Journal

2023 - Week 43 Cooking Results

Sausage (Pigs in a blanket?)

Per suggestion I got a thing of crescent rolls and wrapped two dough pieces around each hot dog. This was vaguely wasteful as it only used half of the container. I did use the rest to make the rolls. I suppose if it was an actually fluffy flakey croissant dough, then yes, this would’ve been wonderful, but the dough itself was just ok. Was it interesting and a nice change of pace. Sure. Fond memories from childhood? perhaps. It was fun, but a lower quality product combined when those all pork hot dogs.

Pasta e Fagioli

The full one, as opposed to the weeknight one is still quite good and worth the effort. God as leftovers, though the noodles soak up the soup, which kind of makes me wonder about canned soup.

Grilled Cheese with Mortadella

I got to stuff a bit in my face, and loaded up on some mild sourdough with some Alp Blossom. I, fortunately, got a golden brown to just barely toasted on the outside with butter. I am a big fan of mortadella.

Pork Burgers

Made these, good things and a bit leftover pork. Which came in handy, as the next day was truly challenging, and I ended up eating pork patties with mustard just to get some food in my belly.

Bacon, Egg, & Cheese Breakfast Potatoes with Chili Crunch

I keep thinking about making this better, and perhaps using some prepared potatoes (pre-fried) or something. But throw back, not a lot of work and still quite good.

Red beans and Rice

I think I never make this quite right. Don’t get me wrong, every time it’s delicious, but either the beans are to hard, or the liquid doesn’t reduce enough. This was one the liquid doesn’t reduce enough. Still combined with the rice to soak up the liquid, quite good. I added some of Lola’s Fine Host Sauce, which added a nice kick. I used some Andouille sausage from Crooked Gap, which was an excellent choice. Used timers a lot while making this so I would spend 20-30 minutes working on my study notes, stir the beans, and come back down to add more notes. Still love this and feeds a part of me.

2023 - Week 42 Cooking Results

Sausage

All pork hotdog, Crooked Gap

Pasta

Perhaps a bit on the spicy side, I used some more vegetables, but even so still good.

Pancakes

I really like this buttermilk pancake recipe. I tend to use my 8” pans to make larger pancakes so the times change a bit, but still a good thing.

Coconut Curry Chicken Noodle Soup

I broke up the noodles a bit so you don’t have very very long noodles, which I think can be frustrating when you are trying to dish it up. I had two cans each of chickpeas and cannellini, and because I wasn’t looking, I opened one of each, instead of just the chickpeas. I figured the cannellini beans would be fine in there too, so I opened up the other chickpeas and added a bit more stock. I added the leftover part of the second sweet potato from last week. This turned out to be quite the chunky soup, and good for leftovers too.

Lamb Rice

So the plan was to make this on Thursday, but as I had leftover pasta, and leftover soup, I was like we gotta eat some of these leftovers, so I made sandwiches instead. On Saturday, I made this. I used a whole pound of lamb, and a bit of extra rice and stock and because my wife doesn’t particularly like the solidness of like pistachios, I skipped those all together, though did add the butter to the rice. I used wild rose vinegar instead of lemon juice. It came together well and I was right about it leaving a lot of leftovers. Mild, but with the distinct flavor of lamb. Generally pretty good and will make a filling leftover. As a note This combined well with the Holiday Heck Hot Sauce (Alton Brown) as the flavors of that meld well with the cinnamon and nutmeg of the lamb rice.

Pasta e Fagioli

Delayed until next week.

2023 - Week 41 Cooking Results

Sausage

All Pork Hot Dogs from Crooked Gap. Good things.

Sloppy Sammys

Because of timing, I bought some grass fed mass market ground beef, instead of pulling it out of the freezer. I feel vaguely guilty about this. Still good though.

Egg and Sausage Sandwich

The, apparently very popular, crooked gap breakfast sausage rounds / patties. Some for Shannon, some for me, topped with eggs, one of which I will always mess up, which I give to myself. Good as always.

Tangy Chili Pork Noodles

Quite the good meal, as always. I may have eaten to much though.

Thai-Style Chicken and Sweet Potato Curry

I pulled some sweet potatoes at the farmers market. And this was one of the first things I thought of. I had to make some cooking adjustments as I started the rice in the middle of the processes. So I lowered the heat while the rice cooked. It made for a nice dinner.

Chorizo and Sweet Potato Quesadillas

I’ve made it before, I’ll make it again. A good use of sweet potatoes and a nice flavor profile.

Beetlejuice - Des Moines Civic Center - 10/8/2023

I think many were expecting something closer to the movie, but this is not quite the same thing. Clearly has a lot of references to, but set in something a bit separate. Beetlejuice does play up breaking the 4th wall here and there which was often funny. Some tricks were adapted to be stage safe and presentable. Still fun, music was good and enjoyable.

2023 - Week 40 Cooking Results

Sausage

Jalapeño and cheese brats, Crooked Gap, always good.

Bourbon-Glazed Pork Chops and Fried Eggs

So I overcooked the first side a little bit, but was able to recover, filter out some burnt bits and go from there. As it goes, I f’ed up one of the fried eggs, in that it broke when I took it out of the pan, so I ate that and Shannon got the one that was still together. Overall, not bad with the sauce and I served it with some Grade A late summer greens.

Korean BBQ Meatballs with Sweet & Spicy Noodles

The meatballs were good, the noodles were good, together it was a pretty good dinner.

Pasta e fagioli for two

Ok this is quite good. I’m going to have to make this for having leftovers. I did add extra pancetta, cause that was what was in the package.

Taco Salad

Good as always, more beans, less meat.

We went to a couple of fancy dinners Including the Grade A harvest dinner which was quite good and nice to have a nice long chat with Ethan & Rebecca Book. We had some nice drinks from Front Yard Sugar and then meals from quite a number of chefs.

Matt and Kim - First Avenue - 10/4/2023

The first thing about this is that it was called: Matt and Kim Present: The Matt and Kim Tour Feat. Matt and Kim with special Guest Pkew Pkew Pkew.

The show was in Minneapolis, where it has been a bit since I’ve been there. It was nice to get to hang out and park in this in between time before the Twins got out (they won) and the people came down for various shows and what not. We had a few beers and dinner at an Irish pub (corned beef). As the Twins game was letting out the bar got quite busy so we headed over to First Avenue. I’ve tried to go to this place twice before. Once, on the off chance I could get tickets to a show, and another, where the show was cancelled out from under me.

About 10.5 years ago Nathan and I saw Matt and Kim opening for Passion Pit at Hilton in Ames. It was was a fun show then, and this was a whole lot fo fun, even though we’re both and the upper side of our 40s. It quite a good time and after doing some experiments, we found a decent place to stand (not behind the glass, sound just go messed, not next to the men’s room) and just had a good ole time. Pkew Pkew Pkew sounded like trash behind the glass, but on the other side they put on an ok show for something I had never heard before. Good enough I added some of their music to my new things to rate list.

For the most part everything that was played during the Matt and Kim set was on my Matt and Kim playlist. Energetic showing, lots of fun had and just a excellent show over all.

Matt and Kim perform part of “Now”

Matt and Kim perform part of “ Go Go” with a lot of balloons bouncing about.