Do You Even Cook, Bro?

[SCCY Marshal]

Have friends calling, this evening, and I don't want to heat up the kitchen. So made baked macaroni and cheese after morning calisthenics to be left in the fridge and later served at room temperature. Diced the remaining salami ends and rendered in a pan before draining and measuring the fat. Added bitter to get up to the volume needed, returned fat to the pan, sweated a diced onion, then in with freshly sliced garlic and dry ajika. Finished the mornay by cooking in my flour and then slowly whisking in the milk. Used about 2:1 ratio of pepperjack:cotija for cheese and a dab of fermented Thai chile paste. That was mixed in with slightly undercooked and unrinsed macaroni before baking.

As a finger food with tea service, dumped the last half-pound of liverwurst into ye olde food processor with sour cream, pickled jalapeño, and dry mustard. Pulsed until almost smooth save a fine mince of chiles. That's in the fridge to set and marinate together until evening. The dish will be placed on a cutting board with a baguette, bread knife, and spreader. Will also set out a dish each of olives and some sliced tomato to accompany.

Sweets will be limited to one storebought melon mochi roll per person as I happen to have exactly that many left in the pantry. Cold drinks will be more comprehensive with cucumber infused water and iced fruity/flowery rooibos tea lightly sweetened with honey, both prepared yesterday. Booze will be covered by bottled Coors Banquet and home-infused cherry rum with Coke and limes available.

Veggies aren't being disregarded. But tossing tinned beets with extra virgin olive oil, wine vinegar, salt, and freshly milled black pepper is hardly worth fussing over however delicious it is.

[SCCY Marshal]

Kids got a hankering for scones so they made some after the morning's backcountry swim. I brewed a pot of red label Yorkshire tea, scooped some orange marmalade into a serving dish, and stuck a spreader into a small jar of clotted cream. Kids additionally set out some orange flavored tea biscuits when I had my back turned. They're low calorie per cookie and delicious so I let it slide. We're planning a late fireside supper so a proper cream tea should hold us over nicely.

Lunch while drying on the bank of the swimming hole was turkey butt ends from the deli which I thickly sliced onto crusty honey sesame bread with thin smear of butter on one slice, good mustard on the other, sliced pickled jalapeños, Swiss cheese from Finland, and thinly sliced vidalia onion. Banana each and pack-temperature canteen water to accompany.

Wife is currently harvesting jalapeños at my folks' which I will be pickling with the kids. Then see if my fridge shelves survive. Eggs were on sale locally and someone gave us a dozen from their flock. So I conventionally pickled three dozen in a gallon jar (left one cup of water out of the ingredients last post, by the way), did a sweeter dozen with sliced tinned beets and the juice from in a simpler salt/sugar/cider vinegar/beet liquor brine. Also two quart jars of utopenci. The latter were just meat cooler pre-cooked link kielbasa done in a simple peppercorn, allspice, chile flake, white vinegar brine. Sausages prepped in the traditional style in being slit to open like buns, spread inside with mustard, stuffed with sliced yellow onion, and layered in the jar with more onion. We're not going to have much room for fresh food. Well, until a couple friends swing by come the weekend when a bunch of beer and a jar of utopenci get cleared out.

Will do a light supper, tonight. Most likely a vegetarian fried rice with last night's leftover rice.

[RJ]

I am sans spouse this week, so I put together a low-carb casserole tonight with what I had. It was really tasty.

In the event I want to make it again, here’s what I did:

In a large hot saucepan: 1/8 c EVOO, 1/8 c Avocado oil. Brown 1/4 onion, diced, 2 t California powdered garlic in pan. Add 12 oz lean ground beef, toss and let brown. Drain.

Separately cook Riced cauliflower veggie package in uwave. Mix veggie pack into beef mixture.

Grease a 12 x 12 casserole dish with 1 T butter. Dump mixture into dish. Season with salt/pepper. Layer with four slices American cheese and three slices of provolone cheese.

Place in a 350 oven for 15 minutes, or cheese is melted, basically.

It was really yummy.

[JAD]

Slice eggplant into nice steaks. Dice the leftover bits and set aside. Flour steaks, then dredge in beaten egg, then in 1/3 Parmesan 2/3 breadcrumbs. Really press the breading in, don’t be scared.

Let sit a while on a wire rack. Fry in a cup of olive oil for a minute or two per side until golden and return to rack. Dump oil, wipe pan, add some more oil, and sauté diced eggplant for a few minutes. Add a few cloves of garlic and diced tomatoes. Make a nice sauce, seasoning with oregano and lots of thyme and black pepper.

Let simmer while you bake the steaks at 450 for 12 minutes. Mix some parm and provolone. Arrange on the top of each steak and melt. Put a little sauce on a plate, then a steak, then a little sauce.

Leftover steaks are at their best on the third day.

[SCCY Marshal]

Was going to put on day three of the England/Pakistan test match but it's still on alternating rain and light delay. Instead made a cocktail sauce of 1/2 cup catsup, heavy teaspoon lemon juice, half teaspoon Worcestershire, about 3/4 teaspoon Louisiana hot sauce, and couple mounded tablespoons prepared horseradish (jarred, regrettably). Served with freshly butter seared shrimp, buttermilk biscuits with the last of the clotted cream, and cuppa. Plus a wheat beer for me. Day two highlights were watched in place of any live action.

Now to set-up cornhole boards for a match with friends, this evening. Plan to make chana masala, lemon rice, and freshly homemade whole wheat roti for supper with the company. Beer and a quart jar of utopenci for drinks and hors d'oeuvres. No sweets planned though there are both chocolate and orange tea biscuits in the cookie jar if anyone wants some with their tea. If I have a bit of spare time, I might maybe make some knock-off jammie dodgers with the kids. But that would cut into swimming time so likely not.

And I probably shouldn't call my dish chana masala. It will be a very bastardized version based on. Will use different spices based on waht we have one hand and shortcut the gravy with the soaked chickpeas in the trusty pressure cooker.

[RoyGBiv]

Was going to put on day three of the England/Pakistan test match but it's still on alternating rain and light delay. Instead made a cocktail sauce of 1/2 cup catsup, heavy teaspoon lemon juice, half teaspoon Worcestershire, about 3/4 teaspoon Louisiana hot sauce, and couple mounded tablespoons prepared horseradish (jarred, regrettably). Served with freshly butter seared shrimp, buttermilk biscuits with the last of the clotted cream, and cuppa. Plus a wheat beer for me. Day two highlights were watched in place of any live action.

Now to set-up cornhole boards for a match with friends, this evening. Plan to make chana masala, lemon rice, and freshly homemade whole wheat roti for supper with the company. Beer and a quart jar of utopenci for drinks and hors d'oeuvres. No sweets planned though there are both chocolate and orange tea biscuits in the cookie jar if anyone wants some with their tea. If I have a bit of spare time, I might maybe make some knock-off jammie dodgers with the kids. But that would cut into swimming time so likely not.

And I probably shouldn't call my dish chana masala. It will be a very bastardized version based on. Will use different spices based on waht we have one hand and shortcut the gravy with the soaked chickpeas in the trusty pressure cooker.

Bloody aces mate!

3 bone rack of Chuck ribs on the smoker here.
Expecting 105'F today. Need to go grab a bag of ice before I pour myself a drink and do nothing for the rest of the day.

[UNM1136]

A good cheap investment is a small coffee/spice grinder to make your own spice blends. I have one that I got for about $20 on amazon, toss in all the whole spices, pulse to where I like the consistency and toss in a container to store for future meals. You can recreate those kinds of spice packets and dial it in to your tastes with a little experimentation.

When you do this keep some cheap bulk white rice on hand. Fill the grinder with rice and grind to flour. Dump it. The finely ground starch particles will mop up any remaining spice particles, and absorb the volatile oils. That way your next spice mix doesn't necessarily taste or smell like your last spice blend. Much easier and thorough than trying to wash or wipe the grinder out.

Just watched Good Eats Reloaded...a spice grinder will also make Kosher salt into popcorn or pickling salt. Since running down the rabbit hole of artisan/flavored specialty salts, that is less staples to keep on hand...

pat

[SCCY Marshal]

Ate too much at supper. Settling down with a gin hound of the juice from two thick-rind grapefruit to get a measly 3/4 cup, half a lemon, four ounces of cherry infused well gin, and one ounce sweet vermouth. It's a nice change of pace from these made with straight gin and the cheap vermouth is still rough enough around the edges, ecen after infusing with fresh cherries, to stand up to the citrus without going flat and cloying as some will.

[SCCY Marshal]

Don't often eat breakfast, maybe once per week. Today started mellow and I felt an urge. After calisthenics, brewed a pot of cheap bagged tea, sliced the bottom off a fresh round of kefalograviera to about a 1/2" thick circle to make saganaki. Dunked the circle of cheese in water, flopped in all purpose flour, and sauteed about two minutes per side in oil. Cut into wedge-shaped quarters and served with small sections of lemon. Also poured a small glass of guava nectar for everyone and plain Maria biscuits to finish the light meal.

[SCCY Marshal]

While shopping, a nice little sirloin called to me. Finely minced and defatted it with a chef's knife before mixing with a healthy pinch of salt and dash of Worcestershire. Then packed into little custard cups to mould onto plates and dished the tops with the back of a spoon. The yolk of an egg went i to each well I'd created. Sliced a baguette on the bias and brewed one fresh pot of tea to accompany. My serving was also sided with some diced red onion, scoop of whole capers, and extra splash of Worcestershire. Steak tartare and tea out at the picnic table made for a particularly enjoyable lunch.

The deli had some interesting butt ends of this and that from the Labor Day surge wrapped together for cheap. My super will be what looks like a thick, inviting chunk of pickle and pimiento loaf on split top wheat with white American cheese, good mustard, sliced tomato, thin smear of butter on the bottom bread, couple spicy pickle spears and can of lychee drink on the side.

Tomorrow will be the day to make a potato salad involving the rest of today's jar of capers among other things, a simply dressed beet dalad, and chicken fried steak with envelope mix mushroom gravy. Will start a proper lemonade tonight by mixing sugar and lemon zest to become sherbet by morning. Don't usually do dessert but grabbed a small tiramisu at the shop. Will have that with tea after the gut-busting luncheon. Probably start the week's 24-hour fast from there.