Journal

Martha Redbone - Temple Theater - 4/12/2024

We were sitting at one of the comedy series shows and looking at the upcoming items in the Live at the Temple concert series, and just reading the description, without knowing anything about the artist, sounds like something I’d like, so I asked Shannon and she said sure and we bought tickets. As a note, I tried to get tickets for the tables, but several of them had a seat taken and a seat reserved for handicapped, so we couldn’t buy 2 seats at a table, leaving the handicapped seat by itself. So we ended up on the risers. For the most part, we ware on the younger side of those that attended, with a handful, much younger. It was stunningly good. Not knowing what to expect, as I did no research, and Shannon did a little.

We had dinner downstairs and headed up to the concert.

I think we were both stunned. She has an emotive and beautiful voice, and the backing band, including her husband, was quite talented. She moved between classics that she doesn’t want to be forgotten, the album they our touring on, which is based on William Blake poems and the various projects that she’s been involved in.

Of the strong performances over the course of the night, her performance of Blackbird, was fantastic (from another show).

2024 - Week 14 Cooking Results

Sausage

As always, good things.

Tuna Steaks

I went to a different hy-vee in hopes that I would be able to find some ingredients I want for recipes that look good, and was unable to find them, however I did get some tuna steaks that were shockingly similar in size, as opposed to what normally happens, where one is big and one is small. I added a bit of soy sauce to each side and baked them off. I served them with some greens.

Lamb Burgers

Salt, pepper, a bit of momofuku tingly salt, paired with a cheese and we had a bit of delicious dinner.

Egg Salad (vaguely based on)

I recently saw Shannon make an egg salad, and thought it would be a good thing. It was, perhaps, a bit more liquid then I would have liked, but not to much, just enough to be a bit annoying, even so, the flavor was good.

Hummus (for Shannon)

This was a bit different form her last one, and I think looked better. Also I had lemons, unlike last time when I had to use a vinegar (beach rose) as the acid. I once again used the beechwood smoked salt, to get it up to that level, but also dusted it with smoked hot paprika. Which looked nice over the hummus. This more successful, judging by the amount taken, then last time.

Pork tacos with orange salsa

I tried to segment t and remove the membranes, and then gave up and ate the orange and then put the ingratiates as things to add or without he pork. I did not have the sazon, so I skipped that. I thought I had another type, but after a cupboard search it didn’t appear so. Even so, it was still a good combination and pretty good meal, even though I barely followed the recipe.

Meatloaf

Should I have made this, perhaps not as tall as I did. Yes, it would’ve saved on cooking time, but it looked quite good as I used lamb, beef and pork as the mixture., but the rest was mostly the same, I swapped the chili powder and cayenne for chipotle powder. I also made mashed potatoes using the last of the potatoes that I had bought. While cooking the kitchen go a bit warm, but it was nice enough outside I opened a window in the kitchen and two in the living room to create a nice breeze through he house. Great meatloaf, looking forward to having some leftover sandwiches.

During the Action Movie Saturday, for Sisu (excellent), I had intended to sip on some wine, but the movie was fast paced enough that I didn’t think I could take a break. I ended up drinking it later that night.

2024 - Week 13 Cooking Results

Sausage

Deliciousness defined.

Gochujang Sloppy Sammys

I went about making my sort of kind of combination of ingredients with a big add of gochujang. Then I thought hey, I could also add this locally produced ‘hot” sauce that I didn’t particularly like. Unfortunately for me, this went to dominate the flavor with the turmeric. I mean we ate it, but I wasn’t as thrilled by it.

Baked Ham and Cheese Sandwiches

An order of Bread by Chelsa roles, some rosemary ham, and wonderful cheese and baked in the oven for a bit. It made for a good meal. I suppose I could’ve done it during the week, but the rolls were available for pickup on a Saturday. It made for a “I’ve done enough today” meal where it was easy to make and quite good results. With the expected quality of the ingredients, it’d be hard to mess it up.

Sour Cream and Onion Pasta

While the water was coming to temp, I was able to do most of the rest of the work, and then this came together quite easily. A bit of oven time with the chips, and we had a nice dinner. I shouldn’t have used the whole time, as some of the chips started to get a bit over done.

Salmon with Honey Chili Crunch

I probably should have followed the recipe rather than just using the spicy honey. I had to pull off the back skin, since it wanted skinless, which kind of tore the meat a bit. Anyways after baking it was still good and served with some spinach, and just past best by date croutons.

Bagel Breakfast Casserole

What does one do when they have everything bagel seasoning? Make dishes like this, I suppose. I made this on Sunday, since it seemed to require a bit more time and I could start a bit earlier. It was pretty good.

2024 - Week 12 Cooking Results

Sausage

Back in stock in the freezer, back in making simple dinners on short cooking nights. Good meal.

Wagyu Corned Beef Sandwich

I saw that the cheese shop posted about this and I was lucky enough to get the last package after a busy week at work. This made for quite good sandwiches on Bread by Chelsa. This was about all the effort I could make. I was quite happy with them over all.

Smoked Salmon and Potato Frittata

I kind of made a turn here. Having a seasoned salad didn’t sound like it’d go over well, so I I combined it into the eggs. And maybe that’s why it was less than I thought it should be. Perhaps I should’ve just stuck with the smoked salmon and etc. Oh well, I think it was still ok. and ate the leftovers.

Baked Ziti

So there is clearly something in Creole Seasoning that just tickles my nose. This a mild issue, for the over all dish. It was not to much effort of what it turned into. Using fresh mozzarella and high quality Parmigiano reggiano. This turned out well, and leftovers were eaten with glee.

Spicy Coconut Chicken Noodle Soup

Oh it’s a rotisserie chicken that’s 2.5# not 2.5# of meat. The store didn’t have any rotisserie chicken on hand, so I got the pre-picked chicken and went from there. I didn’t end up getting 2.5#, but still more then would be on an entire chicken. This ended up making a super meaty soup. Quite good. Enough so that we both had leftovers.

2024 - Week 10 Cooking Results

Sausage

The other hot dogs in the pack. All Pork, All Good.

Sous vide Pork Loin (Sunday)

First off I modified something I found the internet, and by modified I basically used their ingredients and modified that and ignore the rest.

  • 1 cup yellow mustard

  • 1 cup Dijon mustard

  • 1/2 cup brown sugar

  • 1 tsp black pepper

Mixed together.

I then added a good chunk of that the varied sizes of pork loin that I cut down (before putting them back in the freezer, put that in the vacuum sealer and sealed them up and heated them up to a bit under cooked.

I took this out of the bag, brushed it with a bit more sauce and put it in the oven to finish off. I made some mashed potatoes and served it over that with mustard. I ate leftovers several days afterward.

Chicken Scarpariello

I got a rough day text message and we got something else, so this’ll have to be delayed a bit.

Chicken Juk

Simple, I used stock instead of water. I used sambel olek, since I have more then one container again.

Hamburger

Pork! a few spices and going from there.

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.

Organized closet

So I have been looking for my camera stands, not that hard, but a bit. so I ended up cleaning the front hall closet. I separated each of our gloves and winter hats in boxes, and there is a box of scarves. A separate box of non winter hats (ball caps that I can’t remember the last time I wore, and other sun protections). I demoted some coats to the back.

2024 - Week 8 Cooking Results

Hamburgers

Lamb! Added a bit of herbs and spices, salt and pepper and some deliciousness.

Baked Potatoes

Used the rest of the potatoes that were in the bag I bought, before things started to grow to much. Bacon, butter, sour cream, salt and pepper.

Mac & Cheese

They had some Beecher’s Hatch pepper mac and cheese at our last visit to costco, so we picked it up. As a note, Beecher’s is part of the Sugar Mountain family of companies, which includes The Butcher’s Table, where my brother has worked for quite a while.

It was quite good, they make a pretty good mac and cheese.

Grilled Cheese

Much to my own failing memory delight, I accidentally ordered 3 loaves of bread. I knew I would have bread to make the grilled cheese, but as things started to come together on Friday, I had one through the food coop and two directly ordered from a baker. So I dropped two in gallon freezer bags then put them in the freezer used the third to make grilled cheese with beef bologna. Good sandwich.

One-Pot “Mary Me” Chicken and Noodles

I skipped over a couple of items. The sun-dried tomatoes, the chives. I replaced the heavy cream with half and half, cause I thought I has already used the only recipe that needed it. I got annoyed by the directions a bit. I juiced the lemon in and poured it in a glass, with the intent to mix it with some elderflower to have a nice drink, only to find I needed about half of it. But since it says, one lemon, zested, I just assumed it wanted the zest only and not the juice.

Even so, it was a pretty good meal. Since we are already married, I guess it works?

Buttermilk Pancakes

Good as always.

A conversation with a friend reminded me that I had some cinnamon soaking in vodka for a bit. My notes about it were simple:

83g cinnamon sticks
706g vodka
Started late 11/21/2021

I took them out on 2/23/2024, meaning it was soaking for 823 days. I sampled a bit and it has a strong cinnamon scent, but is not as spicy as cinnamon “whiskey" I’ve had.