Journal

2015 - Week 47 Cooking Results

November 22, 2015

Clearly I modified this a bit, (especially the cooking method), but I really like how this came together. A little bit more flavor, a little bit more then just mac and cheese (it includes vegetables!). Nice spice. good things

Saffron Risotto with Chicken and Peas

Adjusted here and there. This was made to accentuate the saffron, rather then just having it in something else. where the flavor might be buried. It turned out pretty well. I was pretty happy.

Baked Four Cheese Spaghetti

So something like this, when you use quality cheese, turns expensive, really quickly. Yep...very very quickly. Anyways, I added a layer of cooked sausage to the middle layer of this, but this was really quite good (excluding the cost).

Baked Potatoes

Fried up some bacon, topped with some cheese a bit of sour cream. Not super healthy but super easy. I believe I took a nap during most of the process.

2015 - Week 46 Cooking Results

November 15, 2015

Chicken Noodle Soup with Bok Choy (later in the week when it gets cold again)

This came together fairly quickly, however the problem with using ramen noodles is that, they are long, so if you are expecting to eat this with a spoon, as one does, it becomes difficult to eat long noddles. This would be be fine if you had chopsticks and a spoon, but this way not so much. Anyways, it still tasted pretty good, even if it was a bit frustrating to eat.

Pastrami Tacos with Mustard Seed Salsa (sort of)

yeah, I really just wanted a pastrami sandwich... Made that instead.

Chickpea Masala & Saffron Rice

This wasn't as good as the effort it took. I want to find another use for saffron to bring that forward more, for the sake of Shannon. I think I can doctor this up a bit after the fact to make it more delicious to eat as a leftover.

Simple Lasagna with Hearty Tomato-Meat Sauce

This was a simple lasagna. While I traded the meat mixture for all spicy Italian sausage, i kept the recipe pretty much the same. It was pretty good, though probably not the best meal to make after work on a weeknight (I even started a bit later then I intended). The Mozzarella was very fresh (as in less then an hour out of the brine by the time I used it). Anyways, good stuffs.

Green Onion Sausage Pizza

delayed until today (got the dough started late, also didn't remember to take it out yesterday morning).

2015 - Week 44 Cooking Results

November 1, 2015

Pasta, Red sauce (Splendid Table based), Meatballs (Alton Brown based)

Sunday had gotten away from me, and so at that point I decided that to go for a simpler recipe. Then, since Shannon tends to work later on Mondays, I figured I could get it done in that time frame. So I went to work. i got the sauce going first, then formed the meatballs and started those baking in the oven. Over all either recipe isn't particularly hard, though both can be time consuming. After the meatballs were done (ish) I put them in the sauce to exude some of their goodness into the sauce. Good stuffs.

Pumpkin Lasagna (farewell to the market dinner party)

Chopped up pumpkin, for this and other pumpkin goodies. I was able to spend time off and on the day to get this done, making it not such a rush to do. I also spent a bit of effort to time some parts that are clearly not timed right. I have the data to update the recipe. I didn't not however, remember to reduce some of the content in there, to make it not overflow the pan, however I did put a half sheet pan below the lasagna dish to catch any spillage, which I will make a note of. I did not put on the top layer of noodles, since I didn't think there would be enough sauce left to let them soften up, and they'd clearly push the dish a bit further up. We had this a lightly dressed salad and some of Joseph's Whole Wheat Quinoa sourdough...and a couple of bottles of wine...and some whiskey...

Good times, good food.

Thai Style Soup with Pork

Quick and very good. Though I had to have Joseph bring me another can of coconut milk because I didn't buy enough (I'd like to claim that i thought I had one, but I'm pretty sure I just didn't add the 2nd one to the list). Very simple to make.

Stir-Fried Pork with Green Beans and Cashews

I clearly messed this one up. It just became too salty. Now this could be from any number of reasons, perhaps over salting the rice, or the fact that I'm using full salt other ingredients, but whatever the problem was, it ended up being not good.

Sweet Potato and Black Bean Burritos

Friday I was feeling tired and didn't want to cook, but then I red the recipe and thought hey, that's super easy...and it was. Good too.

2015 - Week 43 Cooking Results

October 25, 2015

Turkey acquired!

Probably a pasta dish for carb loading for a swimmer for this weekend and guests, haven't decided yet

The plan was to make a red sauce, and some meat balls, but on the offer of Joining T's team at Gusto (Urbandale) for pizza delayed this.

Sloppy Sammys

Quick, refrigerator emptying, good things.

Gingery Stir-Fried Chicken and Bok Choy

I had to make adjustments because there were things that I thought I had, that I didn't. So I trade out some sherry for some (very good) vermouth or some mirin. Even doing that this ended up very good.

Chicken and Basil Sausage Pasta

Simple and quick. A good use of the sausage.

Chorizo and Beans tacos

This turned into salad. om nom nom.

2015 - Week 42 Cooking Results

October 18, 2015

We went to the Slow Food Des Moines Fall potluck / contest. My Chocolate Chunk Pumpkin Bread got third in the pie / dessert category, now this is not as impressive as it sounds as there were not that many more then 3 items available for voting in the category, but I still got a bag of prizes, which was nice. The best thing about going to something like this, as opposed to say, a work potluck, is that the food will almost always be very good. So many things to try, so much made from scratch. Good Things.

A couple of weeks back, the lid to one of my saucepans gave up the ghost and the handle would no longer be connected to the lid. This is kind of frustrating since looking for a replacement lid has led to many dead ends. I suppose I should get the actual measurements and try some more, but I am annoyed.

Baked Pasta with Merguez and Harissa Spiked Sauce

I liked how this turned out. It was tasty, a little spicy a good use of the sausage and the harissa. Though it wasn't a paste, per say, so I had to guess how much should be in there. Even so, it turned out well.

Butternut Squash Risotto

I needed to figure out what to do with this, and this sounded like something we would like. It made for a good dinner. It was a nice to use both the squash in the risotto and to move the taste up in the broth. Though this was what I complained about having to use so many dishes, it did seem a bit obnoxious.

Delicata Squash Soup

Skipped. We went to a movie instead.

Pumpkin Mac & Cheese

I had some pumpkin puree left, a couple of spicy peppers and in they went. Good things.

Grass Fed Beef Burgers

I had to use regular buns, it made me sad. Though with my vendor working 2 other jobs, again, it only makes sense. They still turned out really well.

2015 - Week 41 Cooking Results

October 11, 2015

Chickpea, Sweet Potato and Pumpkin Curry over rice

Forgot the sweet potato, so the contents were a little lacking. The flavor overall was ok, but not one of my best.

Baked Pasta with Merguez and Harissa Spiked Sauce

Delayed!

Taco Salad

Used some leftover things, some new things and a quick meal ensues.

Spicy Carrot Sandwiches

Good as always. I was so late getting home that this was the only reasonable course to take. I had planned on making my own hummus, but the food processor was needed for another purpose. So I ran to the store to pick some up. Then home to make this for dinner, then made some pumpkin bread, while I slowly ate my own dinner, when I was able.

Pancakes

Quick and good, with the sudden realization that we need to pick up more syrup from Great River Maple, they should be at the market next week.

Pumpkin Lasagna

So this is a complicated dish to execute. It is made a whole lot easier to make when you have a kitchen helper. So Nathan made the bechamel while I made the pumpkin and sausage mix. In this I usually get distracted as to what is going on, so I don't get to pay as close to timing as I should. But clearly the recipe needs an update to adjust for both the amount of content in the dish (overflowed and made the house a bit (maybe more then a bit) smokey) and the timing. The thickening of the bechamel took quite a bit longer then my own recipe states and so did the pumpkin and sausage mix. So in that, It would clearly make it more difficult to get the timing about right. Anyways, other then the smokey room, it turned out pretty well. Enjoyed by most. It did make me happy to know, when I mentioned that it was being made, more then one person attempted to invite themselves over :-D

2015 - Week 40 Cooking Results

October 4, 2015

Sausage and Peppers and potatoes

put to many in the pan, took a long time to make, but still pretty good.

Spicy Baked Mac & Cheese (using roasted peppers, and random leftover cheese)

Forgot to add the roasted peppers, but instead of the paltry 6 cheeses that some people make their mac and cheese special. 7 Cheeses. Anyways the cheese section is pretty clear.

Green Chile Burgers

There was lamb, I bought lamb, I made lamb burgers, no green chile.

Green Chile and Roasted Chicken Tacos

I pureed a whole bunch of peppers and reheated the chicken in them. Good things.

Chickpea, Sweet Potato and Pumpkin Curry over rice

Delayed!

2015 - Week 39 Cooking Results

September 27, 2015

Chicken and Corn Chowder with Sweet Potatoes

Great start to sweet potato season. This was very good, however if I were to redo it, I'd probably swap out to have chicken thighs and build a fond with them in the pan first, and then add the meat back at the end. I think this would add a bit more chicken flavor. Over all, good stuffs.

Buttermilk Pancakes with Maple Sausage

Other then not making enough pancakes (basically just enough for us, with no leftovers), I really like this recipe. We used some Kalona Supernatural Buttermilk, which has quite a dissimilar taste then the buttermilk we generally buy. The Maple Sausage was from Crooked Gap and was good as always.

Sausage and Peppers

Having today!

Kimchi and Comte Grilled Cheese

I had with Kimchi, Shannon without (with a small sampler with). I liked it.

West African Chicken Kebabs (Modified, no bullion, not fried)

Baked, pretty good. made a mayo-Sambal Olek dip for it. Turned out ok.

Chicken and Corn Chowder with Sweet Potatoes

2015 - Week 38 Cooking Results

September 20, 2015

Hamburgers (Friday we vaguely debated going to get some, but had eggs, since I didn't feel like really cooking)

So the issue with buying ground beef directly from the source, is that you can never be quite sure of the fat content of the beef. You can make guesses based on the breed of cow, and the general diet of the cow, but that only gets so far. So I've been added a bit of fat (usually rendered from bacon) to burgers to get the fat content level up a bit. It really does make the burger taste quite good, but you have to have a gentle hand when doing this. I think I got it about right. But of course I didn't actually measure it, so that wasn't super helpful.

Tomato, mozzarella, pepperoni and greens on sourdough toasts

This came to me while I was walking through the market. I actually went back to the Cheese Shop's stand to pick up some mozzarella. I used what was left of the sourdough from Joseph's Wild Yeast Bakery, some tomatoes from Cleverley Farms. Good stuffs for using up some leftovers. Made for a good quick dinner.

Chicken and Corn Chowder with Sweet Potatoes

Delayed until today.

Spiced Pork Loin with roasted potatoes

Roasted the chopped pork loin with the potatoes, with some spices that I can't remember what they are now (but felt right at the time). Turned out pretty good.