Journal

2017 - Week 8 Cooking Results

Ultimate Zoodles

So from Christmas, I got two spiralizers (similar to, but not exactly), and right before that I bought my own.  I haven't tried the one I bought myself, but, while I do appreciate the gifts, from the practical use side, these come with draw backs.  First, if you want to make this a good part of the meal, like noodles, or etc, you will end up with a lot of effort (and wrist pain for me) just to get through a single carrot.

So I can see them used for decoration, but not as making a main part of a meal...unless maybe you set your kids on the task, thought that'd be pretty tough call because the blades in use are pretty sharp.

That being said, I only vaguely followed the recipe,  and mixed the spices in with pork (not in recipe) and had the carrots mixed in.  I may not have used enough salt.

Chicken Stew with Cannellini Beans and Dried Cherries

This came together pretty quick and was pretty good.  I may have just eaten the chicken skin instead of frying it off and that may have detracted from it overall, but even so, it was pretty good (I did take the cooled rendered fat and added that into the stock).

Bacon and Butter Sandwiches

Simple, good, and an excuse to buy a good bottle of sherry.

French Style Pork Stew

So I made some changes, because, while I like cabbage, it seems like it wouldn't be the best addition to this, also, Shannon's not a huge fan of greens in soup, which is fair.  So per the recipe I made the following adaptations:

  1. Before step 1, soak dry cannellini beans overnight in salted water
  2. In step 3, before adding the vegetables, drain the soaking beans and add them to the soup
  3. After the beans have simmered for a couple of hours and start to get tender, add the parmesan rinds
  4. Skip the cabbage (or not, but I did), and pull out the parmesan rinds

Kitchen Re-Org

So I went through my herbs and spices, and toss a bunch that clearly are old, and for things that come in the future, I will label for the purpose making it know when they came into the house, so it is easier to make them go.  That being said, I re-ordered a number of items to have them make more sense, and am re-thinking how I want to do this for the future.  Clearly there is somewhat of a puzzle piece due to all the sizes of containers.  This is the first step of many, including the organization of cupboards, and etc.  Hopefully this goes well and I don't spend to much money on the equipment to reorganize.

2017 - Week 5 Cooking Results

Egg Sandwich with Mustard Greens and Avocado

Lets be honest.  I really didn't follow the recipe here at all.

Lemony Chicken Stir fry

Simple.  I added a bit of spice to it, but a nice lemon flavor using both the lemon juice and lemon zest.  Good stuffs.

Asian spiced ground beef & Napa cabbage tacos

This didn't turn out the way I was thinking.  I should've shot more for spicy less for mixed blend, but it was okish.

Spiced Chicken over Napa cabbage salad

Simple and good.

Hamburger, in cast iron skillet

So the first use of my field skillet.  Not a big cast iron user (I don't like doing dishes so usually if I can't put it in the dishwasher I don't want it).  It seems like it could be a good addition to the item, looking forward to bacon and sticking that thing in the oven.

2017 - Week 4 Cooking Results

Umami Meatloaf Burger

I'm glad I didn't skip this.  It was pretty good.  If I remember right, it did seem to have lower cook times then were really needed.

Farmhouse Chicken Chowder

Not a lot of effort, but made a nice weeknight meal.

Stovetop Mac N cheese with Bacon & Pickled Jalapeños (The Food Lab, p. 723)

So the base recipe is here, but OMGWTFBBQ this is some good mac & cheese.  Clearly not good for you (it uses some of the rendered bacon fat to replace some of the butter).  The heat of the diced pickled jalapeños works it way through the dish.  Good showing for the first out of the Food Lab book (Thanks Mattas!).  I used a combination of Prairie Breeze and a young raw milk cheese from Wisconsin who's name I forget.

In an effort to control my blood sugar I've been using Dreamfields pasta.  Though I make pasta dishes a lot less often and this doesn't quite behave like pasta should, it does make a suitable replacement from time to time.  I also will do vegetables spiralized to dramatically reduce the carbohydrate intake.

Sloppy Joes

Used some of the leftover meatloaf burger and added more beef, onions, tomatoes, sauce, and spices.  Good stuffs.

Taco Salad

Used chicken thighs, some spices and the normal items to make a nice taco salad.  However I did forget to buy sour cream, which made me sad, I do really like any excuse I can have to eat the Kalona Supernatural sour cream...

2016 - Week 49 Cooking Results

Kapusniak (leftover bacon, potatoes)

Lots of meat, good stuffs.  Relatively easy to make and a good use of cabbage (and sauerkraut when you have a lot of it).  I'm now through my first jar of kraut.

Italian Sausage with Lentils and Kale

This turned out to be more delicious then I thought it would be.  While a bit too carby, it was a good meal.

Chicken v Steak

I had some leftover chicken the next day that I cut fairly thinly and made it into a sandwich.

Baked Quinoa with Roasted Butternut Squash & Gruyere

Vegetarian, kind of like a pasta bake, but with more quinoa.  You forget how filling quinoa can be, when you don't have it for a while.

Buttermilk Pancakes

good as always, certainly a good way to use up the buttermilk.

2016 - Week 48 Cooking Results

 

Sweet Potato Stuffing hash with eggs (leftovers)

I still have problems getting the crust to form on potatoes with hash.  I may just be to impatient, or using to low of a temp, or any number of other reason.  But these turned out pretty well, though some of the crust left in the pan, but still pretty tasty.

Turkey Soup with dumplings (dumplings per request, leftovers)

I forgot to make the dumplings...for some reason, so I just ended up making turkey soup.  Even so, it came out pretty well.  Cold it's fairly gelatinous, and warmed up, it's nice an silky (and reduces chapped lips). 

Kapusniak (leftover bacon, potatoes)

Still have turkey soup, left, didn't want another leftover soup in the fridge, delayed!

Chorizo Taco Salad

I need to have a method to organize the meats in my fridge, but even so, I had recently bought some chorizo and so this!  Hooray!

Butternut Squash sausage w/ salad

From Lucky George farm, pretty good stuffs.  Maybe the squash could've been smaller as it went in, because some parts the squash was done, others it was a bit too dense.  Even so, another pretty good sausage mix from Lucky George & Story City Locker.

2016 - Week 48 Cooking

The use of the leftovers continues.

Oh the Pumpkin bread with brown butter and bourbon?  I don't like as much as my chocolate chunk bread...it also has a lot more steps, which would make the mass production of it a lot harder.

  • Sweet Potato Stuffing hash with eggs (leftovers)
  • Turkey Soup with dumplings (dumplings per request, leftovers)
  • Kapusniak (leftover bacon, potatoes)
  • Chorizo Taco Salad
  • Butternut Squash sausage w/ salad

2016 - Week 47 Cooking / Thanksgiving Results

Anthony Bourdain's Mac & Cheese

Probably the most expensive mac & cheese I've made, but to be fair, I did make choices to make it more expensive.  I used Red Table Meats the Royal, and then a bunch of cheese from the cheese shop to combine to make this.  It was quite good.

Grilled Cheese

Simple and quick, as is it should be for this week.

Hamburger

Om nom nom.

Leftovers?

So we were on our own for Thursday night, and Friday night, but on Saturday, I took some of the leftover turkey breast, diced it up, some potatoes, peeled and pre-cooked them a bit in the microwave, tossed in the leftover green bean dish, covered it in gravy & some chicken stock, then covered it with leftover mashed potatoes.  Prep was almost nil, though it still did take ~ an hour to come up to an acceptable temperature.

Thanksgiving turned out pretty well.  Some audibles and to be made.  Since the turkey was so big (27 pounds), it took for damn ever to thaw.  I had to use my oldest chefs knife to literally saw through to get the turkey breasts off so I could brine them.  Because of that I was also unable to make turkey stock ahead of time (for gravy and etc).  I would've had time to make rolls, but I was starting to get tired, at nights, so I picked up rolls.

My assistant this year changed, I traded in the older reliable model for the younger less knowledgable one.  I only had to correct him once.  The take away is when you are done with an ingredient, put it away, especially in a tiny kitchen like mine, where counter space is at an absolute premium.  Things were simplified from last year, knowing that I wouldn't have the same level of help.  Isaac worked out good though, he took a whole dish off my care (which was commented on in positive terms by a lot of people).

While Isaac was making the sherried sweet potatoes when the sherry cork, well fell apart.  After extracting it, we had to, well drink the rest of the Sherry, so it was a good thing to have.  (according to my uncle in law's app it was in the top 7% of all Sherry).  

The bacon from Whole foods was to thick.  But other then that things turned out as expected.  Everything was pretty good.  Another Thanksgiving in the books.

FFS, really forget the pictures?  Updating to include the pictures.

2016 - Week 44 Cooking Results

Pumpkin Lasagna (Dinner Party)

The 3rd annual post-market dinner party.  Happy to make food for people and have a good time.  I trimmed out the prosciutto from last year, because while it did add a nice flavor, it may not break cleanly.  So I used some of the borsellino salami diced up to add a bit of extra deliciousness.  

Side coolneess:  Béchamel sauce stirring.

So the brownies were pretty good, however, I'm pretty sure I followed the recipe (may have opted for better chocolate then the recipe intended, and it was not, as they intended, to create a "swirl" effect, because the brownie batter was so thick, it was clearly not conducive to swirling.  I'll have to try it again, at some point.  Taste was right on.  Served with a bit of Vanilla Ice Cream (which I think I have a new favorite).

Dijon & Cognac Beef Stew (may be delayed until Sunday)

I had a house guest made this on Friday, which was nice because a. I didn't have to think about cooking on Friday, and b. it was really fantastic.  Since I don't believe that there is any Cognac in the house, Jonnie Walker Red was used.  It was really, really good.

Brats with my own Kraut (under the supervision of Brett)

OMG, I made a thing, it was good!  MUST FERMENT ALL THE THINGS!  To do this, I clearly will need to set up a place to store fermented things.

Turkey Sliders (Alton Brown: Every Day Cook, p63)

Couldn't find all the ingredients, so I had to take a pass on following the recipe.  I think the missing miso would make a pretty big difference overall, so the fact that I checked 4 stores (admittedly two with a very low likelihood of carriage).  Anyways, I had a much simpler slider, with harissa.

Steak v Chicken

So Shannon is not a big beef fan.  I've been buying and making cuts of beef (generally tougher cause I like the flavor) for the iron.  Personally I prefer pork, Shannon prefers chicken.  So in this case, I made two things, cause I love my wife and you know...leftovers of each isn't bad.  Served with a simple salad on the side.

2016 - Week 36 Cooking Results

Taco Salad (requested)

I had a nice mix of peppers, from mild to hot (Thanks Sean!), though I didn't add the ghost pepper in there (I like things hot, but uh, I'm not stupid).  So this is where things become challenging.  So I like some beans on my tacos or taco salad, but having beans + having tortillas (chips or no) really presses the carb limit boundaries.  So I having lesser, or whatever doesn't work.  Another vast difference, is that I use actually really good greens that you don't want to overwhelm with other things, because they're not like tasteless ice berg.  So there's always a nice balance of things.  I'm happy that I have these wonderful ingredients available to me.

Genoa Salami Pizza (requested)

When you even mention making a crust, most people back away, but what they don't realize is that the recipe that I use is super easy.  Only mildly modified from the Cook's Illustrated method, but it's food processor / time + 3 day rise.  Easy sauce, most of it is just time.  This turned out great.  I added a bit more tomato paste, which helped thicken up the sauce (the amount of water in the tomatoes can vary quite a bit), which prevented it from leaking over into the side (which it does from time to time), which lead to the golden brown crust on the bottom.

Butternut Squash Noodles with Italian Sausage, Kale (yard) and Chevre

So these ended up being pre-packaged zucchini noodles, which was fine.  it clearly doesn't have the same texture as pasta, but enough to remind you of it, and to keep the carb levels low enough to actually eat (and reduce the calories as well).  So I'm thinking of getting a spiralizer, cause frankly at the cost that the packages come in, it'll pay for itself quickly.

I guess this indicates that I'm starting to flex that food related part of my brain again to work around problems (like I'm willing to do with other people's dietary restrictions, but not really my own).  So that's probably good.  I've had problems adjusting to the healthy recipies cause my inner fat kid wants more fat and more carbs.

I cut some leaves off the top of the overgrown kale plant in the side yard (took the place of the basil and dill that decided not to re-grow).  I think I'll be using more off of there.  

Goat Cheese & Chive (yard) stuffed Chicken Breast

I'm really please with how this turned out (well on one of them, the other one I cut the chicken pocket a bit thin).  Fresh cut chives

Buttermilk Pancakes

I had a limited quantity (1 double sized pancake), but sometimes you do things cause you love your wife, you know?

Late Summer 2016 Road Trip - Day 3 - Chapel in the Hills, Rapid City, South Dakota

I was really looking forward to coming here.  I'd be on my own, I'd be able to take photos, I'd see the sunrise as it came up.  A place like this, clearly has a connection to the heritage history that I was was raised in.  Even though the Nordic heritage doesn't make up a majority of my heritage, it is what I remember.

This morning was interrupted by a doe and a couple of fawns, crossing my path while the sun rose.  It was a beautiful day and morning.  So glad I made the stop.

Big thanks to Brian, who gave me a little extra access that morning.