What did I cook this weekend.....

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@TwistedGray
Nice tomatillos! My salsa looks similar. Is your recipe in the ballpark to the one below? I get good reviews from the family but don't mind expanding my knowledge.

Hot salsa:
5 Tomatillos
5 Serrano peppers
Toast tomatillos and Serrano peppers on a pan on the stove till soft
Put in blender with one garlic clove (raw)
Cilantro – just a little to taste
Salt to taste
Blend all ingredients with a little bit of water. As ingredients blend, add more water a little at a time until you’ve reached the consistency you desire
 
@TwistedGray
Nice tomatillos! My salsa looks similar. Is your recipe in the ballpark to the one below? I get good reviews from the family but don't mind expanding my knowledge.

Hot salsa:
5 Tomatillos
5 Serrano peppers
Toast tomatillos and Serrano peppers on a pan on the stove till soft
Put in blender with one garlic clove (raw)
Cilantro – just a little to taste
Salt to taste
Blend all ingredients with a little bit of water. As ingredients blend, add more water a little at a time until you’ve reached the consistency you desire

You are missing onion ; )

Your tomatillo to pepper ratio seems wildly off? Are the serrano peppers you can get spicier than the jalapenos that you can get? Either way, 1:1 seems crazy...

Anyways, my wife and suegra do it differently than I do. They boil the tomatillos then toss them into the Vitamix once they begin to crack. The rest of the raw ingredients get tossed in at the same time, adding salt to taste. They'll put in some of the tomatillo water to bring it to the consistency that they want, but that's about it.

I dial it up a notch by not boiling all the tomatillos. 80% of them are cut in half and put in the broiler along with the white onion, garlic, and jalapenos (pan searing works, too). The other tomatillos are boiled so that I can use the water juice. Once everything is ready I toss it in the Vitamix and let it do its job.

...I may try smoking the tomatillos as I have a smoker : )
 
You are missing onion ; )
Adding the onion sounds good as does the variety of preparation methods. My wife got the recipe from a co-worker who's from Mexico so it could be a regional thing on the ratio. I wouldn't know about which pepper is spicier but I might experiment and switch the jalapeno for the Serrano.
Thanks a lot for the input.
 
Hubby enjoyed his birthday dinner.
Grilled? Looks grilled. Not certain.
Have you checked out the recipes where you sear the beef for X amount of time and then in the oven for X amount of time for an expensive piece of beef? I just can't pull the trigger on doing that. I don't care if there's 10 inches of snow outside, I'm going to drag that BBQ out of the garage.
 
Grilled? Looks grilled. Not certain.
Have you checked out the recipes where you sear the beef for X amount of time and then in the oven for X amount of time for an expensive piece of beef? I just can't pull the trigger on doing that. I don't care if there's 10 inches of snow outside, I'm going to drag that BBQ out of the garage.
I have a grill pan for the stove, it leaves the marks, but not the same as true grilling. When I cook the thick filets, I sear then finish in the oven. Great results.
 
I have a grill pan for the stove, it leaves the marks, but not the same as true grilling. When I cook the thick filets, I sear then finish in the oven. Great results.
I'm sure. Some of the fancy restaurants do it that way. I'm chicken.
 
I have a grill pan for the stove, it leaves the marks, but not the same as true grilling. When I cook the thick filets, I sear then finish in the oven. Great results.
I'm sure. Some of the fancy restaurants do it that way. I'm chicken.

I do the reverse sear. Last time I did a 1 1/2” - 2” thick rib eye. Seasoned well and put a temperature probe horizontally into the center of the steak and put it into a 275 degree oven until the thermometer read 122 degrees. While it was cooking I fired up the 3 burner Weber unit it read 700 degrees. Pulled the steak out of the oven and right onto the grill and closed the lid. Reposition he steak 90 degrees after 30 seconds or so to get that x-pattern. Flip it and repeat. Just don’t keep it on the grill too long since coming out of the oven it’s already 90-95% cooked. One of the best steaks I ever ate.
 
I do the reverse sear. Last time I did a 1 1/2” - 2” thick rib eye. Seasoned well and put a temperature probe horizontally into the center of the steak and put it into a 275 degree oven until the thermometer read 122 degrees. While it was cooking I fired up the 3 burner Weber unit it read 700 degrees. Pulled the steak out of the oven and right onto the grill and closed the lid. Reposition he steak 90 degrees after 30 seconds or so to get that x-pattern. Flip it and repeat. Just don’t keep it on the grill too long since coming out of the oven it’s already 90-95% cooked. One of the best steaks I ever ate.

You don't sous vide, do you?

It's hard to beat the cook on a sous vide steak that's then seared on a wood fire grill (it's how I do all my steaks except tomahawk for obvious reasons). I'll sous vide for a medium rare cook, blanch it in the bag, and then chuck it in the freezer for a quick sear down the road...the picture I posted yesterday was from a sous vide NY Strip that's been in the freezer for about a month. Just needed to thaw to room temp and slap it on the grill for a few minutes, tender as ever.
 
You don't sous vide, do you?

It's hard to beat the cook on a sous vide steak that's then seared on a wood fire grill (it's how I do all my steaks except tomahawk for obvious reasons). I'll sous vide for a medium rare cook, blanch it in the bag, and then chuck it in the freezer for a quick sear down the road...the picture I posted yesterday was from a sous vide NY Strip that's been in the freezer for about a month. Just needed to thaw to room temp and slap it on the grill for a few minutes, tender as ever.
No, I don’t have the sous vide hardware. Our daughter does though so I’ve tasted meats cooked that way. Excellent.
 
No, I don’t have the sous vide hardware. Our daughter does though so I’ve tasted meats cooked that way. Excellent.

We use the Joule unit which is good. Inkbird also makes something, but I'm not familiar with it...also, an electric brewing system would work, too. Many Mash&Boil users use their M&B to sous vide...you should consider it if you eat a fair bit of red meat (I've also done fish and chicken).
 
My wife has been vegetarian and is stepping it up to vegan. Do you have a go-to, vegan, pizza cheese?

I'm still learning myself (lactose intolerant with a myriad of gut woes). It seems that for me it's not just lactose but something in dairy...I dunno, kinda tired of the process to figure it out. Anyways, I've yet to find a vegan cheese that I have liked EXCEPT for at this little grill cheese truck at the farmer's market. If we head there tomorrow, I'll ask the brand of cheese that they use, because it's super melty and actually resembles cheese. So far none of the shredded cheeses have been good.

Edit: I still eat meat...just going vegan for the dairy side due to gut woes
 
@TwistedGray - sorry to hear about your gut woes! Do you have a diagnosis??

I wound up in the hospital for 8 LONG days about 4 years ago with acute diverticulitis which resulted in an adhesion requiring surgery. Most miserable 8 days of my life, with two different IV antibiotics and another 3 weeks of oral antibiotics when I got out. As you might imagine my guts were a big mess! The two things that finally set things straight for ME were home-fermented veggies and home brewed cider vinegar, and a more recent addition which has really made things good was adding good-quality grass-fed collagen, which I drink in my morning coffee, about 20 grams of it daily. The fermented foods got me about 80% to good and the collagen has gotten me the rest of the way.

I do not have issues with dairy, however, so YMMV, just thought I’d mention it!
 
@TwistedGray - sorry to hear about your gut woes! Do you have a diagnosis??

I wound up in the hospital for 8 LONG days about 4 years ago with acute diverticulitis which resulted in an adhesion requiring surgery. Most miserable 8 days of my life, with two different IV antibiotics and another 3 weeks of oral antibiotics when I got out. As you might imagine my guts were a big mess! The two things that finally set things straight for ME were home-fermented veggies and home brewed cider vinegar, and a more recent addition which has really made things good was adding good-quality grass-fed collagen, which I drink in my morning coffee, about 20 grams of it daily. The fermented foods got me about 80% to good and the collagen has gotten me the rest of the way.

I do not have issues with dairy, however, so YMMV, just thought I’d mention it!

Dealt with very bad acid reflux and heartburn for about a decade until I got insurance (roughly 4 years ago). At that point we found a duodenal ulcer caused by h pylori bacteria. That was treated back in 2017, and I then began a long-term regiment of omeprazole. I was on that for a year, tried to get off, and no go. At this time I switched doctors as well because I was never all that happy about the first gastro.

The next gastro found that I had giardia, so we addressed that. After all said and done I probably collected about a dozen samples of stool and gave a pint away for all these tests over the last two-ish years.

Since then no more giardia despite all of the tests; however, each night there is a Civil War reenactment in my guts (no acid, no heartburn though), and I have since developed intolerances to caffeine, any form of coffee, lactose, some other dairy, chocolate, and a few other odds and ends. I am leaps and bounds better than I was a year ago, two years ago, and a million times better than four or five years ago when I'd randomly throw up acid (it was bad).

Anyways, we still know very little about what's going on in my gut, but with more tests coming we'll see...pretty much throwing darts at a wall, in the dark, blindfolded, from 20 feet away, hoping something sticks : )
 
I'll ask the brand of cheese that they use, because it's super melty and actually resembles cheese.
Thanks for that.
I'll be experimenting with some online recipes for do-it-yourself vegan cheeses. Very new at this as well. If I come across anything worthy, I'll mention it in whatever dish I post.
 
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