Journal

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...

2017 - Week 3 Cooking Results

It's one thing to go through an appliance lost, it is another to do so when its the oven, then all you can think about is things you want to bake in the oven.  After fixing the oven twice, the time to failure has decreased so dramatically, that I'm fairly certain that it's not worth it anymore.  I'm officially on the hunt for a new range.  Shannon balked when I pointed out one that was around $1000, so I know I have to spend less then that.  This does limit what I can do, to some extent.  The oven is unreliable, but occasionally does start.

Tsukune

So I ended up just making meatballs using this combination of ingredients.  It made for a nice savory flavor.  Now as short cut, i was thinking about using the oven, I got my half sheet pan ready, started the oven.

I repeated the starting of the oven 4 or 5 more times.

Tried using the Broiler first, which has worked in the past.

A few more tries, gave up, and seared them off in the pan.  They taste good, and I could see using something like this either in a chicken burger or meatball sandwich, anyways, good things.  I didn't make the suggested sauce though, I used a sweet chili sauce.

Umami Meatloaf Burger

Timing of the day and my overall tiredness, made for a call just to switch these over to normal burgers.  I'll relook at this and decide if I really want to do this.

Light Quinoa Pilaf with Corn and Jalapenos

This is the first time I've used corn in a long time (as it was taken off my list of acceptable vegetables due to its high carb content), but I suppose it's ok as an add in.  It was pretty good.  I do like how filling quinoa can be.  Though it does seem to dance high in the carb count.

Farmhouse Chicken Chowder

Took the chicken, made chicken salad, was in a rush (picked up my brother at the airport), so adjusted to the timing, ba bam...chicken salad.  I plan to make this again.

Eggs & Bacon in some format

I forgot to make the bacon...it's been an odd week to say the least, but we had some very cheesey scrambled eggs.

2017 - Week 2 Cooking Results

Cholent

So this is relatively simple, but the problem here is that the beans soaked up so much liquid (even after brining) that it became became less of a stew and more of a bean dish.  Even so, it was pretty good, if a little simple.  It made for a good meal, and most of the prep was done in the morning.

Italian-Sausage Burgers with Garlicky Spinach

Shannon is not a fan of what happens when you steam or etc spinach, which I don't blame her, cause it's not my favorite treatment either.  I had picked up a little fresh spinach from Blue Gate delivering at the new Peace Tree Des Moines Branch (hooray! on both accounts).  So really this came down to just Italian sausage with spinach on mini-ciabatta buns.  Good stuffs.  Next time I''l remember to bring one of my growlers and fill it with beer!

Turkey Sliders (Alton Brown: Every Day Cook, p63), found a source of the ingredient I was missing

This.  Was.  Amazing.  With the combination of turkey + Parmigiano Reggiano + Brown Rice Miso paste made for an extra savory burger.  While I started thinking this would have a light turkey flavor, both the miso paste and parm really enhanced and brought forth some of the more subtle turkey flavors, so while I took Darren's suggestion to go with a  milder cheese, but this combination could've stood up to something much stronger (like that extra aged actual cheddar, who's name I forget)

Texas Breakfast Tacos

Simple, good, easy.

Puff Pastry Waffles (Have to try this)

Uh...Postives:  It was really good.  Negatives:  the puff kind of fell quickly and super carbohydrate filled.

Extra:  Made some Mac & Cheese and got to feed the Hettingers for the first time in a while, which felt good.  Though I did mistake bourbon for brandy, which is on me.

2017 - Week 2 Cooking

So you start the first week of the year, sick, you loose 15 pounds through your bum (I've gained back 5 of that).  You go to the doctor, you get tested for c.diff, you get scared cause you read about c.diff, it turns out you don't have c.diff.  Clear diet, mild diet, normal diet.  Probiotics just in case (not that I necessarily believe they work).  Needless to say, the poop storm that I called earlier, became a literal one.  Shannon has been amazing in taking care of me, and generally dealing with this disgusting situation.

On the other hand, working from home Tuesday through Friday, I figured out that yes indeed I could work from home, I was always concerned that I'd get to distracted by the things around me.  The things that are nice is that when I take my mental thinking breaks (stare out the window from my cube over the city of Des Moines), it's a lot better when I have a cat on my lap and able to look out my basement window at the duplex next door as smoke comes out of the furnace chimney.  It was being toyed with by the wind of the day.  Way more relaxing then the work view (probably doesn't hurt that I'm at home).  the negative side, swapping between a PC laptop (using for development...well to remote to my tower at work for development) and a mac laptop (using for email, chat, etc) is a bit more confusing.  Mainly the key combinations and finger configurations to do so which are slightly different.  Also it doesn't hurt that I got to wear pajamas for a week +.  On the other side of that I do think that having the multi-screen tower is way more efficient then not having it.  Also, by comparison, you can tell the speed difference.  It's kind of obnoxious at times.  Try to explain the justification for that though...anyways.

2017 - Week 1 Cooking Results

Quinoa Pilaf With Chipotle, Queso Fresco and Peanuts

I added a little beef (half pound), a bit of extra cheese, and perhaps forgot to add the peanuts.  One forgets how filling quinoa can be when you eat it.  This was pretty good and tasty and relatively easy to do.

Quesadillas (per C's suggestion and Shannon's Approval)

Cheese + ground chicken + spices.  Easy peasy dinner.  Thanks for the suggestion C.

Cholent

I'm forgetful.  I'm going to start soaking the beans today for Monday.

Grilled Cheese

So as part of my first trip out (oil change for Shannon's Car, La Mie, Cheese Shop, Office (to wipe down my cube and get all my drinkware)), I headed down to the cheese shop, got some provisions, after I realized that I had forgotten to soak the beans for the Cholent.  A nice selection of cheese, a bit of mortadella, and there we go a little bit of grilled cheese.  Shannon suggested that perhaps we could do this with some apple butter.  I had my doubts, but tried some of the La Mie bread with a bit of cheese and mortadella.  Unlike some things, I had to remember that Blue Gate doesn't add so much sugar to make their jams to sweet and it worked, maybe not the revelatory combination that you get sometimes, but a very good one.  So I followed her suggestion and moved forward.  Good meal  We had Black Cat Ice Cream later for dessert (from delivery, Cookie Monster, I believe).

Pork Burgers

Good as always.

Podcast List (Audio)

Links are to the RSS feeds.  Notable recent addition.  Reveal.  I like the in depth stories and have actually gone back to listen to their entire archive.  Fascinating stuff in there.  Most I listen to at 1.4 to 1.7x.  Podcasts about music, or ones I really like the sound field (99PI), I listen to at normal speed.  Overcast's smart speed (reduces empty space) has saved me ~218 hours of listening time.  Some of these may have stopped and I just haven't unsubscribed yet, others are infrequent posters, some I'm just hoping come back.