Journal

2022 - Week 50 Cooking Results

Stir-Fried Udon With Bacon, Parmesan & Gochujang

To start, this recipe calls for 2 blocks of frozen udon noodles. The problem here is that this may not be available to a person. There are many comments below on the noodles, but the translation of item to weight is kind of silly. here’s best, here’s dry, etc. Give people options.

I added more gochujang, and used about a pound of fresh noodles. It turned out ok.

French Toast

This was more of what I was thinking off. I ended up using a whole loaf of challah, which I have decided is just too dense. I still have a loaf left, but I’ll make french toast again to finish it off.

Pasta and Bean Soup

I have been thinking about the box, which was a bit unexpected, but actually makes sense as a price cutting measure. The box the local brand came in was basically a mac & cheese box, filled with 12oz of orzo. So you buy more of the mac and cheese boxes, getting a discount and remove a box size from the line up. I assume it will save money. I was looking for the box that I would normally look for, and they were in different sized box, so I actually and to engage the noggin for a bit.

I added to the size cause I felt like more onions and celery. I re-boiled the turkey stock for a bit to make sure anything that may have grown in there, died off. And as, with last time, the stock eventually got sucked up into the orzo. I started taking photos, but apparently stopped. Still good, good as leftovers too.

Egg and Muffin Sandwich

I stuffed some rolls that I bought from La Mie in the freezer, and I thought this would be a good place to use these rolls. However I used them for the Sloppy Sammy’s first. So these ended up on larger rolls, so it was fine, just not as I intended. I tried to get that nice flatness to layered eggs and it seemed to work well. The sausage was from a larger Duroc pork producer, that I just happened to see at the grocery store. Good things.

Brats

These ended up being some La Quercia online purchase. I had wanted the mustard, but also wanted to not pay shipping. So I added them via mail order and went from there. They stayed in the freezer for quite a bit, but pulling them out I remembered it. It was good, not outstanding, but good.

Sloppy Sammys

I forgot to get vegetables for this, so I had to stop at the grocery store just down the street to get an onion and a green pepper. I also forgot to get rolls, and thought, hey I got those La Mie roles, forgetting that I planned to use them later in the week. Even so it still worked.

2022 - Week 49 Cooking Results

After the coordination of doctors, patients, and a delay or two, On the 6th the honor walk was held to celebrate the gift of life being given. It was emotional in a quiet intensity. Friday the 9th, there was a visitation we attended, which was a celebration of his past life, pictures growing up, things that meant a lot to him on the collection of hobbies that he had. There was a dramatically detailed Lego flower display, made by members of the IowaLUG (he was a co-founder).

Saturday we went to the funeral, where so many showed up who his life had an impact on. Many good stories were told, thanks to the CCU nurse that took such good care of not only my friend, but the family around him. I know there were other stories to be told, but I, along with others, probably couldn’t make it through that.

Afterwards, we went to the Greek Orthodox church to have a luncheon and just hang out with those who loved the person and wanted to honor his life and family. Socially and emotionally exhausted, we went home and just vegged out.

Turkey Tortilla Soup

I chopped up the last of the turkey breast, and just used tortilla chips. this came together well and was quite tasty.

Grown-Up Grilled Cheese Sandwiches with Comte and Cornichon

I figured the blended cheese would be good on it’s own, and it was, but just not as good as I thought it would be. Grilled up? Quite nice.

Hot Dogs

Good Things. All Pork. All Good

Chili Pork Noodles

Made before, will make again. Swapped the chili crunch with the hot honey chili crunch and skipped the sugar. Passed the heat test with Shannon, and I was able to add a bit more heat on my own.

Fish

I have a layer of bread (some thanksgiving leftovers, normal stash) on top of the pile in chest freezer, and the idea of digging to find fish, didn’t enthrall me, so we had eggs.

2022 - Week 48 Cooking Results

Brats

I pulled out pork hotdogs from the freezer, so we had them.

Eggs and Bagels

Simple, easy.

Green Chile Turkey Enchiladas

This was pretty easy to make, I used my new pyrex baking dish, and it worked out pretty well. I sort of started ignoring the directions, and ended up making them the way I thought they should be, and it turned out pretty well.

Turkey Tortilla Soup

Delayed.

Grown-Up Grilled Cheese Sandwiches with Comte and Cornichon

Delayed.

We also ended up going to the Richard the Whale beer release brunch, and the last Grade A Gardens at the farm dinner, featuring the works of chef Katie Porter.

A turn for the horrible

This week took a turn for the horrible. After struggling through a work thing which took multiple days. I was able to take my head up and found out that a friend was not doing well. My initial and wrong impressions was that maybe it was a bad accident, but after some more information, found out he had a heart issue, lost consciousness while he was driving.

Someone called the police right away, he was given CPR.

He was taken to a local hospital and stabilized on Monday. Many things happened, before I noticed Wednesday night, and after a couple of meetings on Thursday, I headed down to the CCU at the hospital, to see how things were going.

After seeing the faces of his family, especially his mom, partner, boys, and co-parent, I texted my boss saying I wouldn’t be back at work. I saw how his older son reacted to the situation, and I recognized that as something that happens to myself, which is trying to hide a large emotional reaction.

I had some time to sit with him, I made jokes, as many do in a stressful situation. I kept a few people in the loop, for as much as I understood. When Shannon got off work, I brought her down and we were there when the publicly announced that he would be the 101st organ donor in Iowa, this year.

With the terrible loss to his boys, partner, co-parent, family, friends, he will bring a bunch of life to those in dire need.

Stepping aside from the situation, the fact that organ donation is so specific under the conditions on which donation can be obtained, it seems to make more sense that so few happen. Note, tissue donation, is much easier.

At this time, if you live in Iowa, I think it’s important to register to donate your organs:

https://www.iowadonornetwork.org/

2022 - Week 47 Cooking / Thanksgiving Results

French Toast (Using leftover Challah)

The Challah was a bit dense, so didn’t absorb the liquid as much as it probably should have. Even so this was an interesting preparation method.

Ham Steak and Scrambled Eggs

Free Ham, eggs already obtained. Good things.

Brats

Good as Always.

Thanksgiving

I swapped out the gravy, I didn’t do the Crispy Skin, I did end up adding cranberry sauce. We ended up with 6 guests and ourselves. I didn’t find lefse, but I also didn’t look that hard for it. I didn’t have to wake up extraordinarily early for any day of the week, and the day of work, was pretty much finishing mashed potatoes (peeled and stored the day before), and baking or reheating things. And the bread pudding. So it was a pretty easy day, as thanksgivings go.

Saturday: Cut into cubes and dried the challah.

Sunday: Whipped Honey butter. Grocery shopping for the week.

Monday: Make cornbread, cube cornbread, dry cornbread.

Tuesday: Cranberry sauce, prep carrots, prep celery, Thanksgiving grocery shopping, breakdown bird. This is where I put away the thighs and drumsticks for the purpose of making the confit turkey later, since I wouldn’t have enough time. I need new kitchen shears, or sharpen the ones I have, or my hands just can’t take the kind of effort needed to break through bones anymore. Any of these are possible.

I trussed the turkey breasts, after using salt and pepper on the inside, and Momofuku Savory Salt not he outside. Then put them in a bag, with a pat or two or three of butter, sucked the air out and tossed them in the fridge.

We bought extra turkey breasts (probably not the most humanely treated), just in case, I got the last two at the Fareway near me. I ended up just dropping one into the freezer and prepared the other a bit differently. I used a combo of the Momofuku Spicy salt and some Soy Sauce. I’m not quite sure if it was the meat or the combination of the brine and something else, but this kept out gassing. No leaks found, but I re-bagged it and then had to drain air out of it a couple of times (cut, reseal). It was kind of annoying.

This also had a trip out to Grade A to pick up the Turkey and veggie box, which I was running a bit behind, but did get to pet Rupert, and that’s a good time.

Wednesday: This was a big prep day. After doing some googling on potatoes and confirming it with my Brother, I was convinced it was ok to store potatoes in water and move forward. I spent a bit of time at the Cheese Shop, after I picked up some rolls at La Mie. I eventually spent too much money and made my way out of there. Picked up some tarts and spent the rest of the day prepping, and making dishes. I had everything in a good place and called it a day.

Thursday: I moved some things around in the kitchen, got the sous vide tub setup, off the main counters, and got the turkey in and then went through my morning routine of coffee, exercise, shower, then started to get things ready for Finishing.

Potatoes, already sliced and peeled, I just poured from their two containers (6 pounds couldn’t fit into one) into the pot, added a bit more water and started to slowly cook them.

I brought the sweet potatoes and dressing out to warm up.

I got the dried challah bread setup and started their soaking.

So I did some calculations on when things would need to be done, and then figured out when they needed to go into the oven and went from there.

I got the gravy out at some point, panned it and starting to bring it up to temp. Got the gravy serving dishes (one a gravy boat, the other a cream dispenser) and got them warmed up with hot water.

Sliced the turkey breasts (via Grade A).

Called for dinner at 1:01, just a bit late, though I was waiting for a pause in the conversation.

Friday afternoon, I pulled out the turkey carcass and with some onions, leftover diced up carrots and celery, and them simmered them slowly overnight and around 3 on Saturday I combined the stocks into one pot, had entirely to much, so took out quite a bit to save for a bit later in the week. I added some celery, carrot, onions, sweet potato, and potatoes and then a bunch of turkey. Seasoned it up a bit and called it a dinner.

As we have repaired our dishwasher a few times over the years, it may be time to get a new one. It used to be very quiet, now, not so much. I normally would have ran a load of two while the family was at thanksgiving, but didn’t want to, cause at certain points it’s a bit loud.