What did I cook this weekend.....

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My wife informed me well after I got to work this morning that it is national noodle day. Had to come up with something quick and easy, so doing a basic Marinara with penne pasta. Pancetta, onions, garlic, mushrooms, and Italian Plum tomatoes in cans.
 
If was looking good enough by dinner, couldn't resist. (It's good!) I have enough left for a few more bowls, though.

IMG_20151006_181152035.jpg
 
Thanks to the cooking threads here I learned about Chicken Hendl or Paprikash Chicken. The GF is a HUGE Halloween fan, even bigger horror movie fan, and has watched every old Dracula film made.

This was two weekends ago. Just like my brewing, I tweak, so the bell peppers are not always a part of recipe, but match the flavors. They were pan seared with baby portabella's and onion/garlic.
20150927_183422.jpg


We are also (we'll I am making us) working to add more rice to our overall diet. The problem is American idea of rice is pure white stuff sitting to the side, banished from the main ingredient. So I've been experimenting.

This is my first ever attempt at a curry. The rice is tumeric and peas (made amazing colors) and the curry is chicken, black beans, tomatoes in a coconut curry. The aroma was so close to Indian food I've tried that it made me giggle.
20151004_180220.jpg


Another rice dish was more Asian inspired, so I went with some bell peppers, ground beef, oyster sauce, soy sauce, black beans. The rice was made with chicken stock and dried mushrooms. (Didn't get a dinner pic, so only have this pic of my leftovers for lunch.)
20151004_180239.jpg


Rice and beans, or peas, makes for a complete protein and with ground beef heading up past $6/lb we are looking for good food to keep feeding us. Canned black beans and 5lb sacks of rice from Costco, and there should be lots of ways and flavors to cook up to supplement the meat we are buying.
 
Last edited:
sablesurfer said:
Canned black beans and 5lb sacks of rice from Costco, and there should be lots of ways and flavors to cook up to supplement the meat we are buying.
Click to expand...

Try to find bulk dried beans at the grocery store. Even cheaper. We often will do crock pot beans for less than $1.50 for the whole caboodle.
 
Grilled Pork Steak last night with Mashed Potatoes. The potatoes were gummy. I got interrupted while cooking so the potatoes sat in the hot water for like 2 hours. Not sure if that was the reason or if it's just that kind of potato.

Anyway it was still really good.

And I baked some apple muffins to help get rid of some of the extra apples we picked a couple of weeks ago. Again, got interrupted so the batter sat in the fridge for like 2 hours. The muffins were dense and moist. I actually really liked them, but they weren't very "fluffy".
 
sablesurfer said:
Thanks to the cooking threads here I learned about Chicken Hendl or Paprikash Chicken. The GF is a HUGE Halloween fan, even bigger horror movie fan, and has watched every old Dracula film made.

This was two weekends ago. Just like my brewing, I tweak, so the bell peppers are not always a part of recipe, but match the flavors. They were pan seared with baby portabella's and onion/garlic.
View attachment 308028


We are also (we'll I am making us) working to add more rice to our overall diet. The problem is American idea of rice is pure white stuff sitting to the side, banished from the main ingredient. So I've been experimenting.

This is my first ever attempt at a curry. The rice is tumeric and peas (made amazing colors) and the curry is chicken, black beans, tomatoes in a coconut curry. The aroma was so close to Indian food I've tried that it made me giggle.
View attachment 308029

Another rice dish was more Asian inspired, so I went with some bell peppers, ground beef, oyster sauce, soy sauce, black beans. The rice was made with chicken stock and dried mushrooms. (Didn't get a dinner pic, so only have this pic of my leftovers for lunch.)
View attachment 308030

Rice and beans, or peas, makes for a complete protein and with ground beef heading up past $6/lb we are looking for good food to keep feeding us. Canned black beans and 5lb sacks of rice from Costco, and there should be lots of ways and flavors to cook up to supplement the meat we are buying.
Click to expand...

Ha ha...I used to have that same set of dishes that your curry is in. All your food is looking good! If you have a good sized Asian store nearby, you can probably get some good rice at reasonable prices. I usually buy Nishiki brand and it's not the cheapest, but it's good...around $7.50/5lb bag. (And they have bigger bags, too).

I got a pressure canner a couple years ago and I can my own black beans every now and then. I buy them dried and it's cheap, but having some on hand, already cooked, is convenient.

Be careful adding TOO much rice to your diet, though. Lots of carbs! Big impact on blood sugar and the belly. Same for any starch...pasta, bread, potatoes, etc. Man, I love all that stuff.*sigh*
 
Well I did remember to take a picture of the completed national noodle day marinara and penne, but of course after eating that carb bomb I could not actually post it! :D Really nice Marinara recipe, from Anne Burrell I believe. The bread is a whole grain baguette with a mash up of butter, parsley, garlic, etc. baked. The head behind the counter is my avatar who stole a couple of pieces of bread right before it went into the oven. Huff :)

Mainara with Penne.jpg
 
mattmmille said:
I usually buy Nishiki brand and it's not the cheapest, but it's god...around $750/5lb bag. (And they have bigger bags, too).
Click to expand...

Holy Crapapotamus! I hope that is a mistype and there is supposed to be a decimal point in there somewhere. There is no way I would spend $150/lb for rice!

I made some fat juicy burgers last night. They were heavenly, especially paired with a nice HB saison. no pics, didnt happen, but it was delicious. I could live off the grill.
 
DrunkleJon said:
Holy Crapapotamus! I hope that is a mistype and there is supposed to be a decimal point in there somewhere. There is no way I would spend $150/lb for rice!

I made some fat juicy burgers last night. They were heavenly, especially paired with a nice HB saison. no pics, didnt happen, but it was delicious. I could live off the grill.
Click to expand...

But... it's god! :)
 
DrunkleJon said:
Holy Crapapotamus! I hope that is a mistype and there is supposed to be a decimal point in there somewhere. There is no way I would spend $150/lb for rice!

I made some fat juicy burgers last night. They were heavenly, especially paired with a nice HB saison. no pics, didnt happen, but it was delicious. I could live off the grill.
Click to expand...

That's what I get for being distracted and not proofreading! :p

Fix: $7.50/5lb bag (And it's GOOD!)
 
sablesurfer said:
We are also (we'll I am making us) working to add more rice to our overall diet. The problem is American idea of rice is pure white stuff sitting to the side, banished from the main ingredient. So I've been experimenting.

there should be lots of ways and flavors to cook up to supplement the meat we are buying.
Click to expand...

My fav rice is jasmine rice; I buy 20lb sacks of the stuff for about $17. Try using chicken, beef or vegetable stock instead of water, and/or add some bullion to the water/stock for added flavor. A little dark sesame oil or butter to coat the bottom of the pot keeps it from sticking & adds a nice flavor. I like to add a bit of rosemary & a couple of bay leaves too, makes a nice herbed rice with plenty of flavor and is simple & inexpensive, especially if you grow & dry the herbs yourself. Sauces can really make rice awesome too; soy sauce, oyster sauce, fish sauce, rooster sauce, etc...
I'm making myself hungry! Regards, GF.

rice.jpg
 
I need to take more pictures. Last night was a baked chicken/rice dish with chicken legs nestled in a bed of rice, with chopped onions. Used chicken broth as most of the cooking liquid, and dotted the dish with butter. Sprinkled sumac in to and then baked for 40 minutes. Served with more butter on the rice and added more sumac. Tasty, simple fall dish.
 
Staestc said:
Is it Basmati?
Click to expand...
No, not Basmati...just a good quality brand if Chinese rice. I do Uncle Ben's on the stovetop whan I want something with a gravy, like pot roast. I do Nishiki rice in the rice cooker for just about anything else.
 
sablesurfer said:
You stuck those under a broiler I hope? But I totally love the individual nacho build as opposed to the heaping mess of crap on a plate. LOL. My OCD approves.

---
Ah, nice.
Click to expand...

LOL! I saw those and thought, "Man, someone is kind of OCD!" :cross:

A heaping plate of messiness is fine with me. Sometimes I eat things extra messy just to piss off the wife. She won't eat a burger if it's got a little ketchup oozing out one side. She eats chicken and ribs with a fork if possible, or worst case with very dainty fingers.
 
Last night was breakfast. I had an Apple Muffin topped with Hot Pepper Jelly (it's not actually hot now for some reason..), some fried potatoes and onions, and a couple of over-easy eggs and toast.

Washed down with half a Jaw Jacker Pumpkin Ale from Arcadia. I'm not a huge fan of pumpkin beers, but they are growing on me. I'm enjoying trying them with the wife who is learning to appreciate beer a little every day.
 
Last night in a completely random move we put some chicken wings on the grill.

(Wings tossed in salt, black pepper, garlic powder, onion powder. Cooked over hardwood chunk charcoal. Then dipped in either Famous Dave's Carolina bbq or the hot version of Cowntown sauce.)

20151007_180242-picsay.jpg


And now, for the rest of the story....

Ironically, the chicken wings are actually part of our efforts to get the new kittens on a raw diet. One little guy puts away a whole wing to himself while his brother still only eating meat if pulled off bone. As I was getting a couple out to defrost I was like..."Hey, these are perfectly good food." So a bunch more went into the defrosting bowl of water.

Yesterday was also a new stage of life around here. Our financial situation changed drastically as the GF came home by 8:10am. Texted me that the hospital had shut down her lab, effective immediately, everyone go home. (Nothing sinister, just that the lab wasn't making the money they had hoped.) So, while we have both been seriously talking about funding the next step in our lives, and just how much this current job might kill me from stress...now, we have to re-evaluate.

There I am out cooking up the wings on the grill while the GF in house prepping a mozzarella/fresh tomato/fresh basil salad. I say outloud, "You do realize we are eating cat food right?" Then I started to laugh. The laugh went a little dark, and according to the GF it went on WAYYYYY too long. She even was like, "Uhm, that's kinda scary."

Turns out, I had completely inadvertently tapped into a childhood neurosis my mother had trained me on. My mother, a divorced mother of three working as hard as she could, had a fear. Something, that at the time I just heard, it never 'caused' fear in me. She was constantly saying that 'we'll be reduced to living off cat food'. Or if it wasn't us it was the stories of 'all the old ladies who are so broke they have to eat cat food'.

To my mom, using my now adult brain with some analytical skills, that was the symbol of ultimate failure. That was when you had screwed up everything so badly (it was implied that this was caused, not that it just happened) that you had completely wasted your life. That (as Catholics it was also implied) you had squandered your chances and wasted everything.

So, there you go. Some simple little chicken wings, on a grill. At the right time in your life...can really F'n screw with your head!!!!
 
sablesurfer said:
Last night in a completely random move we put some chicken wings on the grill.

(Wings tossed in salt, black pepper, garlic powder, onion powder. Cooked over hardwood chunk charcoal. Then dipped in either Famous Dave's Carolina bbq or the hot version of Cowntown sauce.)

View attachment 308261


And now, for the rest of the story....

Ironically, the chicken wings are actually part of our efforts to get the new kittens on a raw diet. One little guy puts away a whole wing to himself while his brother still only eating meat if pulled off bone. As I was getting a couple out to defrost I was like..."Hey, these are perfectly good food." So a bunch more went into the defrosting bowl of water.

Yesterday was also a new stage of life around here. Our financial situation changed drastically as the GF came home by 8:10am. Texted me that the hospital had shut down her lab, effective immediately, everyone go home. (Nothing sinister, just that the lab wasn't making the money they had hoped.) So, while we have both been seriously talking about funding the next step in our lives, and just how much this current job might kill me from stress...now, we have to re-evaluate.

There I am out cooking up the wings on the grill while the GF in house prepping a mozzarella/fresh tomato/fresh basil salad. I say outloud, "You do realize we are eating cat food right?" Then I started to laugh. The laugh went a little dark, and according to the GF it went on WAYYYYY too long. She even was like, "Uhm, that's kinda scary."

Turns out, I had completely inadvertently tapped into a childhood neurosis my mother had trained me on. My mother, a divorced mother of three working as hard as she could, had a fear. Something, that at the time I just heard, it never 'caused' fear in me. She was constantly saying that 'we'll be reduced to living off cat food'. Or if it wasn't us it was the stories of 'all the old ladies who are so broke they have to eat cat food'.

To my mom, using my now adult brain with some analytical skills, that was the symbol of ultimate failure. That was when you had screwed up everything so badly (it was implied that this was caused, not that it just happened) that you had completely wasted your life. That (as Catholics it was also implied) you had squandered your chances and wasted everything.

So, there you go. Some simple little chicken wings, on a grill. At the right time in your life...can really F'n screw with your head!!!!
Click to expand...

Haha, don't worry so much. All these kinds of things in life you will look back and laugh about some day.
 

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