Food

This morning was rather slow, given that my “Get up early, get stuff done” plan was waylaid by the strong feeling that even for all the tea in China, I wouldn’t want to get out of bed. Nice and cozy ftw! But of course, eventually this had to be substituted with starting the day.

If an hour or so late, my experiment with tamogoyaki went quite well. This is the first time I’ve mad a bottle of mirin to incorporate the flavor, which makes for a notably sweeter result. Half the omelets for breakfast, half saved for part of Monday’s lunch. Then off to iron out the grocery shopping. By lunch time everything was done, and I finally had my coffee. Which went well with some cornbread, which of course was not a low carb lunch but solved hunger for the afternoon. The coffee that I ground last week has held up well enough that much enjoyment was had.

Finding myself in that fickle mood where I know that I can’t spend all my time working, and sometimes I’m not in the mood to do anything restful or useful; I’d say this afternoon was an example in borderline stir crazy. But on the flip side, a split off into playing a bit of Battletech 2018 made for a pleasant way to unwind.

I also got to test out a “Splurge” as part of my dinner plans. Typically, I roast veggies by tossing them into a mixing bowl with some olive oil and seasoning, toss on a silpat on a baking sheet, and in it goes. The downside of course is this then means I’m stuck wiping out a mixing bowl with a paper towel and then having a larger item for the dishwasher’s top wrack, or a thing to soak/rinse after the food’s in the oven. With the whole blood pressure thing, I’m roasting veggies more often. Trying things the less clean-up way of toss veggies on the silpat, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle seasonings is a nice plan. But using the bottle of EVO, it just results in more puddling than oil properly applied to vegetables. Which in turn means more paper toweling down the silicone baking mat and sheet pan, and less even results.

In the past, I used to keep some of ma’s flask like cruets handy until I decided these were a bigger pain to clean than they made any real difference versus using the bottle directly. So, thinking on a solution, I decided to splurge on a nice leak free cruet that’s perfect for drizzling the veggies and that more importantly, is easily cleaned. For tonight’s dinner plans, roast carrots were on the menu which made a perfect opportunity to test this out.

I’m calling that cruet $16 very well spent, lol.

Waking up this morning, I wondered why the heck my watch was displaying the forecast a day out of date as I started getting dressed for work. Then about the time I’d be putting my socks on, I realized yesterday was Saturday which means today is not Monday, therefore it’s time for coffee not pants.

Decided to run with a higher volume version of last weekend’s impromptu experiment, of grinding enough coffee to last a while. Looks like my Shardor was up to grinding about 110~120 grams, which is pretty much max capacity. That should be enough freshly ground espresso roast to feed my Chemex pour over next weekend and the weekend after, on top of giving me an ample amount of coffee today. I’ve been guzzling coffee from the big cup almost all morning as of time of writing, and probably have about a regular cup’s worth left.

In retrospect, I should have gone easier on filling the bag when I bought the coffee beans. It was so full it was hard to close the baggy, and ordinarily I don’t buy full bags of beans the odd times that I’ll go with the spout instead of pre-packaged stuff in grocery stores. But I’ve got to admit, the espresso roast at Sprouts Farmer’s Market is working for me, and the beans last quite a darn long time. It offers a bit of a spicy feel for coffee, and seems to retain its flavor well whether making a more intense brew or a thinner brew.

Ahh, darn, now I’m tempted to make more coffee 😅

After quite a bit of Battletech 2018 and a break in the middle to sweep and mop all the floors, I set to work on the next phase of things. Kind of funny, in that kitchen time is in my head, a break from sitting at my desk, but hey, BT has been consuming a lot of my gaming cycles this month, lol.

I had an idea last night about making a low carb tuna salad. It’s inspired by a cucumber and watermelon summer salad I encountered in an YouTube video. That is to say instead of macaroni style full of carbs or pickle style full of salt, it’s built around veggies. Details in footnote.

While blanching some carrots for the tuna salad, I broke down some broccoli and sliced additional carrots for later roasting for dinner and during the week. Aptly, by the time this was done it’s close enough to when I’d have to cook, I decided to stay downstairs and break out Shion to work on this journal entry.

Footnote: my tuna salad experiment

1. Diced cucumber.
2. Diced, blanched carrots (between 1:0.75 and 1:1 ratio /w cucu’)
   • Effectively, I quartered the cucumber and carrots and then cut them thin so the pieces are similar in size: slightly less area than a fingernail.
   • Raw carrots are hard as fuck, thus they need blanching or steaming. 4 minutes in a boiling water and then into a bath of ice water to chill.
3. Sweet peppers, shredded
   • Already cleaned the cutting board when I did this and these are the seedless kind. So I simply snipped the ends, quarter, and then snipped my way lengthwise with a good kitchen scissors.
4. Spring onions, chopped.
5. Packet of tuna, 74g
   • 74g is about half a can.
   • Lower sodium light tuna, because I’m trying to cut down on salt for ye old blood pressure.
6. Black pepper to taste
   • And sadly, I don’t have any garlic powder handy.
7. Ranch dressing
   • I debated using oil/vinegar and opted to go with ranch.
   • I almost never have mayo, so most things people use mayo for I use ranch 😛

Simple plan of the day, well executed thus far. Got up early instead of sleeping in, despite the urge to read all of last night. Skipped the usual breakfast/coffee routine and hit the road for Sprouts Farmer’s market. Managed to take care of most of my shopping list, given it’s mostly the veggies needing resupply. Then hit Publix on the way back for odds and ends better acquired there.

Came home and then opted to make breakfast. Picked the most ready to nosh avocado from the sprouts trip and cut off a chunk of fresh baked bread from the Publix bakery. Made coffee. I kind of blame my ancestors for the urge to pour some coffee on the plate and dunk the bread, and still ended up dunking some in the cup just the same, lol. I was a little tempted to add a Roma from the previous batch of tomatoes as well.

Ahh, I forgot how much I enjoy making fresh coffee. Thanks to all that’s been going on, I’ve mostly used pre-ground coffee in recent months. I find that is best for convenance when you need to get rolling on the POTD but want caffeinated goodness in a cup. But grinding and brewing coffee is kind of therapeutic in its own way as far as morning rituals go.

Perhaps contrary to that joy, I finally decided to try an experiment that I’ve been meaning to. Normally, I only grind up enough coffee for one brewing. For me, that’s about 2 – 2 1/2 cups of Joe. This time, I ground a full load: there is probably enough for tomorrow and next Saturday, maybe next Sunday as well. Stored it in a air bag and then in one of my mother’s air tight jars that usually adorn my counter, one of which is labelled coffee and usually empty unlike the flour, sugar, and tea ones next to it. So, we’ll see how well it keeps. In any case, I went a wee bit overboard and stocked up on coffee beans enough not to have to worry for quite a while, lol.

After executing breakfast for dinner, I’m reminded that if I ever had to teach someone to cook, why I’d use eggs as an early lesson: they’re easy. Also reminded that a tamogoyaki pan has been on my wish list for quite a few years now, and that making eggs are one of the few times that I prefer non-stick cookware.

Pretty much if you can avoid putting egg shells in then pan: you can scramble or fry eggs. Quality may vary wildly between how fluffy and rubber like they turn out, but by and large they’re idiot proof. About the time they’ve started coagulating you probably hit temperature enough for them to be relatively safe to eat, and a new cook is more likely to overcook eggs and have to scrub the pan than they are to generate food poisoning from overly runny eggs. Making eggs are pretty tolerant of being cooked quickly at high heat or slower at low heat, and coagulate rapidly enough that it’s a good lesson in “Hey kiddo, don’t walk off while you’re cooking!” Plus if you add enough cheese, you’ll probably have something edible unless you chip a tooth 😅

Having spent a life around electric ranges, I’m beginning to understand why my mother and most folks I’ve known prefer gas stoves. At first it felt like relearning how to boil and simmer all over but I greatly appreciated the speed savings for making pasta, my first home cooked meal here. The rapid heat control is rather nice for making eggs, especially if you tend to favor the hot and fast approach to scrambling. Making me happy that my first eggs cooked on gas came out both nice and quickly. Plus, compared to the stoves my mother described (or worse, learned to cook on back in the ’50s), any gas range made in this millennium is an auto igniting electric. So even a schmuck like me can use one, lol.

Much healthier than I would usually make when doing lunch at home, and frankly it’s a day when I’d be more apt to have McDonald’s or La Madeleine than make something at home.

Figured since todays plans calls for being more active than ordinary, a whole sandwich and a nice salad would be more filling than either half and chips or only a salad. Plus the net result is a sandwich more in line with the doc’s advice than making it two, and incorporates more greens and veggies since I was already making a sandwich.

Remains to be seen if it proves filling enough, but I suspect that with an apple in between it should get me to dinner reasonably well. What I should really do is investigate some type of light salad dressing, even if salad dressing is basically defined in terms of fat and salt, lol.

Finding myself in the position where it’ll take too long to cook versus need to eat before I chew the world apart, I opted to visit the local burger place. It’s kind of sad that it’s the least healthy thing I’ve eaten all week, but it’s also the most satisfying thing I’ve eaten all week.

Yeah, I think tonight’s a cheat day as far as the healthy eating goes, lol.