Food

Tonight, I managed to execute some delicious and well planned mischief meal planning. One of today’s primary objectives was to make a trip to Sprouts Farmer’s market in search of fresh produce. In my neck of the woods, it’s often the best place to get fresh vegetables at the lowest prices, but also an inconvenient trip compared to my usual supermarket. Not exactly the best deals on meat, especially when you’re not overly crazy about the details. But, not wanting to make two trips, I opted to splurge a bit.

This lead to the perfect plan: pork chops in the oven, along with sprouts and carrots to roast. Meanwhile, prepared an onion and tossed a ribeye on the cast iron. I rather figured, if I was going to make sprouts and sliced carrots, then I may as well go ahead and make the pork. This thinking in turn, lead me to consider that if I had the smarts to chop the onion ahead of cooking the steak, I’d have those perfecto by the time the meat was done cooling off. I mean, the skillet is already greased and hot, so why the hell not take advantage?

Well, for some folks this plan might seem trivial but for me it’s more of a special occasion meets planning. See, I rarely bother to make a steak at home anymore. It’s usually too narrow a margin to get it right and fairly wasteful when cooking for one. It’s the kind of thing I’d cook more often if I had a grill outside, or more mouths to feed.

Left to my own devices, I also like to get most of the cooking done over the weekend, so I’ll prefer meals that don’t require rapt attention and generate leftovers. Steaks, done right, fit in the spectrum of “Don’t bother me, I’m cooking.” Not something I’d combine with making food for a couple days.

Three points of success made me happy: fresh roasted sprouts, which are freaking delicious; not messing up the steak; and the combination of oil and onions leading to my cast iron skillet being trivially cleaned afterwords.

I love it when a plan comes together.

Buying a jar of Mayo for the first time in about ten years, I almost feel like I’ve violated a personal rule of some sort. On the other hand, I’m going with Turkey Salad as a plan, or is it an escuse 🤔

Today largely went according to plan. Bird in the oven by early afternoon, with potatoes and casserole going in about the time it came out to rest.

I actually can’t remember the last time that I made turkey for Thanksgiving. Since the dogs were the only ones left who really enjoyed turkey, the past couple of years I’ve made lasagna. Something that my mother would consider sacrilege, but my grandmother might have been fine with, lol.

For me, it was largely a quiet day spent on the couch. A good contrast from my typical days off, where I’m chiefly in front of a computer all day. Although, I’ll admit that I was more interested in catching the end of I’m Mita, Your Housekeeper than the premiere of Stanger Things 5. Still, it was refreshing to actually relax for a change.

On the flip side, my health is mostly stable on the cold front. In so much as I’m probably 80% or more back to normal, mostly plagued by the nasal dregs rather than the sore throat. So, yay for not being sick on the actual holiday!

Today, I learned that you can buy an ice cream scoop that is heated. Not only that, but people have taken it to the point of USB rechargeable with LED displays…. honestly, I’m not sure if that’s going too far or falls into the realm of “Why the hell did no one think of this yet.”

Source: https://apple.news/A8shHsT44Tea2y4n7-wQ1rg

Experiments in the kitchen of late have generally revolved around Japanese food and techniques, specifically applications for dashi broth and miso paste.

Tonight’s dinner plan was pretty much a take on takikomi gohan, based on wondering what rice cooked in dashi would taste like. Honestly, I can say that there is only one problem with this entire concept—it smells awesome while the rice is cooking!

Like really, not only was the food delicious and uncomplicated to make…but it felt like driving with delicious food riding shotgun,you know where it smells so good that it’s almost a form of torture having to wait for it 😂.

Yes, I think it’s safe to say that the experiment was yummy 😋

An idea occurred to me last night that I decided to try this morning: omelet in muffins.

I’m reminded of my mother telling me as a kid that her father managed to destroy several toasters trying to make homemade McMuffins when they came out in the early 1970s. Never really understood how you would do that, short of putting runny egg in the toaster. In my case, I simply put two whipped eggs in a greased tamagoyaki pan and only folded it over in half to finish before cutting that in half. Perhaps this is ironic considering that my grandfather was in the pacific theater during WWII, lol.

One muffin was made with a thick slice of snack-cheddar so that it would melt just enough to get soft and spongy enough to fill the crevices of the muffin and omelette, and the other with the available sandwich cheese at hand (a thin slice of Swiss). Kinda made me wish that I had bothered to grab some ham or pastrami while I was at it, but alas I did not.

Since I’ve been watching the sodium and cholesterol intake with my blood pressure, I’ve tried to avoid the temptation to take a Drive-Thru breakfast on the way to work over this past year. So I found this a rather nice breakfast, if rather large for me. Between the lack of ham and my disinclination to salt the shit out of my food, each probably represents half the sodium content of one McMuffin.

One of the banes of my cooking experience has always been macaroni and cheese. It’s something that I’ve never been able to make the way that my mother did, and generally don’t make because I suck at it.

In Googling recipes, I encountered an interesting idea for one for a baked macaroni and cheese: using a roux as the foundation of the cheese sauce. That’s definitely nothing like how my mother used to make it, and we didn’t bake it either. I didn’t opt to try the recipe, nor bake it, but I wanted to try the concept. Because it makes sense even if it’s not how I was taught.

Result? Well, a light roux of salted butter and flour meets milk and cheese equals the best macaroni and cheese I’ve ever made. Ordinarily, I always find the results lacking or calling for lethal doses when I try to replicate my mother’s methods. Well, a roux isn’t how she did it but it sure makes for a good meal 😋