What Are You Eating Today?

[Treedbear]

Made a new recipe I got off Milk Street tv show called Roman Braised Beef. As with almost all my stews it turned out a bit underwhelming. I've come to the conclusion that using lean cuts of meat, whether it's beef, pork, or chicken, just doesn't work with a stew. I used a top round cut for the beef and it came out pull-apart tender. But it lacked that beefy flavor you get from just cooking it low and slow in the oven and then searing in a skillet. It seems all the flavor comes out of the meat when it's simmered for hours in a sauce. That happens with my Chili Verde with pork too where I use the loin cut. And yet I enjoy the same lean cuts when cooked at 275 for 1/2 hr in the oven and then pan seared. So I'm now thinking that the way to go is using that method but instead of going through all the trouble to make a stew I'll just serve it along with some type of salsa or tapenade like ronburgundy recently described in the thread on toppings for bread. That said, I made a batch of spaghetti sauce with turkey meatballs today. We'll see how it turned out at dinner tomorrow, but this is a recipe that's been evolving over many years and is now pretty much a sure thing. Really made a mess of the kitchen, but it should yield 10 or 12 servings that I'll freeze. Tomorrow I'll start the day by baking a loaf of bread. That's another sure thing.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

And for “dessert,” it is several spoonsful of maple syrup as I boil down sap from our trees. Cannot tell you how good homemade maple syrup is. It beggars belief.

You've succeeded in making me envious.

 

[crazyfingers]

And for “dessert,” it is several spoonsful of maple syrup as I boil down sap from our trees. Cannot tell you how good homemade maple syrup is. It beggars belief.

When I was a kid my dad made maple syrup. He tapped all the sugar maples and made lot of it over several seasons. Somehow one jar was saved. I wonder how a 1973 jar of syrup would be?

At the moment though I'm included to never open it and pass it down the generations as a family heirloom.

 

[Treedbear]

I still have a quart jar of honey mixed with comb that I saved from when I had a couple bee hives 40 years ago. I think I'll ask to be buried with it.

 

[Angry Floof]

Made a big pot of chicken broccoli mushroom pasta soup. It's kinda meh. I'm gonna add more seasoning, and maybe add something to thicken it. I expect it will taste better reheated tomorrow. Meanwhile, it's fine, just kinda weak in flavor.

 

[Treedbear]

Dinner. Roman Braised Beef with baked potato and sauted asparagus with kalamata olives. Turned out OK. I don't usually splurge on asparagus but it was on sale for 88 cents/pound so I bought the maximum 4 pounds. Next project is to blanch and freeze what's left.

 

[Angry Floof]

NOM. That looks and sounds amazing, Treedbear.

 

[ZiprHead]

Kroger's had shaved beef on sale, bogo. So it's philly steak sandwiches for dinner. Swiss cheese instead of provolone.

 

[Treedbear]

I tried something interesting. Lots of recipes call for roasting or charring veggies such as peppers, tomatoes or tomatillos before pureeing them. They usually suggest placing them on a gas fired stove and turning them until they've reached the appropriate shade of blackness. I don't have gas and trying to roast them under my mini-oven's broiler produced less than substantial results. So why not use a propane torch? I mean I've seen chefs use one for putting a sear on fish. So I tried it on some red bell peppers before I chopped them up and added them to my spaghetti sauce and it seems to work great! The sauce turned out great and I think the charring helped. And it only took a few seconds. I used a standard Benzomatic torch with an igniter with a cylinder of MAPP gas.

Blowtorches are used to brown and sear food cooked by low-temperature sous-vide techniques. Myhrvold recommends in Modernist cuisine: the art and science of cooking that MAPP gases should be used in preference to cheaper butane or propane as they produce higher temperatures with less risk of giving the food a gas flavour, as can happen with incompletely combusted gas.

I takes a few seconds to completely blacken the skin of a large red bell pepper. It was like painting it on. So easy!

 

[Treedbear]

So I blanched my 4 pounds of asparagus after snapping off the tough ends. In researching how to blanch asparagus one site mentioned that the ends should be saved and used for soup. So after boiling the tender parts for a few minutes and shocking them with ice water (actually snow water as there was still some out in the yard) and dividing them up and freezing them in sandwich bags, I put the ends in a saucepan, covered them with an inch of water and simmered for 90 minutes. I let them cool down, cut into 1/2" pieces, and placed it all in a blender until smooth. Then pressed all the juice out in a colander and placed in the fridge. Today I used it to make some soup with 1.5 pounds Russet potatoes, garlic, celery, salt, pepper, and shrimp. I was hoping to get 6, 2 cup servings so I ended up adding 2, 15 oz. cans of cannellini beans at the last minute. But it turned out very well. The original recipe didn't include the beans or shrimp, and it called for pureeing the finished product after cooking, but it turned out plenty thick and creamy and the chucks of potatoes, shrimp and beans played well together so I skipped that step. The asparagus flavor was something a little special, although it became a bit diluted after adding the canned beans. I got my 6 serving though. Oh yeah, and I have 11, 4 oz. servings of asparagus in the freezer. I tried to sauté one tonight and it was good but not as good as fresh. Somewhere between too tough and too tender. It was the first time I tried to blanch anything so maybe I did something wrong.

 

[crazyfingers]

I cooked burgers on the grill.

 

[gmbteach]

At the beginning of November, we were given Murray the Mulberry, which was planned in a hole with about 1 cubic metre of compost. Murray is doing very well!

Anyways, out of the compost grew pumpkins. We figured why not let them go. So we did. The vine keeps attempting to overtake the yard, but Bilby cuts it back.

So, about 2 weeks ago we started harvesting the pumpkins. They are a bit underripe, but not too bad.

Last night I cut some wedges, coated them with brown sugar and roasted them. Not too bad. Flavour is a bit weak as the pumpkin wasn’t quite ripe.

Today, I chopped up and peeled the rest, roasted 1cm cubes of some, and boiled the rest, along with potatoes, sweet potatoes and carrots done the same. I have added Mexican seasoning to it and some very well done bacon bits. This, with fresh Parmesan and onion loaf, is dinner. And if it’s ok, my lunches for the week!

 

[Treedbear]

...
I like Rhea's idea of steaming a ton of vegetables at once to eat over several days. I love keeping food preparation to a minimum while still having real food available.

I steam green beans, broccoli, okra, corn, asparagus. But it's so easy that the loss of texture and taste from making extra and reheating it isn't worth it to me. I do extra baked potatoes because they normally take and hour, and they're almost as good reheated in the microwave if you put enough fixings on top. But over-cooked broccoli is so sad.

I just managed to stumble across some info on the danger of getting botulism from reheated food and I remembered I recommended reheating baked potatoes. It turns out it's usually OK, as long as it's not stored in a way that restricts oxygen exposure. Especially at temps between 45 and 135 degrees F. So wrapping them in aluminum foil is recommended against. It sounded to me like reheating to 185F for 5 minutes will kill it, but other sources say more time is needed. I've just been using the microwave for years now, but it doesn't seem like that's really a good idea. Anyway, a word to the wise. I started out looking for ways to make garlic oil to spread on toast, but it seems this is even a worse idea. Immersing food in oil creates an oxygen-free environment. I discovered that just crushing a couple cloves and placing them in a bowl with a little olive oil and cooking in the micro for a minute or so and then just brushing it on the toast worked great and was really easy. But I found warnings not to leave it out of the fridge for more than 2 hours, although it would keep there for a couple days. I'd like to think that just reheating the oil for 5 minutes in the oven at 185F would sterilize it, but I'm not really sure. FYI, the symptoms of botulism are blurred or double vision, slurred speech, droopy eyelids, and muscle weakness.

 

[crazyfingers]

Will probably do burgers on the grill again.

 

[Angry Floof]

Right now eating a tomato and avocado sandwich on multigrain bread. I have a pot of One Pot Chicken Parmesan simmering on the stove. This time I made sure, I checked and double checked, the stove setting and the burner to make sure it doesn't burn like the last pot. That'll be several meals over the next week or so. I still have a couple of bowlfuls of my soup that I call Goddess Soup. It's cream of chicken and mushroom but with a ton of broccoli and chopped spinach added because I want the nutritional value of the greens, plus I like them, they taste good.

After all that starts running low, I'm going to make another double pot of African Chicken Peanut soup. After that, I don't know if I'll want soup because it's getting warm here. I'm going to start wanting cold dishes like salmon, tuna, or chicken salad sandwiches, hummus and vegetable wraps, and whatever else I can find that won't make me sweat like a marathon runner just from sitting and eating it. But if we have another cold spell, I'm going to make a pot of chili before warmer weather arrives.

 

[ZiprHead]

So my wife was cooking chicken fingers to put in protein bowls for her lunches this week. Missed the timer going off and burned them pretty good. I took them and cut the burned parts off and now have kitty treats.

 

[crazyfingers]

I got back late from bringing supplies to my daughter who is staying at my mom's unoccupied house for college spring break. I had leftover chicken. The boys age 18 and 19 made spaghetti and meatballs and never discussed who does what so there is a mess of pots all dirty on the stove drying out. They don't even think to put water in the pasta or sauce pots. The stove top has sauce splattered all over which will dry overnight. Tomorrow will be 10 times harder to wash. They refuse to discuss ahead of time who does what so they think joint responsibility is no responsibility. I expect much complaining tomorrow. This happens over and over.

 

[Angry Floof]

I got back late from bringing supplies to my daughter who is staying at my mom's unoccupied house for college spring break. I had leftover chicken. The boys age 18 and 19 made spaghetti and meatballs and never discussed who does what so there is a mess of pots all dirty on the stove drying out. They don't even think to put water in the pasta or sauce pots. The stove top has sauce splattered all over which will dry overnight. Tomorrow will be 10 times harder to wash. They refuse to discuss ahead of time who does what so they think joint responsibility is no responsibility. I expect much complaining tomorrow. This happens over and over.

This could possibly be helpful: 9 tips for communicating with your teenage son
Or: Tips for Communicating With Your Teen

There's hope for your sons! lol

 

[crazyfingers]

I got back late from bringing supplies to my daughter who is staying at my mom's unoccupied house for college spring break. I had leftover chicken. The boys age 18 and 19 made spaghetti and meatballs and never discussed who does what so there is a mess of pots all dirty on the stove drying out. They don't even think to put water in the pasta or sauce pots. The stove top has sauce splattered all over which will dry overnight. Tomorrow will be 10 times harder to wash. They refuse to discuss ahead of time who does what so they think joint responsibility is no responsibility. I expect much complaining tomorrow. This happens over and over.

This could possibly be helpful: 9 tips for communicating with your teenage son
Or: Tips for Communicating With Your Teen

There's hope for your sons! lol

One is ADHD and PTSD from my daugnter's dangerous childhood.

The other is on the Autism spectrum and can't take hints and has zero initiative. Zero.

All 3 are adopted from state foster care.

My kids came to me so fucked up and we've tried so hard to help them.

 

[Angry Floof]

I got back late from bringing supplies to my daughter who is staying at my mom's unoccupied house for college spring break. I had leftover chicken. The boys age 18 and 19 made spaghetti and meatballs and never discussed who does what so there is a mess of pots all dirty on the stove drying out. They don't even think to put water in the pasta or sauce pots. The stove top has sauce splattered all over which will dry overnight. Tomorrow will be 10 times harder to wash. They refuse to discuss ahead of time who does what so they think joint responsibility is no responsibility. I expect much complaining tomorrow. This happens over and over.

This could possibly be helpful: 9 tips for communicating with your teenage son
Or: Tips for Communicating With Your Teen

There's hope for your sons! lol

One is ADHD and PTSD from my daugnter's dangerous childhood.

The other is on the Autism spectrum and can't take hints and has zero initiative. Zero.

All 3 are adopted from state foster care.

My kids came to me so fucked up and we've tried so hard to help them.

Do you have any kind of support? Is it just you and your wife carrying the entire burden of dealing with all the different issues with your kids?