Journal

2024 - Week 42 Cooking Results

This past week I spent quite a bit of time just being there, as my brother recovers from a surgery. We had a good time wandering around the metro area, stopping at places he likes or that he thinks I like and a restaurant that he goes to from time to time. I ordered out (some excellent pizza, some very good hand pies) a bit and used what we bought grocery shopping to make breakfast lunch and dinner.

Beef Stew

Using what he had, and what I bought, I made a nice beef stew. I may have been a little intoxicated to taste well enough, so I had to salt it enough, after he tasted it, and added a bit to much apple cider vinegar (my bad, but not too too much just a bit much). I used some leftover (!!) American Wagyu beef that he had, potatoes, onions, carrots to make for a nice dinner and Lunch the next day.

Goulash

I adapted this a bit, because i used pork, instead of beef, as he eats / cooks a lot of beef. And I used more paprika then anything I saw called for (half smoked, half hot). I bought some cultured sour cream for this purpose and then forgot to add it, until I was eating it, so I gave him and myself a bit of a dollop, then added the rest of the sour cream and left him with quite a bit of leftovers.

I think he’s got a pretty good start on recovery, and I hope it goes very well. Shortly after I left my parents had flew in to took over, at a bit more of a distance (I stayed in his apartment, they will not be). I had quite the layover in Denver, so I caught up on work for that day, and after eating, worked in a coffee shop, in the airport, for a few hours. Got to a good stopping point a good hour 15 minutes before my flight. I was able to charge up my laptop from the morning’s use and also get my new backup battery charged up for the most part. I got home a bit after 10:PM and once I got off the flight I called Shannon to come get me.

I’ll miss just hanging out, shooting the breeze, making jokes and just being there with my brother, but I also slept well in my bed last night, with Máni between us, and this morning I woke up to Loki sitting on top of my side while I finished sleeping.

2024 - Week 27 Cooking Results

Sausage

Back to good ole Crooked Gap delicious brats.

Sweet and Savory Corn Casserole

After making this, I realized that there is not a lot of corn meal in it. It is definitely more focused on the corn, which is perfectly fine. Not quite what I was expecting, but it worked. I added some of the Noma corn “hot” sauce, which was a nice addition of flavor.

Shrimp Piccata Pasta

I added more anchovies and made some other minor adjustments, but as it stands it was quite good. The shrimp I got this time was a lot better then what I normally get.

Chicken Salad

Started with some pulled chicken, I admit I was hoping for smoked, and went from there. Good meal good as a snack, served on a mediocre sourdough.

Orange Beef with Sugar Snap Peas

I started with two oranges, and was able to get plenty of zest, but not quite enough orange juice. I thought about running out to getting another orange, but didn’t. This came together pretty easily. and I think it had a nice orange flavor after the fact. This was the first solid beef I’ve had since the last hospital visit.

Either I, or the website to renew my drive’s license failed, so I decided I would go in, however after looking for documentation, I was only able to find not quite enough, so I filled out the online renewal form again, and this time it went through, though my new license could arrive after my existing license expires. But while doing that discovery, I noticed that our fire resistant safe had a bunch of old documents in. The first thing I noticed were the speaker manuals, for speakers I gave away and donated. On 7/4, 7/5 and a bit of 7/6, I parsed through the paper work.

Original required summary of car of my very old car? Yep. Receipt for my first MacBook? Sure why not. my 1993 W-2. Um…I guess?

Anyways, other then me missing a rabies tag and trying to shred it (didn’t go well), things went pretty smoothly, And now there is a lot of shredded stuff that will go out over the next while or so. Some of the stuff brought back memories, some made me wonder why I kept it. The rest are documents we actually need, or things that need to be scanned in, but there is less then half left of what was in there (this includes empty hanging folders). I’ll get the scanning done at some point, but it does feel a bit better to have that taken care of.

2024 - Week 25 Cooking Results

Sausage

Saw these bras at the Cheese Shop, while I was still in recovery mode. So I avoided buying them, until I thought, hey I can handle a cased sausage now. These were quite good and am happy I bought them.

Taco Salad

Extra beans, for more fiber. Good things.

Kimchi and Ham Steak Fried Rice

Part of me though, hey I should pull a ham out of the freezer, the other part thought, that is a lot of commitment to ham right now. So I picked up some ham steaks and went from there. Made it before, will make it again.

Thai-Style Chicken and Sweet Potato Curry

Vaguely followed the recipe, wanted to add more curry paste, but didn’t have it. I did add sambal olek to mine, which was a nice flavor booster.

Glazed Salmon

Put off from a bit before, defrosted the salmon, cooked it and went forward. Good meal. Served with a salad.

Baked Macaroni and Cheese with Sausage and Peppers

While we had planned to stay at the Matta’s which means we usually run behind on the weekend, and Shannon has to take off time way in advance. So I used the extra time on the Monday to take the time to make this meal, as it would normally be a weekend meal. But it came together well. I would’ve cooked the noodles a bit less, since they were a wee bit over cooked in the dish (maybe 9 minutes instead of 10). Still good and a nice mixture.

I ordered my new office chair (Steelcase Series 2) and it had been sitting in a box upstairs because I assumed it would be challenging to put together (since June 6th). This past Monday, I ended up unpacking it and we moved the pieces downstairs and put it together.

It was shockingly easy to put together. So much so that I thought I had messed it up. I’ve been using it this week and it’s been a bit of an adjustment as I’ve been sitting on my current chair for at least a 14 years or so. I’ve never been a big fan of the adjustable arms rests, I kind of like them fixed, but so far it’s working out. I’ve been sitting up a bit straighter. So far so good

I went to the Downtown Farmers Market for the first time this year. It was nice to get up early, walk around and see how things are going down there. There has been quite a bit of turnover. I did get an arepa, which I had been missing quite a bit along with some other breakfast things. I brought some veggies to bring home along with some tarts and hand pies for lunch. I showed off my scar a bit, but didn’t repeat the story.

2024 - Week 24 Cooking Results

Sausage

Last of the package we had open, have several new choices as I picked up a few along the way.

Egg and Sausage Muffins

Easy, done.

Tangy Chili Pork Noodles

I started from frozen pork, which made this take quite a bit longer, but was eventually get the appropriate effect. Good meal.

Bourbon Chicken

I made this on Friday 6/15/2024, which by some perspective would have been the end of my self enforced sobriety (59 days). The bourbon chicken itself is still quite good, I should’ve used a bit more chicken (more than one pack of CostCo chicken boneless thighs). Still good though.

Gochujang Chicken and Tortellini

An easy make, and welcoming myself back into the mostly full range of diet (still going to avoid large hunks of meat for a bit). Good like I remember, relatively easy to make, and I was using my left arm almost as normal. Still a bit careful lifting things, but certainly less than I have been. Good meal.

On Saturday we headed to our niece C’s graduation party, after a bit of debate back and forth for me. The day turned out well, got to see Wade and Hope (not long enough), The whole Matta family, Jane and a few others a long the way. After that we headed home, because I’m still not sleeping super great, so better at home than bugging others. We decided on the way to go out for dinner so we tried out Hugo’s Wood Fired Kitchen, which is fairly close to us. Quite good, attentive service, reasonable prices. I had a nice cocktail here (mint, bubbles, and St Germain, I think). And this is where I count my self imposed “help the body heal” sobriety end to be (60 days).

So since I left the hospital on 5/10/24, I have been struggling with my GI track. Treating my GI tract gently then thinking lets go back to fiber heavy, but being wrong, then gently, then introducing the mostly full diet (next is full diet w/ a bit more fiber). It has been a challenge as my GI tract adjusts from having no food, to easy to digest food, to mostly a full diet. Things feel weird, I would never know if gas was just gas, or would come with something else along the way. I’d depart meetings in the middle or near the end because I had to. This past week, I’ve kind of brought things back around to my normal behavior (3/4 tsp of the fiber supplement, every other day, and exercise 6 days a week), and it appears, for now, that things are behaving as they should. My tract aligned late Friday night and behaved Saturday morning, so I decided that we would take the risk. Extra shorts and etc in hand we made the trip and things turned out fine and even on I-80 during a race day, traffic wasn’t too bad (this has not always been the case).

The last time I drove this far, I had a cast on, and my right hand/arm got really tired cause normally I would switch off. but in this case, I was able to swap back and forth between both hands. Some of my left arm was a bit tired, as I’m still in recovery mode, but for the most part, it was nice to drive, and not worry to much about things.

2024 - Week 22 Cooking Results

Sausage

Back to Hereford goodness.

Egg & Sausage Sandwiches

Easy Meal, good things.

One-Pot Shrimp Piccata Pasta

I tried to up the recipe to use the whole 14 ish oz of pasta that I had, and I don’t think I reduced the broth quite enough, but it still worked out and was pretty good.

Thai Style Chicken and Sweet Potatoes

So on the list of things that should be ok to use is the sweet potatoes. A bit of chicken a lot of sweet potatoes and some flavor boosting items that made for a good meal, that sat pretty well in my body.

I am still generally tired and it’s hard to do much when my GI track is generally untrustworthy. I’m rethinking my personal diet a bit and will make some adjustments until such a time that things get better.

I had a huge internet outage last week, along with good chunks of Central Iowa, so I’m going to get a second backup internet provider, also fiber, which will be interesting. They’re coming Tomorrow and I’ll have to make sure they are aware that they are a backup and if they disrupt my primary, I’ll not be pleased.

During the outage, after trying for hours to get a hold of someone, they tried to up-sell me to “quantum” fiber which, I was like I have fiber. it seemed vaguely absurd.

Flogging Molly - Road to Rebellion Tour - Val Air Ballroom - 3/5/2024

With Amigo the Devil plus Gen and the Degenerates.

I took today off cause I decided I’m to old to work the next day after a concert. I thought about getting up when my alarm went off, but turned it off instead and slept for another hour and half.

We met up with Jenny and Nathan at Either / Or and had dinner. Afterwards I went off with Jenny and Nathan and Shannon headed home.

The venue, itself, which I haven’t been to in a while (Fall Out Boy maybe?), is definitely improved and more modern. I was reminded in the bathroom of how terrible it was before the remodel. The ceiling is covered in sound dampening tiles, which will help reduce the escape of sound, which made the neighbors a bit annoyed. A good refresh and I’m looking to go to more shows there.

The show opened up with Gen and the Degenerates, which, was not for me. I don’t want to rule them out yet, but I’ll listen to some of there music. Second was Amigo the Devil, which after a song that we didn’t get, immediately was definitely for me. Enough so, that I went to go get a shirt, even after my first exposure. Unfortunately, they didn’t have anything close to my size, so I ended up with a bumper sticker. I added a bunch of the music to my library to parse and dive into.

Flogging Molly, my first time seeing them, came on and just put on a solid fast paced show. It was quite fun, energetic and even overrode the general body complaints that the rest of me started to feed back. Came away with a shirt, even after an explicit discussion from Shannon that I really need to filter out some t-shirts as they are taking up an entire closet and are packed in.

2024 - Week 6 Cooking Results

Sausage

I guess this turned into hamburgers which got delayed. Oh yeah, cause I’m out of sausages, at least ones to use for what I mean by this.

Chana Masala

I ended up taking Friday off, between the long term outage and some other general nonsense it was nice to have a day with almost no plans. I exercised, payed some video games, got in a nap. I started making this around 4:Pm debated on using rice or flat bread, and went with rice. Good things. I used some of the salsa I made on it.

Hot Honey Peanut Noodles

I had planned on doing Chana Masala, but I was working on something later then I intended so I threw this together earlier in the week and went from there.

Baked Potatoes

A nice starchy dinner, fried a bit of bacon, sour cream, butter and salt and pepper. Good things.

After a bit of convincing, I flip-through one of my ebook cookbooks I have, Oaxaca: Home cooking from the Heart of Mexico, and found a nice simple recipe for Guacachile (Creamy Serrano Salsa). After Shannon went to bed on Monday, I did the dishes and then started making this with my fancy new blender (not that fancy). I got the onion, lime juice blended up a bit, then I started to fry the chilies in avocado oil (modification from this recipe but called for in others). I became a bit worried that I would create a cloud of capsaicin, so I didn’t use the high heat like it called for, but I did fry them and only had a cough or two myself, so luckily I didn’t wake up Shannon.

I let the peppers and oil cool a bit, then blended everything until it was nice and smooth. Tasted, added a bit of salt, tasted, added a bit more salt, and tasted, and then a bit more (3/8ths tsp per doubled recipe). I was happy with the flavor, the heat and texture. It does tend to break a bit if you leave it to long, but it’s supposed to be served very fresh and it doesn’t make to much. I did win one of the many awards for it at work (though I think mine was the only one in this particular category).

2024 - Week 4 Cooking Results

Sausage

Tuesday would’ve been a trip for a team meeting, but due to an ice storm, or at least a mixture, worse in where I was going then here, so I ended with a normal Tuesday, mostly. So the Hot dogs came in handy as a quick dinner hater hanging out at the Cheese Shop for a bit. Good things.

French Bread Pizza

With the leftover jared sauce and some frozen pepperoni from La Quercia and some smoked mozzarella. Good dinner, vaguely following the cooking directions from ATK.

Hamburger

Double Delayed!

We ended up going to Basic Bird which is new to the Beaverdale neighborhood, but not new to Des Moines (was a Sunday thing at Harbinger). It was busy, but quick paced. After waiting in line for a bit, mostly cause this older couple in front of us had trouble deciding what to do and ordering things that they hadn’t already run out of. Shannon decided then went to claim a place to site. Shannon had the Cheese Rice Dumplings bowl. We shared the honey butter french fries. and I had the boneless chicken with Spicy Gochujang and the Potato Salad, Shishito Peppers and Cucumber Kimchi. I also had a flavored soju. I hope I can get original at some point. Good Time, good food, much better then having to drive it home (not that it’s bad, but, not as crunch). With a challenging Friday, the leftover chicken and kimchi made for a delightful highlight to the day.

Friday work things went a bit off the rail, and after a lot of worrying and etc, hopefully everything got resolved, but by the end of the day I was exhausted, so given the offer, Shannon went and picked up food at B-Bops. Thus a second delay.

Shrimp Fried Rice

While I had leftover rice from before, this assumed I’d be making the rice, so that shortened the time frame a bit. Quickly came together after I took a not quite as short as I intended nap. When I was getting up to make the dish, the power blipped a bit, and a bit then out. After trying to figure out what was going on then reporting it to the power company, I pulled out some kitchen flashlights (one from my mother in law, one from one of my brothers) and started preparing dinner in the dark. I made sure to get everything other of the fridge at the same time, use a lighter to get the stove going. It came together pretty well, with the lights coming back on shortly before I finished. Unlike the last power outage, where I swore I was going to get more of these solar rechargeable flash lights, I actually found them and put them in a cart. The flashlight has been sitting on the window above the sink with other nicknacks, to make it handy to grab there.

Thai Coconut Chicken Soup

Easy to put together, good food. Used the last sweet potato I had in the house.

2024 - Week 2 Cooking Results

This week has been a bit snowy. The first storm, Monday to Tuesday, dumped a heavy near a foot (above or below +/-2”). The second, (Thursday to Friday) also dumped around a foot (+/- 2”). So far I have had 11 snow removal sessions for a total of 7 hours and 24 minutes and 4808 calories burned.

I say so far, because I have to do touch up for the extra inch that showed up yesterday, and still have to clean off my car and my half of the driveway. So far the worst parts has been the snow thrown on the street sidewalk, and the pile left at the end of the driveway.

Buttermilk Pancakes

Good things.

Sausage

Brats! Crooked Gap!

Taco Salad

Good as always.

Hot Honey Peanut Noodles

So I turned off into another thing. I used the peanut butter and sauce packets with rice vinegar, but fried up eggs and cooked up some diced spam. It was good and warming after the first couple of rounds of snow removal.

Bourbon Chicken

Not my first time making it, not the last. I did buy my normal bourbon (Cedar Ridge) and did make it through quite a bit of the bottle before I actually used it for this recipe. I think I had more then 2 pounds of chicken so I probably should’ve upped the sauce amount, but didn’t, even so, tasted good and good over rice.

As a note I also used some chili garlic sauce as it had returned to the store for the first time in a bit and one forgets how good it actually is.

Sloppy Joes

Will gochujang be a definite add from time to time to my random sloppy joes? Yes, yes I think it might. This was quite good and combined with the Napa cabbage salad topper. I used some butter burger buns, produced locally. I was hoping to pickup beef this week, but with the rounds of snow, I actually ordered for next week, so hopefully I’ll be stocked up again with meat from Crooked Gap.

2024 - Week 1 Cooking Results

Apparently I caught a stomach flu grocery shopping last week, and I passed it to Shannon later. It had about the same incubation time for each (a day or two or so) before it expresses itself. While I recovered faster, it did change out things quite a bit.

Turkey Lasagna (this is what the Matta’s had for dinner and it sounded quite good)

I substituted 1.5 pounds of turkey sausage, with 2 pounds of Crooked Gap Italian sausage, and I used smoked mozzarella, instead of sliced. I ended up using feta, since I hat forgotten to pick it up in my normal trip, and it did add a bit of fine goat cheese flavor to it. I had to short out that last 1/4th cup of parmesan since, I had to save some for the garlic bread I made, without parsley. It was quite tasty and made for a nice thing to do on New Year’s day.

Sausage

Brats, Good, like fire.

Burger

I dug around in the freezer for a bit, before shopping and couldn’t find anything, so I picked up some grass fed beef at the store. Added some herbs and spices and cooked them up.

I kept it down just fine, my dear wife, not so much.

Hot Honey Peanut Noodles

Delayed! I planned on making this on the night after the morning I emptied myself, but clearly did not.

Irish Stew and Soda Bread

Delayed!