Whatcha Cooking today?

[karstopography]

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Total keeper. Salad was delicious, so was the pork.

[pepperhead212]

Today I made a delicious salad, started a couple nights ago! lol Actually, I soaked 1/4 c of mung beans overnight Tuesday, then sprouted them Wednesday and most of today, giving me over 2 c of half sprouts (another couple days would give well over a quart of full sized sprouts). The original recipe that gave me the idea for this was an Indian dish, with partially sprouted moth dal beans, with some shredded cabbage, but that's all the similarity. I sprouted mung beans instead, and shredded some Brussels sprouts I had, as the base for the salad. I first pressure cooked about 1/2 c kamut, in 3 c salted water in the Instant Pot, for 15 minutes, released the heat naturally, then stirred the sprouts in, for about 30 seconds, to blanch them, then drained and rinsed with cold water, to chill, then drained.

While that was cooking, I minced up a shallot, then soaked it in the juice of 1 lime (1.8 oz). Then I sliced up the Brussels sprouts in the food processor (basically shredding it), then diced up two ripe bell peppers, and minced up 5 green Thai peppers, along with about 1/2 c cilantro. I also drained a 6.5 oz can of kippered herring, and broke the fish up (later I added a half size can, as this didn't seem like enough). All of these I mixed up, then mixed in the well drained kamut and sprouts mix. Then I stirred in about 3 tb (or whatever the end of the bottle had!) olive oil, about 2 tb rice vinegar (adding a little more, until it tasted right), and a generous amount of nam pla prik (hot fish sauce), which was most of the salt in it. I always like making salads with Brussels sprouts, and this is a favorite one of the ones I've come up with, so far. Got over 2 qts of salad.
4 tb sprouted mung beans, soaked overnight, and now sprouted about 36 hours. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Finished salad, with sprouts, kamut, sliced Brussels sprouts, bell peppers, cilantro, shallots, lime juice, rice vinegar, olive oil, fish sauce, and kippers. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

[Danny]

A nice simple vegetable salad of english cucumber thinly sliced, yellow onion ditto ( no red one on hand), a large avocado ripe and lusciously cubed, nice ripened salad tomatoes ( 2) cut up, mung bean sprouts, all dressed in a mayo and pesto dressing that was home made. Dropped a pound of large shrimp in to poach, and dinner was yummy.

Dessert did not happen as we were full. It would have been some ripe mango slices, sauteed in butter and finished with a splash of home made vanilla made with rum 2 years ago. Red / green mango, the champagnes are not here yet...

[worth1]

Pizza.

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[worth1]

The pizza was cooked in my 17 inch Lodge cast iron skillet.
Yet another use for this behemoth.

[Tormato]

I just don't know how to start to deal my freezers dilemna.

That's easy, but also a bit hard.

You have to force yourself to go to the bottom of the freezer and almost blindly pull something out. Cook with that, no matter what it is. If it isn't what you want at the time, deal with it. Meanwhile, with the digging out of the mystery meat, or whatever, you now have to rearrange the freezer into a more orderly fashion. It kills two birds with one stone (as I pull out the frozen twin pack of rock Cornish game hens).

[worth1]

That's how I ended up with cooked beef cheek the other night.

[bower]

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I made some pepper pickles last night - a quick pickle I'll keep in the fridge. I scored a big bag of "naturally imperfect" bell peppers for $5.99 which were really pretty perfect. And a couple of hot yellow. I like to use pepper pickles and the brine in some of my cooking, but I realized there are a few additives in the store bought pickles which I don't really want to be eating. Made a fairly sweet brine with some mustard seed and peppercorns to pour boiling over these fresh sliced peppers. Still have almost half the bag of peppers left.

[bower]

Well today I took a chance on the oversalted turkey which I had chopped up small and froze in single serving size.
Put one of those in a cup of water on to boil. Chopped a big carrot and a small potato and tossed those in, also a small handful of pasta shells. When the vegs were cooked I added some milk and simmered a couple minutes more to get the pasta tender, then a dab of Hellman's went in to make a creamy little soup. The turkey is perfect, and the soup is not a bit salt.
The only hard part was resisting the urge to add salt!

[worth1]

I made cornbread with my homemade hand ground purple corn cornmeal.
1 cup of the cornmeal and a cup of flour.
I can't say anything about the wheat flour but the corn is the real thing out of Mexico.
Also a cup of mayocoba beans cooking with additional ingredients.
4 Morita chilies.
Tablespoon or more of ground ancho chilies.
Tablespoon or a little more of Knorr chicken bullion for the salt and additional flavor.

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[worth1]

I went out on a limb and tried something different with the beans.
I ground up 3 pods of star anis and about 3 tablespoons of coriander seeds and also added about a teaspoon of chipotle powder and cumin.
Now the bean juice has a (what the hell is that) flavor to them.
Nothing overwhelming or anything but totally different than usual.
Smokey hot spicy and citrus notes in the background with just a hint of the anis licorice flavor.
Fruitful yet savory and pungent would be a worthy description.

[worth1]

Last but not least the cheapest cut of meat in the store was a whole pork loin at $1.99 a pound so I got one.
Sliced it up in various thicknesses and reserved a 2 inch thick cut for today.
The rest are in freezer bags air displaced with the water displacement method.
Most are 1.5 inches thick.
The last one is coated in black pepper kosher salt and garlic powder.
It's going to be eaten at a little over medium rare.
Poor man's pork filet.

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[worth1]

Well thanks everyone.

For what is worth here it is.
I slightly overcooked the loin but not so much so I couldn't eat it.
The temperature got to 150F 10 degrees above my target of 140.
Totally my fault.
I liberally used my mushroom ketchup sauce from last weekend.
It was in a separate dish.

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[Sue_CT]

Love me some char. Would not have been a problem for me at all as long as it wasn't cooked to the point that it wss dry. Even then, a little apple sauce o salsa and alls good, lol. Ideally some char on the outside and moist inside, but I can be flexable.

[worth1]

Love me some char. Would not have been a problem for me at all as long as it wasn't cooked to the point that it wss dry. Even then, a little apple sauce o salsa and alls good, lol. Ideally some char on the outside and moist inside, but I can be flexable.

150 is too much but not dry.
I wanted pink in the middle and forgot how dense this cut was and the carryover heat.
The homemade mushroom ketchup was spot on for pork.
It isn't anything like A1 Sauce like I originally thought.
A1 has a lot more tang to it due to the vinegar and has tomato in it.
This is way more umami and no sugars.

[worth1]

For breakfast I had a big wedge of buttered cornbread and a half cup of beans.
Zero meat and didn't miss it.

[worth1]

I also ran out of curry powder and had to make some.
I haven't bought store bought curry powder in years.
This one has..
Turmeric powder.
Ginger powder.
Mustard powder.
Cumin toasted.
Coriander toasted.
Clove.
Allspice.
Garlic powder.
Cayenne powder.
Chipotle powder.
Nutmeg.
Needless to say it's pretty hot.
Best of all it looks and tastes like hot curry powder.
Taste testing really cleared things up

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[worth1]

Had some cubed pork loin marinating in homemade curry powder oil and soy sauce all day.
I have no idea what the real thing tastes like and I have no idea what I'm doing.
But it tastes really good.
Calling it pork Tika Masala.
The sauce was made with some of my tomato sauce, a can of coconut milk and a goodly big dollop of pain yogurt.
Plus additional dried chili de Arbol onnoin garlic and butter.
Basmati rice with curry powder.

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[pepperhead212]

I cut up a ham that I got cheap a while back, but couldn't take it over to a friend's house, because of someone in their family that ended up in the hospital,, with a non-covid problem, but people there were still visiting there, so I'm protecting myself. So I cooked the ham in the sous vide yesterday, then chilled it overnight, and today cut the bones out, the solid part (about 2 lbs), and the spiral part, and I got about 3 c of chopped up pieces, after I vacuum sealed about 8 3/4 lbs of ham, in 9 packets, for freezing.

While doing that, I started a batch of blackeyed pea soup in my Instant Pot, starting with cooking out the fat from some of the trimmings, then added a large, chopped onion, and sauteed that, while mincing a couple large garlic cloves, with about 2 tb fresh sage leaves. I added that, when the onion was browning, along with about a tb of tomato paste, and stirred it about 2 minutes, then added 7 c water, the 2 large bones, 4 fresh bay leaves, a tsp Syrian Oregano (my thyme flavor), and a little salt, though not a lot, as more will cook out of the ham. I pressure cooked this for 75 minutes, while doing the other work.

I had soaked the BEPs in some salt/soda water, about 6 hours, and when the bones were finished, I pulled those and the bay leaves out, and set them to pressure cook 8 min, then release 15 min. I got the rest of my greens from the garden chopped up - kale, cauliflower greens, komatsuna, and senposai - all trimmed back in December! I adjusted the seasonings, then the greens went into the soup at the end, and I just let them sit 5 minutes, before serving, with the cornbread.

Misc greens, to add to the soup, and let sit 5 minutes, before eating. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Finished ham and blackeyed pea soup, with the greens. by pepperhead212, on Flickr


This cornbread I made with a generous cup of roasted, peeled green chile peppers, from the freezer, a can of corn, and the acid dairy product I used, in place of buttermilk, was some yogurt. Otherwise, the recipe was almost the same as a jalapeño cornbread that I've made many times.
a 9 x 13 pan of roasted chile cornbread, to have with the ham and blackeyed pea soup. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

[worth1]

Yesterday night
Corkscrew pasta melted Muenster cheese chili powder and shrimp.
Cooked the pasta in water spiced with a pile of fennel seeds and Knorr shrimp bullion powder for the salt.
Strained pasta to reserve the seeds.

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