Journal

2017 - Week 8 Cooking Results

Ultimate Zoodles

So from Christmas, I got two spiralizers (similar to, but not exactly), and right before that I bought my own.  I haven't tried the one I bought myself, but, while I do appreciate the gifts, from the practical use side, these come with draw backs.  First, if you want to make this a good part of the meal, like noodles, or etc, you will end up with a lot of effort (and wrist pain for me) just to get through a single carrot.

So I can see them used for decoration, but not as making a main part of a meal...unless maybe you set your kids on the task, thought that'd be pretty tough call because the blades in use are pretty sharp.

That being said, I only vaguely followed the recipe,  and mixed the spices in with pork (not in recipe) and had the carrots mixed in.  I may not have used enough salt.

Chicken Stew with Cannellini Beans and Dried Cherries

This came together pretty quick and was pretty good.  I may have just eaten the chicken skin instead of frying it off and that may have detracted from it overall, but even so, it was pretty good (I did take the cooled rendered fat and added that into the stock).

Bacon and Butter Sandwiches

Simple, good, and an excuse to buy a good bottle of sherry.

French Style Pork Stew

So I made some changes, because, while I like cabbage, it seems like it wouldn't be the best addition to this, also, Shannon's not a huge fan of greens in soup, which is fair.  So per the recipe I made the following adaptations:

  1. Before step 1, soak dry cannellini beans overnight in salted water
  2. In step 3, before adding the vegetables, drain the soaking beans and add them to the soup
  3. After the beans have simmered for a couple of hours and start to get tender, add the parmesan rinds
  4. Skip the cabbage (or not, but I did), and pull out the parmesan rinds

Kitchen Re-Org

So I went through my herbs and spices, and toss a bunch that clearly are old, and for things that come in the future, I will label for the purpose making it know when they came into the house, so it is easier to make them go.  That being said, I re-ordered a number of items to have them make more sense, and am re-thinking how I want to do this for the future.  Clearly there is somewhat of a puzzle piece due to all the sizes of containers.  This is the first step of many, including the organization of cupboards, and etc.  Hopefully this goes well and I don't spend to much money on the equipment to reorganize.