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

[goldshirt*9]

A Instagram reel popped up on my feed about "the seed man" All about growing cheap food from various garden left overs, seeds and what surprised me was that you can eat is Fuchsia flowers and the "berry's" it produces. A decent account

[smokester]

A Instagram reel popped up on my feed about "the seed man" All about growing cheap food from various garden left overs, seeds and what surprised me was that you can eat is Fuchsia flowers and the "berry's" it produces. A decent account

Yeah, who knew:

https://fuchsietum.com/about-fuchsias/recipes/recipes.html

[6pairsofshoes]

I regularly eat nasturtium blossoms, have used violets, lavender and fragrant geranium blossoms in preserves, and pansies in salads.  So I was intrigued when I read this.  I went out and picked one of the blossoms of the lovely fuschia that grows along my driveway.  The hummingbirds regularly visit the flowers, so I figured it was probably fine.  But then I ate one and was immediately sorry because it tasted bitter and nasty.  I generally don't mind bitter or peppery tasting plants but this was of a different order.  I spat it out and rinsed out my mouth.  Maybe it's one of the less edible varieties, but not something I'll be adding to my diet.

[8ullfrog]

Grolet was out of hamburger meat, but they had Kobe. Made for an okay substitute, tastes different, but also tastes good. I like that. Price was comparable but damn if these burgers didn't just weep fat.

Probably wouldn't make it my regular, but it made for a delicious summer dinner. We had some steak fries as the side, did those in the toaster oven as to not heat the apartment.

I do wonder at these cheaper kobes and wagyus. I know it's cowpoo, but I honestly haven't taken the time to figure it out. I know Arby's went the "wagyu plating" route where it's a tiny percentage of wag, and mostly plain Ol' burger.

[8ullfrog]

Mom bought Budweiser cheesy potato bites.

It was bless'ed horrible. Imagine stale beer batter on oversized tater tots, then stuff it with cheese.

I'd eat cheesy tater tots, it makes sense. Potatoes and cheese pair nicely.

But that bless'ed batter was AWFUL.

[6pairsofshoes]

Cheese.  Not great cheese.  Sliced baby swiss and not very nice baby swiss.  I guess it's supposed to go on a sandwich.  We are out of nice cheese, so I'm reduced to this.  The crackers are better.  A glass of red wine helps divert my attention from the general lack of quality.  It's late and I felt peckish so this was the limited late night menu.

8ully, I've had "beer battered" fried fish, and made some tasty Welsh Rarebit before with beer as an ingredient, but if I saw a product called "Budweiser cheesy potato bites" I don't think I'd take it home with me.  It sounds like a failure as a combo.  Baked potatoes are good with butter and sour cream.  Fries are good with ketchup.  I have also had obscenely delicious potatoes au gratin with cream in the Caribbean, but they are not ideal diet food.  At some point, you need to limit the ingredients as the additional ones just don't help.

I have taken the Anheuser Busch brewery tour in Milwaukee and they count Budweiser as a major part of their product line.  I think they also sold cigarettes as the parent company owned tobacco, also.  They had a German oompah band and served beer at the end.  They gave us postcards to fill out and paid to post them for us.  We had fun writing to our friends.  There were no potatoes involved.  EDIT:  scratch that.  It was the Miller brewery.  What do I know?  They had Miller and Miller Light and Lowenbrau (the pale ghost of what it used to be on tap).  I don't generally drink beer, but a dear friend lived in that city and she felt duty bound to take me there.  It was entertaining.  I think Anheuser Busch is in St. Louis.  The two massive companies make most of the commercially sold beers in America, except for a substantial number of microbreweries.  So I blame the weird food combos on the Midwestern diet, which includes such delicacies as breaded deep fried mushrooms -- regarded by my father as a particularly heinous culinary crime.

[6pairsofshoes]

Fresh cream scones with homemade jam and some Earl Grey tea.  So good...

[8ullfrog]

Carne asada burrito.

Been a long time since I've had a decent one, and this was actually a circle back to a shop I don't like. The reason I don't like them is that they use pump cheese on their carne asada fries.

I figured "why not give em one more shot?"

The burrito was fantastic. The thing the other shops have been doing wrong for the last five years is the marinade. Good carne asada is juicy and tangy. The other places had decent cuts of meat, but they were cooking it dry. That's just a meat burrito.

[6pairsofshoes]

Spaghetti with garden tomato sauce.  The tomatoes are good so the sauce turned out well.  Some grated pecorino romano on top to give it a little saltiness.

[8ullfrog]

A home made spaghetti sauce will slay the jarred bell pepper nonsense.

Tonight we had turkey tacos. Mom was hesitant, but she liked it!

Essentially it's turkey meat in taco seasoning, browned as usual for taco meat. You load that in, then your shreddded lettuce, and I suggested a sharper cheddar than was on hand.

success! granted, mom went with a mild sauce, and I went with gringo bandito, but it was a hit. And that's a nice thing these days.

If I can avoid bell pepper, textured soy protein, or yeast extract, I do so with alacrity. I think one reason I haven't had decent chili fries in years is because of that scallywag bell pepper.

[6pairsofshoes]

I make turkey chili regularly and really like it.  The tacos sound really good.

We stopped at a local fishmonger and got fresh haddock and some scallops.  They were amazing.  I've been getting previously frozen fish at the supermarket for so long I'd almost forgotten what delicious seafood can taste like.

[6pairsofshoes]

The usual earl grey tea and some old panettone that we heated up.  Not the best breakfast, but we are traveling and this is the best we can manage on the fly.

[8ullfrog]

Had a tube of turkey sans taco seasoning, it came out tasting something like white bread. Complete waste of a protein. (I don't like calling meat or poultry protein, but in this case it's warranted, it did not even qualify as a quality poultry!)

I mixed up a garlic and shells noodle mix, and it smelled like the garlic was overpowering. I followed the recipe, so that was honestly surprising.

After combining the two, it tasted like milk and pasta.

Very underwhelming slop.

So I added a shot glass of the Tabasco company sriracha knock off, which I have found grossly oversalty in past. I figured if I'm going to golly up dinner, I might as well swing for the fences.

This awakened all the garlic. Sriracha sauce has garlic in it, and the noodle shells had dormant garlic that fired off into space with this infusion.

The weird thing is the combined dish STILL did not taste overly spicy. Just flavor from the garlic, a little heat, and the turkey remained flavorless.

But afterwards, my nose is running, which usually happens from spicier dishes.

So while not a complete recovery, I'd say this dish stuck the landing. Not enough to post a recipe or anything, I'm still mad about the turkey, but still another frankenstein for the gauntlet.

[6pairsofshoes]

I came home to vines filled with tomatoes -- some so ripe they were splitting.  I skinned them and am making a couple large batches of pasta sauce.  They'll go into the freezer when I'm done, but the kitchen smells great.

So that's dinner, too.

[smokester]

I came home to vines filled with tomatoes -- some so ripe they were splitting.  I skinned them and am making a couple large batches of pasta sauce.  They'll go into the freezer when I'm done, but the kitchen smells great.

So that's dinner, too.

We got nada from our tomato plants until September. Then they went into overdrive!