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

[8ullfrog]

I never got into tea precisely because it's such a precious industry. I'm also very lazy.

Last night we had broccoli and chicken in peri peri sauce. It was funny because my mom kept commenting on how spicy it was.

I'm not sure this really requires a recipe, but here you go:

1. steam broccoli
2. bake chicken breasts in oven in most lazy way possible (cookie sheet) I don't remember how long I cooked it for, but it was until it's done. Chicken is one of the few foods that scares me, so I'm pretty surgical with the prep.

3. stab chicken with fork until it knows you mean business. My mom HATES doing this step, so I did it. You want the chicken chunks small, but not chicken salad small. Morsels, not to shreds.

4. Apply Peri Peri sauce. Once again, I didn't measure it out, I just added "enough".

5. combine the chicken and broccoli in a bowl. Serve hot.

We went with the dollar store broccoli, and once again, I'm not impressed. I guess the stems did make for good accompaniment, but that's all that was in the bag. I guess they sold the heads to rich people.

About the only fussy bit about this dinner was the chicken prep. I love easy dinners. This one goes in the personal cookbook because it's different from what I usually do.

Still haven't had that pizza I want. But NOT eating pizza is the secret to losing weight. Well, it's not really a secret.

I do admire the effort you put into your foods, you seem to have a respect for it that I deeply, deeply lack. My brain essentially says "NO COOK JUST EAT" pretty much always.

[6pairsofshoes]

Is there a Ranch 99 nearby?  Their produce is often less expensive than regular stores.  Broccoli is good and versatile.  We sometimes have it over rice with grated cheese, or with baked potatoes.   The chicken breast sounds good with the sauce, although I've never had peri peri sauce.

We don't eat lots of meat.  Tonight, nuked a couple of Trader Joe's frozen meals.  2.99 each.  Veg. Panang curry with rice.  Pretty tasty and cheaper than a Thai restaurant.  It took 10 minutes in the microwave.  Some days you just don't have the time or energy to cook.  I like to keep a couple in the freezer.  Those or some Indian entrees.  Chana Masala, Butter Chicken and the Saag Paneer are all good.

[8ullfrog]

The specific sauce is from an English chain called Nando's. 170,000 Scoville units. from five peppers. It's cartoon orange. Tabasco is 30,000 - 50,000.

On probably my favorite interview show, hot ones, they go up to 2 million. They take your typical talk show interview, and torture the guest. It's great fun, and exposed DJ Khaled as a madam.


Even if you're not a big spice fan, I'd recommend the sauce for the flavor. I'm not the biggest fan in the world of chicken, I think it's a great utility hitter, but it's negatives heavily outweigh it's positives. Peri Peri makes it amazing. Even with lousy broccoli.

At the same time, I realize I'm burning resources this world doesn't have to burn with my heavy meat diet. Chickens probably aren't much better. I would gladly welcome Vat Meat, or even Locust reprogrammed to taste like beef. It's the consistency that puts me off eating bugs. If they can fool me, I'd be happy to be fooled. I mean when you really look at it, ground beef doesn't resemble much aside from play-doh.


Crap, it's not my wheelhouse, but I'm wondering if a Peri-Peri infused Peperoni could be used in Pizza. That would wake up the stoners!

[6pairsofshoes]

I eat meat (fish or chicken) about twice a month.  We'll get 4 chicken thighs and that will be for 2 dinners.  Sometimes I'll get turkey for sandwiches or make some tuna salad.  We mostly eat vegetables and dairy.  There are amazing green grocers near here so plentiful gorgeous cheap produce is readily available.

[8ullfrog]

JUNE 21st! I KNEW I asked for pizza a month ago, but mom didn't believe me.

Well, I finally got my pizza, but she told them to hold the jalepeno and pineapple on "The Works". That makes me sad, those two get along great on pizza.

I know that makes a lot of people mad, but they're wrong.

My cousin used to pat down his pizza with napkins to remove oil. To remove oil. From Pizza. His first job was at a Pizza Hut.

He also dislikes chocolate and cake. But we still love him, even if he is nearly always wrong.

He's recently had his facebook profile pic taken professionally. It's a night shot, and I noted it REALLY looks like those SNL openings, but he's giving them a look like "Stop the saxophone music, before I feed it to you".

When I mentioned that to him, he said he was going more for a spine ripper look. I do miss hanging out with him.

[8ullfrog]

Double update, totes boring.

I cooked ground beef. Super bore zone. I hit it with generic heat spices. We're talking Drummond Chili land.

And yeah, that comes out alright

You then fold that in to decent burritos. WUT OH, we had no tortillas.

So we folded it into white rice. Pretty good, won't lie, I had two bowls of it. Wasn't bad.

BUUUUUT...  Mom hates this, I always have to twist it, make it different. Peri Peri!

Went light the first night (The yield was high)  Kinda spicy, kind of citrusy, good deal. Honestly, I wish I had cucumbers or some form of squash to suck that up. Would have kicked things up impressively. Water chestnut, to be honest, but that's BEYOND ME.

Leftover town, I went heavy on the Peri Peri. It's medium, so don't call me a Spice lord!


With the higher yield, the citrus notes were heavier, made the rice seem better, and the meat seem pedestrian. I have no clue how I'm going to step my nonexistant game up. Because honestly, I was faking it with the drummond. Impress the relatives? TOTES. Complete fabrication? SAME.


So yeah, existential cooking crisis there. MOVING ON


Grilled cheese.


It's hot, it's gross, no one wants to cook. Mom buttered up bread and sliced cheese. Almost as if it were... A CHALLENGE?


I won't lie, I went super pedestrian. Those cheese cuts were fat, so I didn't really have to add poo.

Still did. There is a thick cut ham at grocery outlet, and it is a ROCKSTAR. First wave, went simple. Bread, spread, cheddar, ham.


<gowron> AND IT WAS GOOD. AN HONOR ON YOUR HOUUUUSE.


Second wave - Bottom bread got a hit of thousand island and pickle chips.


I've been craving burgers with the thousand island, pickle chips, and lettuce. This sandwich put it at bay.



But yes, I wish I were more.

[6pairsofshoes]

Funny.  We had grilled cheese sandwiches yesterday for lunch.  My husband had his with a slice of Farmer John's ham (they also sell it at GO but we got ours at Target back when there were coupons that made it free) that I had at the back of the freezer.  He was happy.  There's one slice left for a separate application, maybe cut up into an omelette? 

I made blueberry muffins yesterday.  I took a doctored lemon yogurt muffin recipe and just added the blueberries with a little turbinado sugar sprinkled on top.  They came out gorgeous and they tasted great.  I gave a couple to the neighbors because it's nice to share.  I'll make those again.  Usually muffins come out less beautiful but for some reason all the stars aligned with these.  I had another one today for breakfast.  I'm finishing my tea and thinking I'd better get onto to ordering more from Fortnum's as I'm almost out.  Sigh.

[dweez]

Baked chicken and green beans. Been doing the Keto diet for 3 years (excluding the last 3 or 4 months that I've been "cheating").

[8ullfrog]

I like Binging with Babbish, he does one of my favorite things ever, defictionalization, where you bring the fake into the real world.

He does it through cooking. I'd never have the patience he does though. Several of his recipes require him to make bread from scratch, and while it's fun to watch, it's not something I'd want to do.

One of his dishes took 17 hours to cook.

Anyway, he said that the most overrated cooking gadgets are the all in ones, or anything that promises to do the job for you. He specifically called out the onion dicing apparatuses, which I agree, are hard to clean pieces of poo.

But he also said that you should just practice and get better at a skill with time. I just hate dicing onions. So I throw it in the Ninja food processor. Blender is long gone, but I'm still using that little sucker.

Diced onion is a game changer at any level. Not only is it great for burritos (Tonight's dinner) but it wasn't half bad on the midnight snack (Cold ham sandwich) either.

So here's the late night ham sandwich recipe.

You will need:
1 sandwich roll, use whatever size you like, I'm not a cop.
Mayonaise. I'm using kraft, use whatever brand you like, but kraft isn't half bad. Bottle was stupidly fancy pants, it's mayo kraft.
Spicy Brown Mustard - I'm using Frenches.
1 slice cheese. We're spicing this bad boy up by quartering it, and rotating the squares into diamonds for maximum sandwich coverage. It helps.
1 slice extremely thick cut maple ham. I am a sucker for this ham, but it's grocery outlet, so you might not be able to find it. Since it's so thick, we're slicing it lengthwise, so it fits on the bun. We'll slide that cheese between the two slices, so it seems fancy.
Pickle chips - I like plain dill, but we're working with the dreaded bread and butter here. Beggers can't be choosers, and I didn't do the shopping this time.
Salt, Pepper.

Diced onion was added at the last minute.

SO, this is not a difficult prep. With a butter knife, spread a generous amount of mayo on the top bun, then hit it with the salt and pepper. layer on the pickle chips for full coverage. Next, dust it with as much diced onion as you can stand. It's going to mix together with that mustard for a fantastic hit of flavor.
Slap on the first half slice of ham, then leave a nice zig-zag of spicy brown mustard down the length of the slice.
Move those diamonds of cheese on top of the ham.
Slap your second half ham down on top of that. Assemble the bottom bun, then flip your sandwich. Present however you want to eat it, then enjoy.

Not gonna lie, I don't really remember what I put in the burritos.

Keeping the bottom slice of bread mostly dry is something I picked up at the supermarket deli. Specifically, when you wrap the sandwich up to go, you don't want to soginate that bottom bun, so you don't add condiments. Up until then, I always put mayonnaise and mustard on the bottom. WHOOPS!

[6pairsofshoes]

I picked wild blackberries today.  Lots.  I suited up for the brambles in knee high rubber boots and an extra shirt over another one.  Got about 15 pints.  They smell amazing.  Tomorrow I wash them and run them through a ricer to get rid of the seeds.  They make such a fabulous jam.  It's a lot of work but the color and flavor make it worth the trouble.

[8ullfrog]

I had a coworker / roommate who called food network food porn. My mom brought it up after watching a Babish vid.

I liked him best because he gave me money. He got weird one day, said he'd decided to become a misogynist, and moved out.

Like, was that supposed to be an insult towards my mom? Or was he serious?  Never really knew with him.

He really liked CIV, and I kept having to order him new AC adapters for his laptop.

Really wish that could have turned out different, he was the reliable sort.

[6pairsofshoes]

pornhub, eh? 
That reminds me of the time I was walking in Paris one December -- it was freezing cold.  I could not have been more covered up had I been wearing a burqa.  This crazy woman who lived in the neighborhood walked up to me and called me "putain."  I laughed, as it was hard to imagine how I might have been more modestly dressed.  I was similarly covered up as I fought thorny brambles that meant business yesterday. 

I believe these are known as Himalayan blackberries that were imported by Europeans into California.  They have long woody brambles and thorns that can grow to a good half inch long and that are tough and sharp. I suspect the thorns may have an added toxin that adds to the pain upon penetration.  They sting when you get poked, so it's important to learn how not to get a million puncture wounds.  The thorns grab anything, particularly fabric, so wearing thick clothes is important.  The really fat berries like to grow in the protected parts, under other vines and on the shady side of fences or valleys, and god only knows what kinds of interesting fauna one might be disturbing in the process, hence the boots.  These are ugly black boots that I wear for gardening so I can hose them off when I'm done.  They're thick enough to deal with the brambles.

My husband doesn't much care to wade into these active thickets, so he sort of hovers around while I plunge into the mess.  After 3 hours I ended up with about 15 pints.  These berries have a flavor that surpasses anything that the nice organic pick-your-own farms with their orderly rows of well behaved berry plants have to offer.  And the wild berries cost nothing more than one's own efforts.  I'm freezing them now after a triple washing.  They have woody seeds that I will remove by running the berries through a ricer.  It's one of the most time consuming jams I make, the other is wine grape jam.  But that's another story.

If photobucket hadn't gone belly up I'd post a photo of the loot.  Food porn it is.  These berries even have their own terroir, the flavor varies slightly from one area to the next.  The jam is amazing.

[8ullfrog]

there's imgur, but I never bother with an account there. Just toss the image in, grab the link, then bail. But even imgur pulls stupid poo like putting an "OPEN APP" over every post.

Like, first off, I don't want your bless'ed app to begin with, and the way you're advertising it makes me want to use it less.

[6pairsofshoes]

Thanks.  I went to the seashore before the berry picking yesterday and saw lots of whales migrating north from off the coast of the Yucatan.  One of the whales kept pushing its tail up and slapping the water repeatedly.  This went on for 15 minutes.  He or she was really having fun.  They were California Gray Whales.  Lots and lots of them.  I've never seen so many at one time.  Lots of whales surfacing, blowing spouts and just playing, eating, whatever.  We could see them pretty well from shore without binoculars.

A pair of pelicans flew by and a little seal was hanging off the shore for a while.  It was nonstop entertainment.  The beaches are not for swimming, sadly.  Many signs warn about the dangerous surf, rip currents, etc.  And it's really cold.  You need a wetsuit.  Once in a while we see surfers but at another beach.  I miss the East Coast where you can actually swim in the Ocean.

[8ullfrog]

One thing I always found weird about the beach in Northern California, it's so DARK. Like the water looks threatening.

I mean down here we have to worry about border crossing poop, but the water is like, toothpaste blue. I've spent a lot of time on the east coast, but I never caught the beach sunrise I wanted. No one ever wants to go to the beach there, and apparently you have to pay? Like I understand paying for parking, but I guess this stupid California liberal takes free beach access for granted.