Journal

2021 - Week 38 Cooking Results

Thai style curried chicken fried rice

Fun story. The chicken had defrosted and apparently the package around it was a bit of a whole in the package, so I spilled the chicken water on me, one morning as I was moving things around. That was, unpleasant, I misread the amount of chicken needed, so I used the amount to make a chicken heavy version. It turned out pretty good.

Pasta With Tomatoes and Tuna

I was busy on Tuesday (work), I was busy on Wednesday (work), Thursday we went out to eat to celebrate, Friday we were full from eating smoked meats for a late lunch, and Saturday we went to the Cheese Bar…So, Delayed!

Thai Coconut Chicken Soup

Soup got vetoed, not quite cold enough, yet. So this means I’ll have to put this away for another couple of weeks.

Pork Burgers

New pork breed, still trying it out. It was quite fatty, as it lost quite a bit of volume as it cooked. Not that it’s a bad thing, but probably fattier then I would have picked.

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 37 Cooking Results

This week has been probably the busiest we’ve had in a while. Wednesday was disrupted by a task that was supposed to take 1.5 hours, taken just over 7 hours. Friday we had a nice movie night, just outside the Varsity, to watch Moonrise Kingdom. Saturday we went our separate ways, Shannon had a hair appointment and I went with Josh to meet with the Mattas to pick up some beer (special release + some others) in Iowa City (thankfully missing the worst of the football related traffic). Saturday night we were back outside the Varsity, for one of the premiere screenings of Storm Lake. We both enjoyed the covering of the reporting, the local interests, and the struggle to keep the paper above water. The after talk where Art Cullen mentioned the real idea put forth in the movie was the civic engagement. Which is something that is not present in a lot of places anymore. One thing that can be done is to donate to the Western Iowa Journalism Foundation.

Spicy Carrot Sandwiches

Been a while. Fresh carrots from Grade A gardens. This may have added a bit of extra sweetness.

Thai style curried chicken fried rice

Delayed.

Thai style turkey sliders

I didn’t see ground turkey, but I saw chicken, so I went with that. I made things as directed, other then with chicken, and they were pretty good. I liked the quick pickled onions and cucumbers. Pretty good.

Brats

New pork breed, not sure I have an opinion yet.

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.