Topic: What are you eating / What did you eat.

[6pairsofshoes]

It's raining so the ripe ones will be splitting again.  Yikes.  I wish we had more room in the freezer.  I don't really have time to can them this year.

[8ullfrog]

I had to fast on friday, and decided to utterly ruin that with fast food.

So I got a classic buttery jack, medium curly fries, and a witchshake.

The price was enough to make me like the meal less. I grabbed a couple of sauces.

As follows

Curly fries - They're curly fries. Lightly seasoned spiralized French fries. Worth the price? Not really. But they were delicious.

The sauces: 

Spicy good-good sauce = Not good. I actually like the good good sauce, but they just added spice to it, not flavor.

good-good sauce = I like it. Little hard to describe, kind of like a buffalo sauce with a bit more heft to it, more buttermilk than ranch, I like it like I don't like ranch.

Secret sauce = Jack in the box is known for being one of the first fast food joints to create a "secret sauce" but it's much like all the others, mostly tastes like Thousand island with yellow mustard. I don't know if it was just the batch I was getting, but mine was unpleasantly oily, like they overmixed it. Maybe I'm just over sunflower oil. Which sucks, because everyone is pivoting to sunflower oil.

Classic buttery Jack - This burger surprised me. The burger patty tasted less like a fast-food patty and more something you would make at home.  I checked the website, and this was just their Jumbo patty. Maybe they're just fastidious in that location, it didn't have the greasiness I associate with most fast food burgers.

The butter sauce could easily have been left out, and the lettuce was heavy. I liked the bun, which was apparently the original selling point for the burger. I think they forgot the tomatoes.

Witch shake - Forgettable. I think it's their regular oreo shake with pumpkin syrup spun in. It's a five dollar milkshake and you don't even get bourbon in it.

[8ullfrog]

When I was a kid, times were occasionally tight, and that meant my least favorite dinner came out of the woodwork. Hotdog sandwiches.
Essentially, the cheapest hot dogs at the supermarket, split in half, on white bread, with ketchup.

Tonight, I decided to see if I could make that palatable.

I used Jalapeno cheese stuffed sausage. I cut them in half, Pan seared them, then split the halves down the middle. I then toasted up some very nice dark rye, and topped the sandwich with fresh shredded mozzarella, and vodka sauce.

The sandwich tasted good, but using those ingredients was definitely cheating.

I got the idea from earles, who split their chili dog down the middle and pan sear it.

short version:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1yirYSEBsM0
(The youtube embed doesn't like shorts.)

[6pairsofshoes]

Sleep deprived lunch.
Boca Burger Fake chicken burger on toasted English muffin with medium chipotle salsa.
Seltzer.
It was easy to cook and filling.  And it tasted pretty good for stuff I didn't fuss with much.

Followed by a nap.

[6pairsofshoes]

Tea.  Yorkshire Gold.  They actually sell it here in some supermarkets for a reasonable price.  It's my second cup after the usual Earl Grey.

I had half a small choc chip panettone for breakfast.  Normally, I wouldn't buy such a thing to eat for breakfast but my eyesight isn't what it once was and I thought they contained fruit.  I should have looked more carefully at the label before I bought them, but they were half price on sale after Xmas.  We are slowly getting to the end of them.  I'll be glad when they're gone.

[8ullfrog]

White castle burger bites.

I'm not sure what I expected.

They make hot pockets taste like Michelin star cuisine.

Do not buy this poo under any circumstances.

Oddly enough, the meat and the cheese are inoffensive. It's the PASTRY that comes out nasty. Also bakes poorly and splits, which made for a not fun scrubbing of the baking sheet.

I'm not sure what flavor agent was on the dough, but NASTY is the word that best describes it.

[smokester]

I tend to make linguine with sea bass quite a lot.

Just cold pressed rapeseed oil in the pan with sliced shallots, asparagus and basil. I lightly pan fry the sea bass first and leave it aside, and then roughly flake it in when the linguine and the sauce above are combined.

It's a bit more-ish.

[6pairsofshoes]

That sounds delicious.  I need to work on my fish preparation.  We usually just blacken it in a cast iron pan and that's about it.

[8ullfrog]

Wagyu burgers. They were delicious.

I was short brown mustard, but honey mustard subbed in the sauce just fine.

Another missing pantry item was dill pickle chips, accidently bought bread and butter, and I'm not putting that flavor on wagyu.

Other than that, fairly typical burger. I forgot the lettuce that was right on the counter, so it was top bun, special sauce, sliced tomato, sliced onion, Thick slice of American cheese, Wagyu patty, bottom bun.
I also forgot to sauce the bottom bun, but the wagyu did it for me. That burger cried.

I've never really bothered with wagyu, it tends to be over my budget, but this was just a dollar more than regular hamburger. I enjoyed it a lot, it tasted buttery and rich. Would definitely make this again, but I'd remember the forgotten ingredients.
Also might spring for bigger or fancier buns.

The sauce is a fairly common special sauce recipe, equal parts mayo and ketchup, a squirt of mustard, and some dill relish, stirred vigorously.

[6pairsofshoes]

Earl G Tea with a cream scone slathered with various homemade jams.  It didn't last long.  I'll have to bake more in a couple days.  They are easy to throw together and one batch makes enough for a week.

[goldshirt*9]

Coffee, cups of as the dog had me up early and feeling poo

[6pairsofshoes]

I made applesauce yesterday and put it up in jars, so that's something to look forward to over the winter.  I use a variety of apples, but the pippins have the best flavor so far for this.  I'll make another batch today.  We'll probably have a big salad for dinner.

[goldshirt*9]

ever used crab apples to make a jam,
delicious

[6pairsofshoes]

Not yet.  I haven't found any supply.  Picked some variety of golden delicious yesterday from a neighbor's tree that needs to finish ripening.  Someone gave me some galas from a friend's tree that I'll use for a tarte this evening.  It's like a flat apple pie, and delicious.  I have one more batch of the pippin applesauce to make, and fortunately, it's not especially fussy to make.  I just have to run the pulp through a ricer and cook it for a while.  The juice will be drained off to make jelly this week.  That takes hours.  The applesauce makes for nice Xmas gifts.

[6pairsofshoes]

Garden tomato sauce over spaghetti.  It's easy.  It's good.  I don't have to do much.  Some Sundays I like to make a big complicated meal, but not today.