Journal

2019 - Week 5 Cooking Results

Spaghetti with Carbonara (and chicken)

I guess I didn’t need to add the chicken, but I did anyways. I couldn’t remember at the end of the recipe of what it called for in the way of pasta water. I clearly added to much as the sauce became a bit to runny then I think was intent. It puddled at the bottom rather than clung to the noodles, I also thought the noodles were done, and they were a bit under done, but only a touch. I then made some cookies, for Shannon’s work thing. I think they are allowing a dress down a bit since it’s going to be kind of ridiculous outside.

Weeknight beans on toast

Beans and sausage some garlic toast. It was delicious.

Plov (Uzbek Rice Pilaf) and Chicken?

This was ok. not great, but I used it as an excuse to use some of the saffron threads that I have. It was fine, I cooked and chopped up some chicken to add to it.

One-Skillet Rotisserie Chicken Pot Pie

I had a thought that this was a weeknight meal. It is clearly not. That being said, it was clear and relatively simple to do, just needed quite a bit of time. It was not helped by the fact that I got home from work and laid down on the couch for a 2 hour nap. I did work through the process, and used my 12” skillet to make this. It came out pretty well, nice combination of pastry and sauce and other things. I think they could’ve gone with cutting out circles of the puff pastry dough to layer on the sauce. It was a bit runny when we had it, but really quite good. Pretty good the next day too.

Sous Vide Pork Chop

I really enjoy this. You cook it to just below the right temp and then ba bam! High heat, seared and done. You can hold it at that temp if you happened to have fall asleep, and need a bit of time to wake up. I did catch a little flack when talking about it as a way to cook things with some of my co-workers.

Goat Burgers

I cooked these in butter, low and slow as goat tends to be lean. We had them on little pretzel buns with a triple milk cheddar. Good things.

2019 - Week 4 Cooking Results

Mexican style Tinga (modified) (continued)

i took some of the leftover mean and then actually fried it in a pan, letting the water go away and some crispness added to the meat. It is, what I think this was supposed to be. I short cut it last week. Served on a tostada, quite good. I’m not quite sure how you are supposed to eat it though.

Sam’s Pizza (Make Wednesday, bake Saturday)

The dough is so easy to make. its the rest that gives it more flavor. In my looking for mozzarella, I happened to stumbled across Buf. While I’d prefer to support a local group, this struck my interest. Buffalo mozzarella. So I picked up some. I was pretty happy with that choice. It was quite good, and finding out that it was from Columbia after the Grand Tour episode on Columbia was kind of funny.

The problem was it had more liquid content then I expected. It has been a while since I’ve made my own pizza. I did the steps of stabbing the tomatoes to drain out the liquid and all that, but with that and the it did leak out over the side and sabotaged the browning on the crust. My pizza is very good, I just need to watch the liquid level.

I used, cause I can be excessive, a bit of Salame di Manzo as the meat component.

Chorizo and Potato Stew

This recipe is not quite right. I bought the 2# of Spanish style chorizo (quite an expense). but after looking at what was going on, just cut up 1#. I did axe out the mushrooms and added a bit more potatoes (+1#, finishing off the bag). But even missing the pound of chorizo, it was quite good. With the sour cream to increase the richness, it made for a good dinner, and good leftovers.

La Quercia recommended using Borsellino salami for this I may just have to do that.

Lamb Burgers

I didn’t get a chance to go to the cheese shop, because my wife wanted to drive her through a winter storm, that arrived late. I dug out some leftover cheese and just happened to have some Flory’s Truckle. I pulled out some buns from the freezer and used my experienced 45 seconds in the microwave, and then on top of the toaster with the temp down low (warmed and the insides a little crisp). I cooked up the lamb and it was good. I know at some point I need to make some shepherd’s pie, but I also need to do it on a day where I have time (and the desire to do so).

Spaghetti with Carbonara (and chicken)

As we were snowed in a bit, I didn’t get a chance to go to the cheese shop to pick up the ingredients for this. Instead I pulled some Italian sausage out of the freezer and just made a simple sauce. The only issue was that I apparently ran out of red pepper flakes at some point. I used cayenne powder. It uh, tastes a bit off. Not bad but different. Probably not something I’ll do again, but it did need some heat. It has mellowed out a bit sitting in the fridge for a bit (2 days).

2019 - Week 3 Cooking Results

Chickpea and Celery Soup with Chili Garlic Oil

So I simplified this a bit, as I couldn’t exactly create the salad that was called for as the leaves on the celery were chopped off. I also added the chile-garlic oil directly to the soup and the lemon as well. I did add the dollop of greek yogurt. It wasn’t to spicy, even though I didn’t de-rib the jalapeño that replaced the red Fresno chile. That being said, it came together pretty easily and tasted pretty good. It was certainly a filling vegetarian option to warm up on a winter day.

Salami and Pickle Grilled Cheese (My last loaf, sigh, its time)

This was the last loaf that I had from my brother’s micro bakery. It was in the freezer for over a year. I let it slowly come up to room temperature and then used it to make little grilled cheese. I used red Rosa salami, alp blossom and some local pickles (on mine). It was a quite good sandwich, and while the bread may have been in the freezer to long, it was still very good. I may have ate the rest of the loaf over the next day or so with butter after it was toasted.

Cauliflower Mac & Cheese

* so the instructions on here are a bit confusing. Where you read the ingredient list and combine the two, you’ll probably be fine, but referring to cheese when you have multiple types as just cheese can be misleading.

“Process cauliflower with cheese, oil, mustard, and nutmeg”

Vs

“top with breadcrumbs and cheese”

There may not have been enough sauce, because I wanted to finish off the box (what does one do with a quarter pound of whole wheat pasta?). The taste was ok. Maybe more spices or heat or something. But as a mom way of sneaking vegetables into a dinner, not to bad. I’ll have to think about this a bit.

Sous Vide Pork Chop (ordered from Lucky George via Iowa Food Coop)

Ethan was at the cheese shop on Tuesday. This worked out well because it allowed me to allow the pork chop to thaw in the fridge over a few days. I still got the other chops and will use them later.

So as a side bar, if I allow more time, do I actually need to thaw meat before I put start the sous vide?

…Perhaps not?

So I got this about 10 degrees lower then the desired.

I heated butter in a pan, on relatively high heat and finished for about 90 seconds a side. It got a nice crust while remaining lightly pink on the inside. I was very happy with the way that it turned out.

What’s next? Steak? I only wish I got a better picture of the crust. I served it with mashed potatoes (butter, sour cream, salt and pepper). Is this better cause it’s harder to mess up? or because of the consistency of the production. Part of me is still thinking about getting an actual vacuum sealer. But more playing before investing more money.

Mexican style Tinga (modified)

I prepped this on Thursday night because I wanted to not disrupt my morning to much on Friday. I put the meat and the onion mix in the crock pot, then added the tomato sauce and mixed it around and left it for 10 hours of simmering.

We had this as a topper to taco salad, it’s pretty tasty, especially for the effort put into it. I kind of prefer the other one thought, to some extent.

Pork Bugers

Good as always.

2019 - Week 2 Cooking Results

Sous Vide Pork Chop

I uh, didn’t have a pork chop in my freezer. It was surprising to say the least. Check First, then plan. We, instead, modified a pre-made cheese pizza with bresaola. Earlier in the day I used some donated to blood donors bread to make some melted sandwiches. Good meal for a lazy snowy Saturday.

Broccoli and Egg Fried Rice

Leftover rice from the Etouffee, after a mild distraction from work, I prepped all the ingredients, then executed quite qicklky, making adaptations for use of a normal skillet (more oil). It worked out pretty well, a nice quick dinner. I did add some leftover chicken that was to much for the Etouffee.

Chicken and Andouille Étouffée

Made some rice, had the dish come together pretty easily. It was quite good. I did use way more andouille sausage then the recipe called for. it was quite good.

not so (baked not fried) Crispy Chicken Cutlet Sandwich

I made some adjustments, heated the oven. Doused the cutlets in flower, since I wasn’t frying them, then baked them until they reached the right temp. It turned out really good and with the mayo was quite nice. I am never a big fan of using a whole lot of oil to fry a thing (mostly cause I don’t want to dispose of all that oil).

Bacon-Jalapeño Stovetop Mac and Cheese Recipe

I always find it fascinating the methods to combine things into a sauce and the variance in the texture that it provides. Clearly there’s a chemistry to this. I did swap out the American cheese for a very young gouda. It turned out very good. I used sweet & hot pickled jalapenos.

2019 - Week 1 Cooking Results

Chile Verde tacos

I think I added too much liquid from the cans of tomatillos. I should have drained them, as fresh ones were not available. That being said not only did it turn out really good, I think we both had it for the next couple of days (Shannon did lunch, me for breakfast). Certainly a good application for a large hunk of meat (of which I have a few). I may use this or something like this to go through some of those cuts. I would like to empty my freezer before I start adding again. I did sneak in some Serrano powder, finishing off the container, but even so it just had a mild heat to it.

Sous Vide Fish (may finish in pan this time?)

I bought some fairly thin catfish filets, but I didn’t think this would actually make a meal so we had ham and egg sandwiches.

Chicken Soup with Jasmine Rice and Ginger

I will admit, this recipe doesn’t make sense to me. It seems an excessive amount of water for a small amount of rice. Not enough ingredients to make anything but a super broothy soup. So I adapted. I used the rice but only with a small amount of water. I let it cook for a bit then set it aside. I combined the ingredients (ginger, etc) and like that and the chicken stock come together. I added diced scallions, let those go a bit. Added in the rice semi-mush and the. The chicken (whole pulled rotisserie chicken) I just warmed up.

It was nice and had a very prominent ginger flavor, but enough stuff to make it a filling soup. The audible worked out well. Not much more then the amount to feed the two of us though.

2018 - Week 52 Cooking Results

63C egg with bacon on toast (today)

This mostly worked the way I wanted, just sort of incomplete. I would like a denser white, but the liquid level of the yolk was very nice. The thought of using this method to help poach an egg is pretty cool. Looking forward trying this again to get to the right place.

Pasta with Italian Sausage

Simple easy dinner, used up some leftover pasta. I may have had a bit to much pasta for the sauce I made, but oh well.

Split Pea and Ham Soup

Cooked, adjusted, cooked, peppered, a touch of salt, more ham. It was done while the cold snap (only by comparison)

Pork Burgers

Easy peasy.

12 Beers of Christmas

Smaller attendance then previous years, variety obtained and presented. It was an interesting set. At one point we decided we were done and called it a night.

The order:

The Fallen

2018 - Week 51 Cooking Results

Sous Vide fish (serious eats as a guide)

I had some yellow fin tuna, and took one steak and cooked it up (and then cleaned up some stuff in the garage). This is nice. Maybe soon I’ll graduate to the cook then finish in pan.

Brats! (for lazy Sunday)

yep.

Ham & Gruyere scramble

Melty and delicious.

Ham and Bean Soup

Simple combination, came together quickly and made for a pretty good meal.

Meatloaf & Mashed Potatoes

I’m looking forward to lunch today, because Meatloaf sandwich is on the horizon. This turned out pretty well. Reading through the recipe I was convinced that this may be overly complicated, but as I made this on a Saturday, without much else to do, I figured I’d follow along. Normally I use pork and beef, but this is an all beef one, and was pretty good. I generally make mashed potatoes for guests, making it just for us is a bit harder, as I have to reduce the amount of thought in my head. They turned out pretty good (I used up some leftover sour cream, some quark, some butter and some whole milk).

2018 - Week 50 Cooking Results

Bangers & Mash, apprently I don’t have bangers…

Chatted with Jason from Lucky George, and They’re all out for a bit (til early spring) of the specialty sausages. So I was unable to fulfill this dining request from Shannon.

Sheet-Pan Mac & Cheese With Pumpkin & Brown Butter

This was interesting. Under cooked noodles, then breadcrumbs to make crispy top, cooked in a half sheet pan to create a crispy bottom. Fascinating concept on making it. Attention to detail on pan and pot reduction and all that. Good meal. Will have to do this again.

Sous Vide fish (serious eats as a guide)

Heats water, keeps timing, holds at a temp. Flaky fish. So this was ridiculously easy way to cook fish. I’m often not paying fully attention to cooking and fish goes from done to over done to way over done pretty quickly. This was a simple sort of thing. I used a couple of zipper top bags, salt, pepper a bit of butter and pretty much done. I like that the app told me about how much time was left til the water temp was right, then swaps right into cooking mode.

Mayo-Free Chicken Salad With Kimchi, Ginger, and Scallions Recipe

I adjusted this a bit, and did add mayo, so this really wasn’t a legit expression of this. I thought the Mayo and Kim Chi and chicken was pretty good though

Hamburgers (Lucky George)

Yeah…the smoke alarm got angry at me. I need a vent fan.

Taco Salad

Simple, quick, good.

Mint Vodka & Vanila Vodka

Vanilla Vodka

So I put in the vanilla and vodka in the back of the fridge on 11/10/2018 and took it out on 12/1/2018 (21 days). I had intended to give a sip every week to see if I can figure out what was close to the ideal wait time. I suppose with vegetable matter, there will always be a bit of inconsistency, but getting a window would be nice. After 21 days it had a fairly strong vanilla flavor, but less then a vanilla bean. The beans went in there unmolested for the most part, and were a bit old. As it stands, 25g of Vanilla beans + ~32 oz of Vodka + 21 days.

Chocolate Mint Vodka

I picked up a bit of dried Chocolate Mint from Wabi Sabi. I think I had originally intended to do something else with it, but ended up forgetting what I had planned for it, so this seemed like a reasonable choice. I had did about the same thing as above, but 10 grams of dried mint is a lot more. This gave a bit of a mellow flavor. Something that would probably need to have quite a bit for a flavor, or create an undertone in a drink. But not something that is MINTY. I would be curious on the varietals vs flavor. I should also probably do more research on the alcohol soluble flavors in various vegetation. As it stands 10g Dried Chocolate Mint (includes stems) + ~32oz Vodka + 21 days.