Ramen – but you know, totally gaijin as hell

There comes a time when you’ll want a food that, despite it not being realistic at home, you can’t get it delivered.  I came to this conclusion last weekend, as fall set in I didn’t want to have to face the world and wear pants and go to get pho, but, having pho delivered didn’t seem feasible either what with the amount of accouterments that usually accompany it from a garnish perspective.

So, I set out to make a similar dish “at home”.  Now, you’ll have already obviously noticed that this post is about Ramen. I quickly decided that making pho at home was gonna be outside of my wheelhouse.  The sheer number of  things I’d need, plus the time to craft that delectable broth was just not a thing I was going to do.  Plus, thinly shaving that beef so the hot broth could cook it.  Unlikely.  Instead I opted for Ramen, having recently re-watched some David Chang episodes of “The Mind of A Chef”.

No, i didn’t lovingly craft this broth either and only took a few hacked together attempts at making it better, but the result was still some enjoyable noodle foods.  Quite comforting in these dark days.  You know the drill:

• Bok Choy
• Ginger
• Onion
• Scallions
• Jalapenos
• Chicken Thighs
• Soy Sauce
• Rice Wine Vinegar
• Noodles
• Eggs
• Chicken Broth
• Salt
• Pepper
• Cumin
• 5 Spice Powder

First thing to do is season up the chicken and get it baking, 375 for like 40 minutes is sufficient.  We’re gonna use the bones in the broth later so, this is important to do first, seasoned both sides with cumin, 5 spice powder, salt and pepper:

In the 40 minutes or so you have to kill you should read your recipe a lot and figure out EXACTLY all the stuff you’re going to have to do.  It’s not hard, but it’s a lot at once.  And, it had been awhile since I had last tried to do any of this and take pictures at the same time.

So once the chicken is done….

You’ll go ahead and let that cool for a minute, since we’ll need the bones for the broth.

As is typically customary on this blog, here’s the thinly sliced onion, garlic and ginger just chilling before it goes straight into that pot:

 

And then right into the pot (note I used far too large of a pot)

You’ll have to watch those start to soften before it’s time for the next step.  Since your domicile will already smell like delicious baked chicken, the onion ginger and garlic are just gonna add into that whole joyous aroma and won’t be the best cue for “ready”.  But, when they look like they are, dump in the chicken stock, a few bones, and cover and bring to a boil:

Once that comes up to a boil we’ll add more into it, but, right now boil some other water for the soft boiled eggs, which will get added into the Ramen bowls themselves.

A note on soft boiled eggs.  This is the first time I had ever tried to make them.  I’m not sure why I found the “cooked white, but silky soft center” to be intimidating but I did.  Probably due to my penchant for overcooking things (well documented in other locations in this very space).  We’ll see how I did in a little bit.

The real trick here is that A LOT of things started happening very quickly, so, I forgot to take pictures (Like I said, it’s been awhile for both cooking a complex meal and documenting it in progress).  Anyway, chop the chicken while the broth simmers with the bones:

I had just over 3 pounds of chicken thighs that I baked, I used half of them here.  Chop it up skin and all, just more flavor for the flavor god.

Through the magic of the internet (aka I forgot to take any pictures) assume you’ve soft boiled some eggs and cooked some thick udon noodles, AND thrown some bok choy and shiitake mushrooms into the broth as well to simmer up just as everything finishes.  You’ll start to assemble your ramen bowl like such:

Oh yeah look at that runny yolk…nailed it.  

Then, once you’ve got that all packed into a bowl that is woefully undersized for the portion you’re trying to make, ladle on some broth with all the veggies in it, and top with sliced jalapeno and scallions:

And just like that.  You’re done.  Watch anime or whatever and eat your noodlefoods.

This was DELICIOUS (and kept well too) this made about 4 servings worth (although I will need to boil more eggs for it).  Word to the wise, take the stems off shiitakes or use dried because those suckers do not chew right.  Also, when I do this again i’ll probably let the bones go longer in the stock and then strain out some of the more cartilage-y bits that come off because those get weird.

I haven’t been able to cook much in the past couple of years due to a grueling travel schedule with work.  Hopefully with that changing I can do this kind of thing more often.  And ya know, actually remember to document it and take the proper amount of pictures.

Don’t Call it a Comeback

No, seriously, don’t.  It’s not a comeback so much as a “hey this is a thing I used to do”.  While this space has gone almost completely un-used for a little over a year, I was struck with the urge to change that yesterday evening when I was putting together some Kielbasa and Peppers.  I don’t know if it was the feeling of life inspired by the new baseball season, the moderately sunny weather implying that “yes, we actually did make it” to the whole of the Northern Midwest who survived one of the harshest winters in recent memory, or simply the random inspiration that can befall an on-again, off-again cook and blogger when the free time presents itself; but the point was I made a thing and took pictures of that thing while it was in the process of becoming a fully finished thing.  So in the interest of subjecting all readers of this space to even more of my typical run on sentences, here’s some food I made, as always, Lineup card is below:

There’s some spices which aren’t shown here because I didn’t think of them until later. Also, despite Green Tea’s prominence in the background, it’s not really on the team.

• Kielbasa (no idea how much it is but it’s the sausage looking thing there)
• Green Pepper
• Onion
• Can of Diced Tomato
• Can of Whole Tomatoes (So…I really just wanted 2 cans of diced tomato, thought I had that…but turns out one was whole so it ultimately doesn’t matter but that’s what’s going on here)
• Brown Rice

Boil some water and then once that’s rolling throw in the rice and cook per package instructions:

This is rice in water…not much to see here. BUT CHECK OUT THAT SPOON HOLDER THING. I never had one of these before but it’s really changed my “resting utensils on the stove” game.

While that’s cooking, just chop everything up.  Since the peppers and the onions are going to be prominently featured as forkable items, go lazy with the cutting and leave ’em big.

Fun Fact: Wearing glasses will protect you from the eye watering during onion cutting. It’s caused by chemicals coming out from the onions as you cut them so the eye covering prevents anything from happening. In theory at least.

I gave the Peppers and the onions a head start with some olive oil over medium heat to start to cook, this ended up not being really all that necessary but it seemed like the proper thing to do at first.

This really starts to smell amazing very quickly. But, just keep an eye on the onions for burning, the sausage should release enough fat to keep everything happy.

As that sizzles away, you can work on getting a spice mixture together.  I kind of just thought of this off the cuff as I would be throwing in a lot of unseasoned tomatoes .  Now, the onions, peppers and kielbasa are flavorful themselves, but once that bland unseasoned tomato sauce got involved I couldn’t really k now exactly what happened, so I threw together some paprika, salt, pepper, celery salt, garlic powder and turmeric that I would add once it was time for the sauce.  NO, it’s not measured in any real accurate way, I was just grabbing pinches of stuff until it looked like I had enough for how much tomato volume I was throwing in.  Measuring spices continues to elude me:

By now, your entire dwelling should smell incredible.  I’ve extolled the virtues of Kielbasa on this blog before, but man I’m going to take a second and reiterate just how good it smells for you right now.  It’s sweet, it’s spicy, it’s a food candle.  If you’re into sausage of any kind you owe it to yourself to get down on some Kielbasa, you will not regret it.  When it looks like the below (and you’ve confirmed the sausage is cooked to 165 Fahrenheit by testing w/ your Therma Pen) then you’re ready for the sauce:

Honestly, you could just skip the whole sauce part if you’re good to go right now really.

The onions should have caramelized a bit, the peppers should just be starting to soften and again, everything should smell heavenly.  Add in those tomato products.  I smashed up the whole tomato to make it similar to the diced, juice and all.  Add in the spices too:

Make sure you mix everything around, as the spices hit the heat they should basically make your nose cough and exclaim “Damn…that’s some strong shit”.

Cook for 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally until the tomatoes start to cook down and you cook off a bit of the liquid.  The idea here is that we want SOME liquid to help sauce up and soak into the rice when we’re done, but not so much as that we haven’t incorporated it all fully.  Bring it up to a boil and then lower it down to a simmer.  When you get something that looks like this, you’re pretty much there:

Now comes the “fudging” part.  Take your finished rice and add it in to the tomato, sausage, pepper mixture until you think the balance is right.  This is up entirely to you and just keep some thought to the proportion you want to have when you start eating it and how much rice you really want in there.  I settled with something that looked like this:

Ultimately, this is what I ended up w/ on the plate:

Now, I had a LOT of leftover rice, I had made 4 servings of rice but I’d estimate I only used about half of it in the final product.  This is fine because otherwise I feel like the ratio of “filler” (the rice) to “killer” (delicious sausage and peppers) would have been off and made each serving a little bit less potent.

Overall this is a very easy, fairly quick and simple thing to make on a week night for a filling and satisfying dinner.  I ended up getting 5 servings all weighing in at approximately 285 grams a piece, or, 10.5 ounces each.

I travel for work very often now and as such my grocery shopping habits have changed dramataically.  In the past I was always one for fresh stuff ready to go, but now I often times come home to nothing in the fridge and need food I can heat and eat quickly.  Since things go bad I can’t keep as much stuff to “throw together” on hand.  This will freeze nicely and create a decent amount of portable lunch leftovers so this kind of food is something I’m doing with increased frequency lately.

Speaking of increased frequency, you’re probably wondering if this will be some flash in the pan (IT’S A COOKING PUN) or if there will really continue to be more updates to this space now.  Ultimately, my goal is to now add some new content a few times a month (we’re a far cry away from the daily updates I was doing back in my prime) but hopefully this continues to evolve.  Once the summer begins I will be doing one post a month with ingredients procured entirely from the farmers market in my neighborhood each week.

While this recipe and meal isn’t mind blowing or anything I thought back on what I did here and how it compared to where I was cooking-wise when I started.  Back then I was literally baking fish sticks and putting them on a tortilla and calling that a meal.  While I still do love me a ghetto fish taco, I think it’s safe to say my cooking game has vastly improved since then.  I essentially just looked at my available ingredients and threw this together without any kind of recipe, which, to me at least, is a more pure form of cooking than me googling a recipe or something like that.

Stay tuned, I’m sure some new, not all that interesting take on a hot dog is coming before you know it.

Cleaning out the Fridge

Things can go bad.  Have you ever forgotten about one of your crisper drawers? Assumed it was empty and went to put in some new produce and discovered a new furry friend? It was half a head of some kind of green you only needed part of, and you meant to use them for…something, but they’re gone now. It always seems so quickly that something went bad but, very often, we just forget about or completely ignore the things in there.

This blog is like that for recipes and half baked post ideas. I know I can save them and maybe one day use them, but eventually, I have to throw it out because it’s just no good any more. It helps to clean the fridge frequently, or, if not “clean” it per-se, just take some inventory of what’s going on in there. This post is that kind of attempt.  Things that didn’t get the full shake or just weren’t that “great” or were last minute.

Chicken Nuggets on a Pizza

This was simply a marriage between two foods of convenience: A frozen french bread pizza, and some chicken nuggets.  Throw both into the oven for a half hour and boom…you’ve got a cheese pizza topped with a chicken nugget…what 8 year old wouldn’t love that?

This was surprisingly better than the idea led me to believe.  Before you go making wild assumptions at how (or when) I came up with this, just remember that this is essentially an open faced chicken parm sandwich…so…not nearly as far out as you were thinking.  (Likely going to try to keep putting things that don’t belong on small pizzas on small pizzas, seems tasty).

redneck rarebit

I had extra cheese dip from the super bowl.  It’s just melted Velveeta and ground beef I think.  Yes, you could get all uppity about how fake Velveeta is and what not but it’s the Super Bowl so you just go shut the hell up Frenchie.  Yes, a version with good cheese would be great…but I’m thinking that’s diminishing returns in terms of cost…but…yes Velveeta is fake as shit don’t eat it often kids.  The real question is what do you do with the rest of the dip when the chips have all left the building?

Spread it on toast of course.  Bread is primarily just a mode of transportation for more delicious things that are tough carry or hold without being messy (See: all sandwiches, ever).  It’s a super dumbed down, Americanized version of Welsh Rarebit, which is mostly just cheese sauce poured over toast.  Since the rest of England looks at Wales with the same sideways eye that I look at the Deep South with, Redneck Rarebit it is.  Tasty as hell. (Question is what other dips might make good sandwich partners, I’m thinking Spinach Artichoke could be a winner here).

Baked chicken and peas

Reaaaaal boring compared to the last two.  But this is the kind of thing I find myself making a lot.  It’s incredibly simple.  Thaw the chicken, season the chicken, bake the chicken.  I often get thighs, they’re A) much cheaper than breasts (yes higher in fat as well so your mileage may vary), and B) provide a very satisfying experience of getting to eat off the bone.  Some people are annoyed by the bone and while I’ll admit it’s messier, I find there’s a very visceral and enjoyable experience to eating a big ass chicken wing.  I guess it’s just some long ago human thing I’m tapping in to.  Who knows? The peas are also just frozen so they only take about 10 minutes to make…season them and enjoy.

Despite the simplicity, if you just go wild with the seasonings (in whatever way you feel) you end up with a satisfying, tasty, healthy meal that also is easily portioned into lunch sized left overs for work the next day.  It’s so efficient that this becomes all too common as I cook for myself, leaving very little room for it on the blog because it’s just so journeyman:

That’s just a few of the many random pictures filling up a phone and a camera intermittently.  They’re varied, and not always fully baked, but they’re food. Efficiency rarely intersects profound or creative but, it can be a welcome reminder to go in and clean out the fridge every now and then.

TIN FOIL: Char-Resistant Armor! (+2 Moisture Keeping vs. Ovens)

As has been documented in this space before, I have a tendency to burn things.  Not usually beyond usage or edible-ness, but to the point where you could tell it was overdone.  There’s really a few different causes for this:

1. Timer Apathy – I just forget to ever set the thing, or I set it for too long to “be safe”
2. A compulsive fear of under-cooking something and then eating it and poisoning myself or others
3. The inability to just leave well enough alone, I’ll keep messing with something repeatedly even if it’s not necessary…in this case it’s almost always “YEP 5 MORE MINUTES IS JUST GOING TO ADD TO THE FLAVOR BOMB IN THERE”.
4. When pan frying things it’s usually that I’m doing something at too high of a temperature OR I’m letting something cook while I chop something else too slowly or just in general fail to multi-task.

This will always seem to manifest itself in two main ways.  Baking (inevitably, even when I follow recipe times to a TEE the bottom of shit is always brittle char candy), and Fish, whom, aside from Tuna Steak…I kind of suck at cooking.

So, as you unmercifully but earnedly  saw yesterday, a great defense will overcome a great offense.

The basis for my defense is TIN FOIL.  The tin foil will provide the wrapper for some other assorted goodness.  So, here’s the team:

• 2 Mahi Mahi Fillets (approx 8oz)
• 3 TBSP Olive Oil, divided in to 1 TBSP
• 4 TSP Lemon Pepper
• 12 OZ of Asparagus (it was like one bunch)
• 2 TSP of Lemon Juice
• 1 TBSP of Dijon Mustard
• 1 Clove of Garlic
• 1 TSP each of Salt, Black Pepper
• 1/4 Cup of Sliced Almonds
• 2 Teaspoons Agave Nectar

I am making an ATTEMPT at putting measurements on here.  They should absolutely be toyed around with and aren’t exact, especially when we’re talking seasoning but it’s ballpark for sure.

So, first things first (actually it’s preheat the oven to 400) lets prep our fish foil, lay them on the foil, drizzle with a TBSP of oil (not each so like a half tbsp each) and then roll them around in it and season with lemon pepper:

Now, we fold them up into little pouches.  The Foil will allow the fish and oil and seasonings to steam and bake them simultaneously keeping them from ever possibly drying out (also splash them with a little bit of lemon juice).

Yeah, you could get cute and fold them up all nice but I don’t think it’s going to make that big of a difference. I’m not exactly sure why people pay more money for these things because this is literally just wrapping a thing in foil.

Now, put all that asparagus on the pan, drizzle it with oil, lemon juice, and lemon pepper:

Throw it into the oven for 25 minutes….TOTAL but don’t forget about the asparagus, you should check on that after like 15.

An aside on roasting asparagus since I do it frequently: I feel like seasonally, you’ll need to bake it for longer or shorter.  This is due to how big the stalks are, the springtime large stalks will hold up to this better.  So, use some judgement on how “shoe-stringy” you want these things to get and check them after about 15 minutes.

While that’s doing it’s thing we’ll make some Almond dijon sauce.  Throw the Remaining 1 TBSP of olive oil, the measured lemon juice above, the salt, pepper, garlic clove, mustard, almonds, and agave in your food processor and get it as sauce-like as possible:

It’ll make something that looks like this…but it’s not really about what it LOOKS like.

But, oh no! While you’ve been doing this, you forgot to look at the asparagus and even though the fish is ALMOST done it’s a little burned so get it out of the oven:

Unfortunately, while not bad, they were burnt.  The foil was unable to protect the asparagus.  In hindsight I have no idea why I didn’t also wrap the bunch of asparagus in foil too.  But, we’ll have to evaluate that at a later date.

Wait for the fish time to be up and then brace yourself.  When you crack open this foil packet it’s going to smell amazing.  Lemony, and Peppery, and roasted meaty.

Put it on the asparagus and then put some sauce on and, whelp a (almost) completely unburned meal:

This is now officially my favorite way to cook fish inside.  The fish was juicy, flaked apart nicely and had a great flavor.  It was easy and felt essentially fool proof  as far as the fish goes.  The sauce is good but I would actually recommend grinding down the almonds first before adding the other ingredients.  My sauce was a bit grainier than I wanted it to be.

Now, although Mahi Mahi isn’t caught anywhere near Seattle (it’s a tropical fish), their decimation of Denver last night was something else.  It was essentially a nature documentary.  At once difficult to watch and not lacking for boring bits, but at the same time fascinating and rarely seen. HOT SPORTS TAKE QUESTION: Seahawks Defense as good as ’85 Bears Defense? It’s a conversation that should only be had with PFR open on your phone, and a bar in front of you.  But, alas, the media cycle will just continue to regurgitate itself until the combine…and then the draft, somehow ignoring other sports and that the season is…in fact…over.

Summary: Frozen Fish doesn’t have to be awful in the middle of winter.  Asparagus can be fragile in winter. Foil is far more useful than it gets credit for.

APPROXIMATE AS HELL Nutrition Info:

Makes 2 Servings:

Asparagus: 125 Calories, Almond Sauce: 150 Caolories, Mahi Mahi: 239 Calories

Total meal (1 serving) 489, which isn’t bad, but the oil I used may have been more so it’s ball park.

It’s oh so cold. Make Soup and play Sim City for 6 hours

It gets cold in the winter.  This winter in particular reaching depths much colder than usual.  Over the weekend, like much of the country, I found myself in a bit of a surprise blizzard (the weather had called for 2-4 inches of snow but this was a bit more intense than anybody anticipated).  Upon making some tea and looking outside, I found that the outdoor situation had already determined for me that I wouldn’t be going anywhere on this day:

It’s wildly blowing and coming down in case the picture doesn’t articulate that, this was like 8 AM

While I’m a fan of winter in general, winter sports, winter beers, winter food…the way snow looks (people in cold weather climates their entire lives bitching about the cold…people bitching about those people…etc).  I don’t need to be OUT IN IT to enjoy it unless I’m snowboarding or something. Since I wasn’t, it was time to figure out what I could make relatively easily with what was on hand.  Oh, and it needed to be that kind of comforting body hug type food to offset the howling wind (No joke wind was hard enough to move my blinds on my windows because they LEAK like nobody’s business).

Since it’s impossible to buy potatoes in a quantity that could serve 1 human in a reasonable time frame, the 5 pound bag (ON SALE FOR 2.99 IT WAS TOO GOOD OF A DEAL YOU’VE GOT ME PRODUCE SALES!) has been getting a workout.  Mainly just baked, sometimes hashed with breakfast…but now I was going to try and bake them…and soup them.  So…here’s the starting lineup for Baked Potato Broccoli Cheddar Soup (It’s like 2 soups in 1!):

• Potatoes (you will bake them)
• Cheese (you will melt them)
• Broccoli (You will puree them)
• Carrots (You will dice them)
• Onions (You will sweat them)
• Bacon (You will crisp them)
• Half & Half (You will simmer them)
• Broth (You will reduce them)
• Butter (You will make things delicious with them)

So, first things first, you need to bake your potatoes.  I know of no more reliable way than a 425 oven for about an hour or so.  There are probably quicker ways of doing this but this way will yield nice crispy skin and easy to eat insides….which is all we’re looking for.  Besides, it literally cannot be a BAKED potato unless it spends a good bit of time inside an oven right? So, lather the taters up with oil on a pan:

To keep my hands from getting incredibly messy, I usually drizzle oil over the top and then just shake the pan around.  Then, salt and pepper the potatoes generously.  A note on why there’s 6 potatoes there.  I didn’t know EXACTLY how many I was going to need to thicken up the soup appropriately so I made more than necessary so I didn’t run short.  I ended up using 4 of the bigger ones and the other 2 were just used for leftovers this morning.  Pop that sucker in the Oven and set the timer for like…45 minutes.

In the meantime, you should chop and portion the rest of your soup ingredients so that the rest of the process is super easy and you can expedite cleanup.  First break the broccoli up and dice the carrot up.  Since this is all going in the food processor later, don’t worry about it being perfectly chopped:

We put the carrot and the Broccoli in the same bowl because they will go into the soup at the same time in future steps.  I’ve learned that thinking ahead can save an immense number of headaches down the road.

Next, chop the bacon and the onion, I put these together since they go in…CLOSE…to the same time but really the bacon goes in first but it’s not hard to separate from the onion:

After that you’ll need to measure out your cheese.  I was mashing 2 soups together so I decided that 10-12 ounces of cheddar cheese is what I was going to go for since cheese plays a prominent role in both traditional versions of these soups.  So, hack away at the blocks of white and yellow cheddar until you get something like this:

Yep, the cheese is weighed. Why, because “cups” doesn’t make sense unless you’re using shredded and even then…what if it’s shredded at a different thickness? Since the cheese is less a topping for this and more a “structural requirement” I figured precision was better, we came out to 11 and 3/4 ounces which is good enough for me.

Now, you’ll just roughly cube/chop the cheese since after all, we are just going to melt it again:

To be fair it was tough to not just treat this bowl as a snack while the potatoes baked

Remember when you set the potato timer for 45 minutes even though I told you that the potatoes were going to cook for an hour?  Well, that’s because at ROUGHLY the 45 minute mark (and to be honest I could have started earlier) you’ll start to prepare the rest of it.  So, while the potatoes finish up…dump in that bacon (4 strips worth chopped) and start cooking until it looks like this:

Remove the bacon but leave the fat.  Put the bacon on some paper towels to absorb some grease and TRY (it’s hard, I know) to not treat it like a delicious meat candy snack while you finish the recipe.

Since we left the bacon grease in there, this allowed me to significantly reduce the amount of butter that was needed for the soups from 8 to 4 tbsp.  Probably could have reduced more but my assumption is that part of the butter need was literally for the cheese-like sauce I was producing for the soups.

So, Pictures get a little dicey for the next few steps, with multiple ingredients cooking simultaneously, potatoes in the oven finishing themselves off, I kind of forgot to keep taking pictures until it was near the end…so…consider this the radio version of what transpired.

In with the onions for like 5 minutes, they’ll get nice and soft and smell delicious with the browned butter and the fact that they’re onions.  Toss in the 1/4 cup of flour and let it brown up (you should visually notice this) it will take about 3 minutes.

Now slowly incorporate the 2 cups of half & half until it’s fully absorbed and starting to look a little SAUCY.  then, throw in the 3 cups of broth (I used vegetable, chicken could also work fine I’m sure), and a teaspoon each of: salt, pepper, nutmeg, and paprika.  Bring it to a simmer and let it go for 20 minutes while it reduces a bit.

This 20 minutes could really be used for anything, I’m going to take this time to extoll the virtues of cleaning AS YOU COOK.  This process, while kind of annoying (UGH I JUST WANT TO SIT DOWN), pays incredible dividends after the fact.  By washing things as they can be while you have down time you prevent a massive load of dishes at the end…AND it’s easier since you’re just cleaning a few things at once.  This is especially key if you’ll be needing to wash BIG pots, pans, and cutting boards later but your kitchen’s design and size leave you wondering if the “target demographic” was sized somewhere slightly larger than an Ewok:

Ewoks are short…roughly the size of a human child. They would find my kitchen to be luxurious in total available space.

Once that 20 minutes has passed throw in the carrots and the broccoli (picture omitted since the camera wasn’t near me when I did this).  Simmer for yet another 20 minutes to cook ’em.

In this 20 minute break adjust your Sim City tax policy on low income housing versus low income industry and try to reconcile why you want the poor people’s wages to be taxed, yet you would prefer them to commute into your city so as not to lower land values with their shanties and country music.  BEHOLD THE BEAUTY OF CIRCLESHIRE:

Not pictured: Gridchester (where the poors live and commute from)

Once you’ve contemplated the socioeconomic impact of simulated tax policies on the well being of your own island nation, get back to the soup.  It should look fairly soupy at this point…but now comes a GIGANTIC pain in the ass. Pureeing the soup.  Fancy people might have a big stick Immersion blender which probably makes this job a breeze.  I however will settle for transferring the mixture into a blender a couple of times.

Now, I’ve been over this process before.  You need to hold the lid on the blender TIGHT.  Far tighter than you think you need to so you can avoid scalding hot food stuffs on your face, walls, and ceilings.  Once that’s done, return to the pot and put over some medium low heat.

Time to bring that cheese on over and add it….slowly…and stir constantly until the consistency is smooth and you’ve incorporated all the cheese:

As you can see the soup has a nice cheesy looking consistency to it.  At this point your potatoes should be cool enough to handle (since I didn’t cover it I left them in the oven for an hour and 10 minutes then turned off the heat and let them sit in there to cool since the rest of the steps took a lot longer than I anticipated).  Cut them into chunks and add to the soup.  Use your best judgement here…if you want something heartier…then add more…if you want something soup-ier then add less.  THERE ARE NO RULES IT’S COOKING JUST DO SOMETHING.

Once you’ve made those final CRUCIAL decisions about potato to cheese soup ratio, put it on a plate with a bit of cheddar bread that you warmed up in that same warm oven and top with the bacon crispies…and BOOM YOU’VE MADE soup squared:

Ohh buddy does this taste good? Yes, yes it does.  It combines the warming goodness of broccoli cheese soup (YES THIS COUNTS AS EATING A VEGETABLE) and the potatoes give it some heft so that you’re not left hungry.  The bread is really just there for mop-up duty. I got 5 servings out of it but could have stretched it to 6.  Soup freezes incredibly well so I instantly put a couple of them in there for a rainy (snowy, whatever) day.

Nutritionally speaking, at 5 servings, this is packing about 580-600 calories a piece.  Less so if you don’t have the bread with it.  The amount of cheese could probably be reduced by a couple of ounces getting it in the 10 ounce range, and some butter could be removed and or a substitute for half and half could be employed to lower that total calorie count.  While generally a vegetable based soup should probably be healthier than this, it wasn’t the goal when I set out to make this, although there definitely seem to be some “easy wins” to lighten the thing up.

So there you have it, you’ve managed to make 2 soups and economically persecute an entire class of sims in new cities you built from the ground up.  Not bad for a day in which the stairwell to check the mail was all the further you made it out of your apartment.

Hot Dog…a new Post.

Well.  Look at this here.  It’s been just about 2 years since there’s even been post one on this blog, and boy I’ll bet you’re excited to see YET ANOTHER GLORIOUS POST ABOUT HOTDOGS!

Probably not, but it’s best not to rush these kinds of returns to the field, lest I strain something in the blogging process.  (If someone were to hurt themselves while writing a blog post I’d have to suggest that this person really either re-evaluate their physical condition that sitting and typing is harmful, and or their environment).

I’ve had some free time lately so I thought I’d get REAL EXOTIC with the hot dogs…and ya know wrap them in bacon.  Which, has been done on this blog before.  So, you could make the argument that this installment is actually a bit of a clip show.  You wouldn’t be wrong.  So, while there will be actual content coming soon.  Consider this the warm up game in the minor leagues.

So, lets get started, as is totally customary here’s the players:

So, firstly, heat your oven up to 425.  That’s where the bacon has to get done at.  Next, place dogs in pan like so: 

Now, we get to wrapping.  You kind of roll the hot dog along while guiding the bacon, and if you’re good…you can get it to tuck itself in properly so that it stays together.  Don’t worry, the bacon will constrict as its cooked and make a delicious meat handcuff later.

Repeat with all 3….

Why isn’t this more common?

Put those guys in the oven for about 20 minutes or so.  Check on them periodically and give them a bit of a roll around to kind of brown up evenly.

In the mean time though, you’ll want to prepare landing zones for the hot dogs.

A quick aside on hot dog buns.  Why has nobody attempted to do anything other than the Chicago style roll?  Burgers these days are getting pretzel buns and Brioche buns and that kind of thing is happening at Wendy’s much less a more reputable burger joint.  Why aren’t we trying out new wrappers for the hot dogs?  Why not onion bun for a hot dog?  It works wonderfully on other sandwiches, onions are a common topping for a hot dog anyway?  It’s not that novel a concept but it’s so easy so why isn’t anybody doing it?  Pretzel, and other types could easily work and the type of sausage or “dog” could be changed to better match a bun.  Oh well.

Anyway, mangle some cheese you bought in a block into some slices:

I need a cheese knife

Line the buns with cheese, it’s going to end up being melty and being like a nice paste for the dogs to lay down in:

Yes that’s mayo…It will be addressed shortly

When the bacon looks fully done, like I said about 20 minutes but use your judgement to tell when bacon is “done”.  I felt like this was a sufficient level of done-ness

Get them into the buns and then top with sauces (mine are quite basic and hot dog toppings are something of a passion of mine so I would like to get back to trying more unique type hot dogs in the future with awesome toppings).

“OMG YOU PUT MAYO ON A HOT DOG” the Internet will scream.  Yes Internet, I did.  I think the ketchup/mayo combo is quite good and it goes well with a hot dog.  I know many people feel that this is completely unacceptable and actually no longer qualifies as a hot dog.  For those people, the middle dog which is JUST spicy brown mustard will have to do.  I’m as much of a hot dog lover as anybody (quite frankly probably more than just ANYBODY), but people get a bit scandalized by topping arguments.  Some people think ketchup is an abomination, others think that the more toppings you can fit on the thing (Looking at you Chicago…you did it with your pizza and your hot dogs, just piling shit on top of shit and calling it a thing.  A very, very, delicious thing) the better until you barely even recognize the dog.

In my opinion, why limit ourselves.  Lets start throwing anything and everything on top of hot dogs.  I personally once put peanut butter and parmeasan cheese on a hot dog.  It was terrible…but how could we know until WE TRIED INTERNET?

I did some digging on the hot dog history and discovered the greatest page on the internet.  In looking through the history since the Hot Dog came to America via German immigrants on Coney Island, the “hot dog” is uniquely American.  However that doesn’t mean European people weren’t eating sausage, we just turned it into a street food first it appears.  Point of this rant is Mayo on a hot dog is pretty normal in a lot of places so chill out w/ your rules…man…

These are just as delicious as you’d expect, 3 times less healthy than you’d expect, but 10 times more life affirming.

This is the first in a series of  hot dog related adventures entitled: Stray Dogs, where I will look to explore regional variations on hot dogs and hot dog toppings and hopefully come up with some of my own.  Be on the lookout for more Hot Dog and Tube Sausage related propaganda here!

 

 

Quinoa Burgers

The first time I attempted vegetarian month, I tried to make my own veggie burgers for the first time.  As with most other firsts, the anticipation out did the results.  The underlying problem is, as good as black beans are at being quasi-meat substitutes; they are (in my mind at least), doomed to being associated with Mexican food and flavors.  Therefore, when you grill one up on a summer day, slap some lettuce, onion, ketchup and mustard on there hoping for the best…you get less Van Halen, more Van Hagar.  Yes, most of the parts are there, but it’s missing a very key component.

Good veggie burgers are very adept at working with unorthodox toppings:  Salas, chutneys, avacado etc.  There are few (if any) that I’ve had that really stand up to classic burger standbys.  However, I had recently heard about burgers made out of stuff other than black beans (thanks Jess), and wanted to try my own.

Naturally this means I googled it and then used this as a baseline for what’s below:

Ingredients:

• Portobello mushrooms
• Quinoa
• Bread Crumbs
• Olive Oil
• Shallot
• Garlic
• Zucchini
• Dijon Mustard

The first thing that needs to happen is getting these portos chopped up (Editors Note: Actually the first thing that needs to happen is you make that quinoa according to the box).  It recommends a food processor.  Which I then proceeded to over-stuff:

Yeah...don't do this

Like the often hasty fool I can be, I decided to give this a whirl.  The result was a bottom layer of very finely blended portos and a top layer of unchopped ones.  The end result is this:

Strangely ground meat looking and feeling

While weird looking and, slightly strange in texture, I moved on.  It gets mixed up with the and zucchini :

Haven't had a good "Chopped up Stuff" picture on here in awhile.

Garlic and shallot get sauteed for like 5 minutes in oil, then the mushrooms and zucchini are added and cooked for another 3 or so minutes until the zucchini is nice and tender.  The recipe says that the mushrooms should be as well…seeing as mine are almost a paste I assumed they were fine.  Now, you fold in the quinoa:

The recipe actually says I needed to let this cool down completely.  This was already a week night thing but whatever it’s fine.  After it’s cool enough, you mix in the bread crumbs and dijon:

This is the culinary equivalent of "You're gonna need a bigger boat..." from Jaws.

Now…you let this chill for an HOUR in the fridge before you can make patties out of it  (Editors Note: I didn’t in any way read the entire recipe before I started making it.  I liked the way the ingredients sounded and I went with it…was dumb). After you finish that (like 45 minutes because you’re famished at this point), make them into patties:

Actually looks burger-like. (Cue getting hopes up)

Throw in the pan and let them go for a few minutes a side until they crisp up a bit on the outside and are heated through:

Yeah...they like to kind of fall apart.

When done, slap on bun, top and hope for the best:

Wow, it looks like a real burger...can it be true? (The kick is up aaaannnnnd...)

…It’s good! But, it’s PAT good, not like 55 yard Field Goal good.  The flavor is much more meaty and burger like than other veggie burgers I’ve had.  I’m sure some sort of better beef type seasoning mix would make it work better, Lowry’s would be a great idea here I think.  The let down is in the texture, it just doesn’t have quite the bite that beef would.  While that’s to be expected, the flavor is agonizingly close so it makes this minor inconvenience seem like a bigger deal than it really is since it was really the only weakness.   The texture may have potentially been helped by less paste-y mushrooms.  Huge plus side is they freeze very well and can be microwaved in a paper towel for 1-2 minutes to re-heat and go quickly.

 

Quinoa Stuffed Peppers

A vegetable as a vehicle for other foods is a concept I encourage.  The classic ants on a log.  dipping any vegetable in ranch, carrots in peanut butter, apples in peanut butter.  And while it may just sound like I like dipping things in peanut butter (fun fact: I do), the concept is novel all the same.

When I thnk of stuffed peppers, I almost think of a pizza topping.  There won’t be any crust, but there will be: pepper, cheese, tomato, sausage, etc.  To make this work with a vegan twist, it would require similar flavors.  Thankfully, the back of the Quinoa box showed me how to pull this off:

Ingredients:

• Green Peppers
• Quinoa
• Diced Tomatoes
• Cooking Sherry
• Onion
• Mushrooms
• Garlic
• Seasonings n’ stuff

I had a bit of a dilemma at this point.  I needed to both steam the peppers, and boil the quinoa at the same time.  I was trying to ghetto rig some sort of steamer in the pot by using a strainer fit into the pot when I looked down and realized “Wow, you actually have a steamer, this is kind of its designed function”.  So, I got to use it for the first time other than rice cooking:

Lop off lids, install straight down

Get the quinoa going in a pot of water:

Now, saute onions, garlic, and mushrooms in a pan.  Use a far bigger one than this though:

Once those go for a bit…add in tomatoes.  Do a better job than me of getting just the diced tomatoes and not the juice.  You have to save the juice too.  I admittedly was a bit distracted at this point.  Akin to the first few times you drive a car on the road, you’re frantically checking everything everywhere, but focusing on and understanding very little of what you’re seeing.

Oh you also throw in the sherry here.  It has an awesome scent you’ll notice it.

Season this at some point and let it cook for awhile.  By this time, your peppers should be done.  I didn’t really know what “done” was, and you can’t measure the internal temperature of a vegetable for “doneness” the way you can with meat.  So, I went with when they looked a bit different and were flexible.  They go in this baking dish:

Fold in the finished quinoa.  Here is where I really needed to have used that bigger pan.  You pour in the

Commence stuffing:

They bake for like a half hour.  Cheese would have been amazing here.

I liked this.  It’s really filling which I’ve found is typically hard for me to achieve with vegan food.  It also froze very well and re-heats pretty easily.  Mushrooms are really good in it as it adds a meaty texture to things.  This would undoubtedly be awesome with cheese, but it’s actually pretty good without cheese so, maybe it’s better as a healthy type dish.

Vegan Pizza

When one goes to think about it initially, vegan pizza hardly seems possible.  The corner stone of good pizza is a nice cheesy base, and either a red or white type of sauce.  Despite all the things that can change on a pizza (toppings, crust, sauces, etc.), cheese normally appears to be a constant.  I remembered from my last foray into vegan territory, that the most successful entries balanced all types of flavors and were things that SOUNDED good.  Pizza, sounds good.  I found this recipe on the internet and added some toppings on my own.

Ingredients:

• Pizza Crust
• Canellini Beans
• Garlic
• Onions
• Salt
• Pepper
• Spinach
• Tomato
• Olive Oil
• Olives
• Basil

First things, first, get the garlic and onion sauteing in the oil:

Add in the beans and mash them good.  Mashing can be difficult with a spoon, I don’t know if there is a better way to do it but this was a pain.  Mix it all up until you cook it into a creamy sauce type thing:

Now, spread it on your dough:

Throw on the spinach, olives and tomato:

Throw it into a 425 oven for like 15 minutes, normally this would be where I’d encourage you to grab a beer.  However for Vegan Detox week, there is no alcohol, no caffeine, and no cigarettes.  Basically, no fun in the hopes that you feel healthy and that somehow offsets being drunk and smoking.  So, make yourself a juice:

Juice it up…and you get this:

MMM...Tasty

This juice is supposed to help alleviate stress and depression, sort of like the booze and cigarettes that I’m laying off of for a week.  TRIP REPORT: Not as effective. Anyways by this time your pizza should be done so pop it out of the oven:

This pizza was delicious.  The “bean cheese” served as a very tasty base.  The crust was thin and crispy.  I used tomatoes that were too big and therefore too watery but that is my only complaint about this dish.  Unfortunately, while pizza is one of the truly great leftover foods, this is much better fresh out of the oven.  No matter, I’ll be making this again without a doubt.

Ve-Tox Week

If you’ve been a longtime reader of this space, you’ll know that it was originally started to document a journey through a month of eating vegetarian. If you knew that then you also know that I love eating some pretty weird stuff.  So, in the spirit of trying strange things, I decided to utilize a juicer to go on a day long juice only fast followed by a week of eating vegan.

Now, one might ask “Why on earth would you do that to yourself?” Well, lets set up some context.  The day before the Juice fast began, I consumed one of these in 10 minutes and 57 seconds as part of a bar bet (the other guy didn’t finish the whole thing).  I immediately felt like death, and thus the timing couldn’t have been better to clear everything out and start over.  I decided to kind of write down how I felt while this was going on.

This is the machine that has quickly earned itself a permanent spot on my overly crowded counter top.  I got it for Christmas and have used it every day, sometimes multiple.  I was admittedly a bit intimidated by it to begin with and despite my usual nonchalance in the kitchen, I felt like I needed to do everything “by the book” and exactly to the recipe since it’s such a engineered machine.  I’m working on getting over it, but still find myself unable to be naturally “inspired” to try weird things with it yet.

Plastic bag collects pulp and then I don't have to clean the bucket every time.

Past Me Wrote:

Breakfast.

8:02 AM : I’m not extraordinarily hungry when I wake up, but I never usually am. I made the green juice I made a lot of the previous week:

Ingredients:

• Kale
• Celery
• Apple
• Orange
• Lime
• Cucumber

This juice is pretty good, but not great.  It was the first one that really got me starting to appreciate cucumber as a juicing vegetable though.  It’s a good start and does tend to have the effect of a caffeinated beverage.

And so it began.  Flavor wise, it definitely tastes like you’re drinking vegetables.  However it is filling and a very “fresh” kind of feeling.  It wasn’t so bad until…

Past Me Wrote:

10:30 – My downstairs neighbors are cooking bacon.  I can smell it.  It smells like a ton of bacon.  Like maybe a whole package of it at once.  I’m starving at this point.  Literally almost eating things sub conciously as I would normally.  “Walk out to kitchen to get water…grab crackers..WAIT NO!” Is going on continuously in my head.  I guess it’s time to get me some more nourishment going on.

Ingredients:

• Beet
• Apple
• Celery

I’ll have to hand it to Dwight Schrute.  Beet juice is delicious.  It stains like nobody’s business but it tastes great.  It works quite well with carrots which also juice up surprisingly well.

This served as a good snack in the morning.  I still hadn’t really dealt with any severe hunger at this point.  Although, the delicious scent of bacon was tempting, not having ANYTHING to eat like that in the place certainly helped quash the thought.

As soon as the talking heads started stammering on about football, my Sunday instincts kicked in and things got serious:

Past Me Wrote:

12:45 PM.  Alright, stomach literally growling, football is about to start.  There’s nothing I could want more right now than pizza and wings, but…to the kitchen we go.  It’s just difficult to resist the urge to snack, thinking of the juice themselves as a “meal” isn’t hard.  It’s just difficult to overcome the “habit” of eating things more so than the actual food itself.

Ingredients:

• Beets
• Oranges
• Carrots
• Parsley (not pictured)
• Beet Greens

This Jucie is delicious.  The parsley almost adds a peppery type flavor to everything.  It is actually quite satisfying from a flavor and filling perspective right now.  A stuffed cheesy bread commercial from Dominoes just came on.  It’s literally a loaf of bread stuffed with as much cheese as a cheese pizza.  It’s kind of funny to think about the type of foods I’m really craving right now.  It’s mainly bread type stuff…I want me some starch and some carbs.

I was starting to learn that the leafier, greener juice was going to be more filling “meal like” filler from this point forward.  Honestly I didn’t feel, “hungry” so much as I just wanted to eat while I watched football.  I started realizing to deal with this I needed to get some juice whenever I started to get slightly hungry so the “craving” wouldn’t be as bad.

Past Me Wrote:

4:38 PM – It got dicey there.  While immediately after my “lunch” things were relatively easy, the bombardment of food commercials during football is playing psychological games with me.  I am debating just chewing gum to see if that helps.  No matter, time for more beets:

Ingredients:

• Beet
• Carrot
• Cucumber

Kind of a ho hum Juice.  It tastes pretty much beet-y and that’s all there is to it.  But, it delivers a much needed boost and I’m not as hungry now.

Eli Manning is the best QB in Giants history right?  I mean who else could it be? The guy’s got a ring and has pretty much surpassed all of Phil Simms’ numbers.  Am I forgetting some good Giants QB from the 50’s or 60’s?

I was honestly running out of exciting things to say about Juice at this point.  I labored on into what would begin to become the hardest part of the day.  I don’t know if the rest of the day had started to catch up with me, or if it was the usual urge for a dinner time meal, but the physical sensation of eating started to become very strong.

Past Me Wrote:

6:03…holy Tebow.  I’m starting to actually get hungry again but just something about watching football makes me want to eat.  Very odd.

Ingredients:

• Parsley
• Spinach
• Cucumber
• Lemon
• Lime
• Ginger
• Celery
• Apples

Tastes a lot like Lemonade.  The lemon and lime prety much over power anything.  More juice than you’d expect comes out of Spinach.

I was pretty much done coming up with intelligent thoughts at that point.  This concluded the juice day much like it had began:

So, how did I feel?  I was mainly tired the whole day.  Not sleepy tired but just very lazy tired.  All in all I was only really “awake” for 13 hours during the day (8 am to 9 PM).  As for the “cleansing” part.  Believe me, that happens but fortunately it was pretty much done with itself by noon.  I attribute this to not having eaten much the day before in preparation to dominate my taco eating contest.  I very much wanted to eat in the evening.  However, I decided I had come that far without cheating and so instead I would just go to bed.

Similarly how I felt about simply eating cheese again after the vegan month, I hoped that no solid food would give me a jump start into vegan week because it would contain solid food.