What's For Dinner?

Geez, it is so easy for me to fall way behind. My last visit was June 24th! Well I especially love looking at all the meat, pizza and pasta dishes. I'm not a big seafood fan, although this time of year I eat a lot of fried Ipswich clams.

Tonight my wife made chicken enchiladas.

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Should I not have put a pina colada in a Stella glass? As George Costanza would ask, was that wrong?

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We love it. The key is to measure very exactly (it includes custom measuring cups to make that simple). There are several recipes -- we use 2/3rds semolina, 1/3 regular flour, 1 or 2 eggs (single or double batch), and water. Then turn on and everything is automatic. You cut as it extrudes to the lengths you want. It's the perfect consistency -- no need to toss it in flour. Linguini comes out perfectly al dente in 3 minutes. I don't think we are going to buy dry pasta ever again. It stores well in the fridge, so we make 2 large batches, eat some immediately and store the rest.

Cleanup is pretty easy -- would be really easy except pasta is very sticky and sticks to the internals a bit. Not bad, but not trivially easy. Making it in batches makes cleanup less of a "thing".

Phillips makes a larger model also. This one makes about 4 servings per batch. Storage space is at a premium and this model is very compact. If not for storage space concerns, we would have gotten the larger model.

 

Another pizza night;

- a new Veggie pizza we are really enjoying with marinated artichoke hearts, olives, red onion, tomatoes, and feta and a few small dollops of pesto. Yummy!

- Margherita

- Mushroom and onion (forgot to sprinkle with fresh thyme, dangit)

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Thanks, very helpful. Considering the Phillips Artisan.

 

How's the summer corn been in your neck of the woods? We've had great luck thus far.
it's all been sweet and tasty. Only one batch that we picked up in El Paso tasted like feed corn...T

 

good but not great corn.

 

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Another batch of Japanese curry. This was S&b extra hot. Much nicer heat level. Went low brow on the protein accoutrement. The rice noodles were meh.

Made a few pizzas with homemade tomato sauce. First one is gluten-free for our neighbors to thank them for giving us a whole mess of tomatoes and herbs from their garden. The parsley, basil and chili pepper is from our garden.

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T

 

Still boring........ Fried chicken two nights in a row. Tonight making beef tacos.

Mcdonald's has made some changes to the big mac in Canada and select cities in the States. Grilled onions instead of raw diced and a few other tweaks. I want to try one.

 

Do you have Krispy Krunchy fried chicken up your way, Max? I kept reading that's it is supposed to be great, which made me suspicious since it's mostly sold at gas stations. [emoji848]

The wife and I tried some during one of our recent road trips and it was meh. At best. Not even close to Dodge's or Brookshire's in the pantheon of gas station chicken!

T

 

Burger nite.
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This was fried chicken from an independent grocery store. The fried chicken there is as good as Popeyes. Their 16-piece chicken is $18.99 and at Popeyes in Canada it is almost $50 for the same thing.

 

After 2 days of dry brining in the refrigerator, this relatively inexpensive “choice” (not prime) ribeye from Costco was way better than it had any right to be. Cooked by my son with fresh rosemary from the garden.

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Next time you go to Costco can you see if they do comment whether its grass fed or grain fed ? Im curious to see it they quote it in the USA

 

Wow! Please share the details!

 

Still working our way thru a Costco bag of onions…so Oklahoma Burgers again tonight

(anyone got an onion tart recipe?)

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Using up leftover items from the family visit has been the theme of late. Here was an idea for the remaining kale, some of the onion and the potatoes…

Made “greens” ala Collard with the kale and some onion and bacon and diced jalapeño.

Then a big batch of griddled potatoes and onions.

Potatoes and onion on the bottom, then a layer of the sautéed greens and topped with a couple of eggs.

Had this for brunch and dinner this week…pretty yummy.

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This is a good onion pie....Jean Pierre receipe.

 

I didn't check, but I think it's grain fed. My wife has bought the grass fed meat from New Zealand for Restaurant Depot and I wasn't a fan . We did have some very good grass-fed organic hamburger meat from Costco that was really, really good (wish we bought more, don't think they've had it recently).

 

The dry brining was just patting the meat dry, seasoning with Diamond Crystal Kosher salt and cracked pepper, then storing it in the fridge on an open rack uncovered. It needs to be in the fridge at least long enough for the juices (that initially get drawn out by the salt) to be reabsorbed. The brining makes it more tender, and the steak is seasoned throughout the center section as a result of reabsorption with salt. Most say there are diminishing returns after a couple of hours in the fridge, which we previously took at face value, but this experience says going much longer is much better. He let the steak warm up for an hour at room temp from the fridge, then 2 minutes a side in a maximally hot cast iron pan with avocado oil, and tossed in fresh rosemary from the garden near the end.

We dry-brined three steaks -- the one shown for two days, going to cook up the second one today, and the third in a day or two. It's a bit of a structured experiment to see what benefit there is with extended time. Honestly, that 2-day steak will be very difficult to beat.

 

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Per the all-knowing internet, the French word for hot dog is.... hot dog! [emoji2]


Big pecan branch came down in the backyard today. So, when life hands you free pecan wood, you make bbq out of it. Spare ribs. On the Ranch Kettle.

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Charring one side.

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That was only a minute. Put the cover on to cool the inferno.

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Off to the side. I'll probably finish inside at low temp since it's 40 C/ 104 F outside![emoji91][emoji91]

T

 

"Tonight my wife made chicken enchiladas."
****
Just read this...made green chili chicken enchiladas a few nights ago....A FWIW. don't know if this technique is common knowledge but read a few years ago to use an electric hand mixer to shred the chicken. Poach chicken breasts for ~20 min. the use mixer to shred while still warn, works great!

 

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Those are legit looking enchiladas!

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Early morning off road excursion. Ran across this guy. From the look on his face, I think he knew I was cooking brisket later in the day.

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Ranch Kettle with a big batch of oak.

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Finished product. A small 9.5 lb brisket. A little more bark than I wanted, but I had to jack up the temp at the end so we and our friends could eat sometime before midnight.

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Decent smoke ring, maybe a tad dry on the flat end, perfect moistness on the point. Flavor was great.

T

 

First attempt at BBQ turkey. Marinated in a mixture of Italian and garlic with lots of butter under the breast skin.. stuffed with lemons garlic and more herb mixture and of course salt and pepper. Basted and cooked for 3 hours. Served it with fresh tomato salad, black garlic, avocado and peri peri sauce.
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