results

Egg Tortilla with Cumin Sour Cream

I think these would've been a bit better with a bit more spice.  As it stands, it just turned out ok.

Tortilla Española

Delayed.

Chorizo Tacos

I swear everytime I get the Story City Meat Locker / Crooked Gap chorizo it gets better, and more of those magical chorizo taste comes out.  I combined the chorizo with some leftover rice and put the normal toppings on.  We used some smaller tortillas, and they were...two spongey?  Normally we buy these 8 or 10" (not sure which) tortillas made in Des Moines, but a recipe this week wanted something a little bit smaller.  So these were just problematic.  They stuck together, even after warming them they were hard to get apart without tearing them.  It was generally annoying.  Even so, the tacos themselves turned out well.

Tagliatelle with Garlicky Tomato Sauce (Modified)

So what I did here was take some of the spring garlic, and use that instead.  I may not have used enough, but it was there, and overall had a nice balanced sauce, and relatively quick to make (I did have to cook the amount of tomatoes I used much longer than I thought, but it was mostly me laying on the couch, rather than watching it.

I also made Dark Chocolate Cherry Shortbread cookies for game night.  They were shortbready, and thus a bit crumbly (we had more than one cookie crumble unexpectedly).  But over all, other then being dry like shortbread is, they were pretty good.