Journal

2021 - Week 49 Cooking Results

Grilled Cheese with Asiago and Dates

So I took the concept, and ran, but didn’t pay attention to the ratios, at all really. So it was ok, but not necessarily up to their standards, but that was on me I suppose. I did use some leftover dates, in combination with some bought cheese. Quick and ok, not a real verdict on the recipe itself.

Turkey and Dumplings

I should have taken the turkey stock out on Wednesday, as I originally thought. Taking it out on Friday morning was not near enough time to make it into liquid, let alone even slush. This took a bit of extra time, but over all it was easy to put together. I really only used the recipe for the ratios on the dumplings. I added turnips, red potatoes, leftover turkey, corn, peans, and the dumpling batter to finish off the soup. Good flavor, nice ratio. Good things. Will make for some good leftovers.

Cornmeal Buttermilk Pancakes

Nice cornmeal flavor with that buttermilk. We’ll probably have straight up buttermilk pancakes to use the last of it next week.

Creamy Celery Root Soup with Ham

As part of my thanksgiving package, I got a couple of celery roots. I hadn’t had this previously or added it to a thing, but it turned out pretty well. I used the same ham for the egg muffins. with that. While I didn’t have a ham bone, I did use, probably, more ham than requested to give it that hammy flavor. Celery root reminds me of celery, but being distinctly different. I used my hand my hand blender for the first time in a while. After mostly smoothing out the soup. We had it for dinner, and lunch the next day, and I had it for lunch the day after that. It was a nice soup.

Ham and Egg muffins

Of course this is a good thing. A common combination. I used a gift card from the company I work for to buy ham, thus making it a relatively inexpensive dinner.

2021 - Week 47 Cooking & Thanksgiving Results

Domestic Bones hand pies

It had potatoes, and a nice spice but beyond that, I don’t remember what it was when i ordered it. Pretty good.

Italian Sausage and Scrambled eggs

A bit of a spicy sausage and some eggs, probably more sausage than could be good for a normal ratio, but overall, pretty good.

Bratwurst

Good as always

Thanksgiving

I really need to find a way to get the amount of food per person right. So there’s more then enough, but not an overwhelming amount of food for everyone. Like 1.25x? or 1.1x. We have a lot of leftovers, which is fine.

I missed a handful of ingredients, that I just assumed I had the items for. I over bought a couple of things that I assumed I would replace something fatty with something very fatty for. I had just the right amount of unsalted butter (1.2 sticks to spare).

I like doing the sous vide of the turkey to just under done. I’m allowed to add fat, seasoning and salt, and not having to worry about over whelming the timing of the day off or having to watch it so closely. I did have to make adjustments to the water level when I took out the breasts (they were done) and added the thighs, wings, and drumsticks. But running them separately you have the same flavor and the right, underdone ness. So they can finish off in the final dish, without over cooking. That being said, I have a pile of turkey leftover, I may freeze it and make turkey soup in a week or two.

Due to space limitations, we normally would have people serve themselves through the kitchen, however, since we did not have the same limitations, we dished things out into serving bowls. This had positives and negatives. Everything was on the table which meant that most things were in reach or an easy pass away. On the other side, some things got cold, pretty fast. Frustratingly so.

I started the potatoes too early.

My gravy had lumps. I did however run it through a strainer and back into the pan, so tada! no lumps. I was still upset with myself.

Since the I made the stock, it was dramatically low in salt, so to get the things up to a tasteful level, I had to add a lot of salt. Like a lot a lot. But when you triple a recipe it can work like that too.

Overall nice to see my family that could make it. our house is relatively small so it’s hard to have a formal(ish) dinner for a lot of people. After a couple of years off (one due to health, one due to pandemic), it feels like a pretty good success.

21 loads of dishes. From 11/22/2021 at ~1:PM to 11/26/2021 at ~11:AM.

Time to start thinking about next year.

2021 - Week 43 Cooking Results

Taco Salad

Good as always.

Sloppy Sammys

I usually add a bit of yellow mustard to the mix, and I ended up using mustard powder since, the yellow mustard was out. Other then that, it went pretty normally. I ended up using the leftover mixture in further taco salad, and to add to the Mac and Cheese.

Red Beans and Rice

I started this Friday night, Soaking the beans. I made some modifications, because who would find pickled pork shoulder around here? I ended up using a bit of pork shoulder. I did add cider vinegar, and a bit of Lola’s hot sauce. I should’ve probably reduced it a bit more, but it was 6:30 already, and I thought it might be pushing it a bit later. I should’ve have probably started when I planned, rather then extending my nap. It still turned out pretty good and I’m looking forward to eating leftovers.

I used Crooked Gap’s andouille sauce for the first time, and It get’s a thumbs up from me. Though I’m not much of a connoisseur, since, you know, Iowa and availability. I did buy a few of them, so I’m looking forward to using them.

I started to take pictures, but then, stopped, I guess.

Chickpea Vegetable Stew

Delayed!

Macaroni and Cheese

So uh…this is supposed to be healthy and looking at the ratios, I was like, that doesn’t seem like enough sauce for a pound of noodles, so I doubled it. This was perhaps a bit to much sauce, but better then what it would’ve been. It was ok.

2021 - Week 40 Cooking Results

Mac and Cheese with Bacon and Wenk's Yellow Hots

So I bought a few Wenk’s peppers and used those instead of your standard jalapeño, This came together ok. I did like putting the salsa on top, that was pretty nice. Plain it was just ok.

Breakfast Torta With Bacon, Eggs and Guacamole

I forgot to buy the guacamole. I remember being in the section of the grocery store, but didn’t actually add it to the cart. Other then that, it turned out pretty good.

Bacon, Egg, & Cheese Breakfast Potatoes

Good to do, takes a bit of time, but a variety of flavors and textures. Spicy seasoning, then the Chili crunch. I used some leftover fresh cheese and called it good.

Grilled Pork Tenderloin with Peach Salsa

I sort of vaguely followed this, as I didn’t feel like going outside to pick mint, for whatever reason, so I chopped up the Iowa White peaches, some more of the Wenk’s peppers, and uses mostly momofuku seasoning salt and brown sugar. I baked them, instead of grilling them. It was quite good…maybe a bit salty. I also made peas.

Chicken Burgers

I put some seasoning in there, heated it up relatively slowly in the pan . It was pretty good.

2021 Early Fall - Iowa Arboretum and Gardens

We headed up there, as Shannon had the day off, so I took it off to. I think the last time I went there was for Brandon & Val’s wedding. The butterfly was being a bit of a diva. There was also some large bumble bees that I tried to capture, that were being resistant to having thier photos taken.

2021 - Week 36 Cooking Results

Butter cooked fennel, roasted with Parmesan, served with eggs (suggested by Jill at Blue Gate)

I’ll need to make this for myself for lunch. Fennel as a background ingredient is ok by Shannon, but right up front, not so much.

Roasted Roma tomato sauce, ciabatta, mozzarella, Italian Sausage (?)

The roasted tomatoes from last week, with some fresh mozzarella from Lost Lake and some Italian sausage, these became ciabatta pizzas, I guess. Even so it just made a good relatively quick evening meal. The tomato sauce was very bright, and the combination was quite delicious.

Taco Salad

I kept looking in the fridge thinking i had missed something in the prep of this. I used some cherry tomatoes, some small peppers, a hatch pepper, but I kept looking, knowing I had missed something. Eventually I called Shannon up. When we settled in to eat. Beans…I forgot to add beans to the tomato, onion, chorizo mixture. On the one hand, a bit upset with myself, on the other I was glad my brain wasn’t wrong, even if it couldn’t remember.

Tagliatelle with Corn, Tomatoes, "Onion-Bacon"

So when I mentioned onion bacon to Shannon, she stated, “Couldn’t you add real bacon”, and so I did. I couldn’t find tagliatelle, anyways. With fresh blue gate tomatoes and some other vegetables it made for a pretty good meal, only with 3 slices of bacon. Pretty good over all.

Today while, I was pressed to trim my cookbook collection as we, on the reorganized the living room, moved the bookshelves in the dining room to the living room. I trimmed a few books, which were basically sub-sets of bigger books I had, or books that were out of date, or frankly things I wouldn’t end up using (low sodium, blah). That being said I divided them into a few general categories. Dessert, General (ish) (basically larger collections or multiple types of courses in one book), Single topic (fermentation, appetizers, sausage, etc), and alcohol. With that I tried to put them all together on the shelves, and was able to do so, even providing a bit of room left for the book shelf games and all that. I perhaps have a bit of room left for a couple more books, but not to many

2021 - Week 35 Cooking Results

Toasty Cheese and Chile Jam Sandwiches

I used the spicy plum jam that they use at the cheese shop to make this. I should’ve added more cheese, but I didn’t realize it until after the fact. Even so, pretty tasty.

Sauteed Corn with Bacon and Leeks

I made this with the pork burgers, I thought partially about using it as a main and combining it with rice or something, but ended up just serving it on the side. I did eat it as leftovers with rice and chicken. Overall, nice flavor.

Stir-Fried Noodles with Chicken and Broccolini

I wasn’t reading this right, so I started to double the sauce and just finished doing that and ended up almost doubling the noodles and using the whole box. Other then that things went smoothly. I substituted in some hoisin sauce, finishing the jar then moving into the new jar of oyster sauce. So probably didn’t have quite the same taste as the normal recipe. I did like the add of the serrano vinegar, but I also added some sambal olek with the leftovers. Pretty good.

Sloppy (Pork) Sammys

By the end of the week, I was thinking about sloppy Joes, so I made them shortly after that. I did forget to pick up cocktail buns, so I ended up getting some King’s Hawaiian at the store that don’t like to much. Some pickles some yellow mustard and a little sweet bun was a nice add with the pork, tomatoes and spices.

Pork Burgers

I got a combo of beef and Mangalitsa pork, and uses that, I should’ve just gotten the mixture and made my own patties as these were a bit…well not great. Anyways the flavor was pretty good. Made a good meal.

I bought 4 pounds of Roma tomatoes from Blue Gate and roasted them. They’ll make an appearance next week.

2021 - Week 33 Cooking Results

All Pork Hot Dogs

Good as always.

Mozzarella on bread, toasted, topped with tomatoes and bacon

Fresh mozzarella fro Lost Lake, ciabatta from La Mie, Tomatoes from Grade A Gardens, and Bacon from Lucky George, topped with greens. Came out pretty close to what I was picturing, which isn’t always the case. It was a nice alternate on the BLT. And though tis the season, I know that having them once or multiple times a week is a bit much for my wife, but doing this kind of makes it more of a different experience, even though the combination of ingredients remains about the same.

Cider-Glazed Pork Chops (going to sous vide the chops then finish in a pan)

Thick chops, cover in salt, pepper. Added olive oil and butter to the bag, vacuumed, sealed and set to run as I headed out to get a hair cut. I got back, tossed some fingerling potatoes with olive oil, pepper and savory seasoning and put them in the oven to bake.

I pulled the chops out of bag, they were effectively cooked. I seared them off in the pan while putting together the sauce, then finished the pan sauce with the rendered juices.

What was kind of amazing is that everything came together within about 2 minutes of each other.

I cut the meat of the chops, and we had a pretty good dinner. The potatoes were good, the pork with the sauce was good. All an all a good meal with some modifications to make sure that it’d come tighter in a timely fashion.

Orecchiette with Peas, Pine Nuts, and Ricotta

I’ve made this at least once or twice before, but this time I used some Lost Lake ricotta (new) and it was very good. An easy recipe, but one that is quite nice.

Sheet Pan Hot Honey Roasted Chicken & Summer Tomatoes

I picked up Blue Gate tomatoes today, and used about half of the larger ones I bought today. Fresh and fragrant.

I tossed the chicken with the hot honey sauce, I heated it up a bit (15 seconds in the microwave), to loosen up a bit of the crystallized honey. And set it aside for about half an hour (should’ve done it earlier). While that was resting, I rough cut up a little more than 2 pounds of tomatoes and let them rest on the counter for a bit while the time passed to get to that 30 minute mark.

I got the jasmine rice cooking.

I spray the pan before I put the chicken on the half sheet pan, then added the tomatoes. I spread the last half of the sauce over the tomatoes and a bit more over the chicken then sprinkled the entire collection with a good helping of the Momofuku savory salt.

I wasn’t using the bone in, skin on chicken thighs, so I ended up just baking it for 27 minutes.

The smell was nice as I pulled it out of the oven.

Served the chicken and tomatoes and rendered sauce over the rice and it was really good. You could smell the tang and taste the sweetness of the tomatoes combined with the salty and sweet and savory of the sauce and chicken.

Good things.

2021 - Week 32 Cooking Results

I suppose I should’ve checked closely the schedule of plan for my colonoscopy prep. I could have worked on Monday, and other then having very specfic restricitons on what I could eat for breakfast, lunch and snack. Instead I took a mostly relaxing day, doing a handful of chores (breaking down a stash of boxes for recycling, shredding papers, etc) and just relaxing most of the day. The inherent problem with the instructions are because you are starting at 6:PM it means you’ll be staying up pretty late as it work through your system, and the instructions says get up and finish prep with the last liter of liquid 4 hours before the procedure. So I finally felt able to fall asleep around midnight, and was up at 3:15 to finish off prep. I did get in a nap before the procedure and got called in early since the appointment before mine called in to cancel.

As a note, the nurses helping the procedure were very relieved that I was already vaccinated and it was much easier for them to put the oxygen in my nose.

They found two polyps, which were benign.

We headed to the cheese shop, picked up some lunch and went home. I ate, then headed upstairs to sleep. Shannon woke me up around dinner time, and I was up a bit more, then slept overnight. Normally I get around 5-7 hours of sleep a night, and on Tuesday I got 12.5 hours.

So here’s a reminder, if you are recommended to do it, get your colonoscopy.

Bacon Arugula and Tomato

Fresh mozzarella, a loaf of Whole Grain Sourdough that had shown up that day, and some fresh tomatoes from Blue Gate. Topped with some bacon from Crooked Gap. Good things.

Sheet Pan Shrimp “Boil”

This was surprisingly quick to put together. I picked up some gulf shrimp, pulled out some breakfast sausage (Lucky George) and corn from the freezer, and used potatoes I had already bought. Then added some leftover onion. I upgraded my purchase of the spicy salt to a pouch, rather than the jars, since I go through it fast enough. I ended up getting two, to get the free shipping. I ladeled over a couple of dashes of the butter sauce. Delicious meal overall. For me, I would’ve perhaps added more potatoes, but maybe that’s just me with that butter sauce and the potatoes. Certainly something to make again.

Sheet Pan Shrimp “Boil”

Brats

Still a bit tired after work, even though the previous day I slept an astounding, for me, 12.5 hours of sleep. Easy to do, good things.

2021 - Week 31 Cooking Results

Tuna with Warm Green Bean Salad with Shallots and Mustard

I thought about keeping the mustard thing going, so I quickly google tuna with a mustard cream sauce, then vaguely followed the recipe. I worked on all three parts at about the same time. Bringing the water to boil, prepping the sauce, so it can reduce, then getting the yellowfin tuna in the oven, then beans, in, out, shallots in, mustard and other things in, check tuna, tuna out, beans back in, put everything on a plate. A lot of quick cooking and thinking to have it all together. Not too shabby. Beans were a bit to mustardy for Shannon, and tasting her’s vs mine, she wasn’t wrong. Overall a success, though maybe I shouldn’t have pumped up the mustard as much as I did, but it did seem to treat the sauce well.

Grown-Up Stovetop Macaroni and Cheese

I should’ve used American, like I did the last time I did this, but it was still ok. Not creamy, but ok. I did add some corn startch that has helped smooth out the sauce in the past, but this did not pull it together.

Bacon Arugula and Tomato

Ahh, the season of tomatoes begins. I got a few and used a few. it may still be a bit early, but it is starting. I got a few more for this coming week.

Ham and Egg on English muffin

Good as always. Used up the last of the free ham.

Sheet Pan Shrimp “Boil”

Delayed! Forgot about a Saturday night thing, good thing I didn’t take the shrimp out of the freezer.