Whatcha Cooking today?

[worth1]

I'm simmering the last of the tri tip hopefully it'll get tender.
Also warming up last nights beans and rice mixed together.
Lastly I'm going to cook a small amount of mini penne pasta in the water Im trying to tenderize the tri tip in.

[worth1]

Following up on my comment about cooking the bird separately because the breast cooks different from the legs and thighs I'm doing it.
The sauce is....
Low sodium soy sauce.
A splash of ketchup.
Sriracha sauce.
Molasses.
White sugar.
Chipotle powder.
Heading to the slack oven in separate skillets.
Then I get to clean my stove off.

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[worth1]

Regardless of what the chicken may seem it isn't what it seems.
I'm also making Pico de Gallo to go with it.
Ingredients are traditional but a slight twist.
2 Serrano peppers.
1 large jalapeno.
Seeds removed from both.
A half a bunch of cilantro including stems or more.
1 whole white onion.
2 Roma tomatoes or enough to equal the amount of onions.
About a tablespoon of lime juice maybe a little more.
What's added and why.
Extra virgin olive oil to help keep color and freshness and smooth out the heat of the peppers.
What's not in there but will be on demand.
Kosher salt.
I'm not adding salt now because salt will draw out the moisture and ruin the crispy crunchy vegetables and make the whole thing wet and soggy if left too long.
Fits in the small bowl nicely.

Next the chicken breast is out of the oven.
It got to 150F and is hanging there at that temperature.
It was in the oven at 250F.
It's going to drop down to cool off and that's when I'll attempt to blast the skin a little.
The leg thigh back portion is still in the oven.

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[worth1]

Leg thigh back combo ready.
But the star of the show is this wonderful creamy liver that baked in the chicken juices I got two of them.
The heart was delicious too.
Sriracha sauce on one.

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[worth1]

Cooked to perfection.
Succulent and tender.

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[Danny]

Lazy lunch for me, sandwich with some freshly cut mortadella. Wonderful treat. Good bread, some quick pickled onions, crisp lettuce, stone ground mustard and some mayo, dill pickle on the side along with a few green onions.

Strange eating day for me, lobster tails poached in butter for breakfast, the mortadella sandwich for lunch, and a filet of tilapia , again poached in the left over butter for supper. 2 slices of mortadella, sliced honey crisp apple and a few cubes of cheddar for my snack. Usually eat 1 meal a day and a small snack, but felt like eating today.

[worth1]

Beef cheeks going in the oven 8n the lodge cast iron deep skillet with Dutch oven cover for a long braise at 300f.
Other ingredients are..
The lovely jelled juices leftover from the chicken.
Cumin.
Ancho powder.
Black pepper.
Two onions.
Cilantro.
A dash of water.
Other ingredients later will be..
White homeny.
Whole canned tomatoes hand crushed.
A can of diced habanero tomatoes.

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[Sue_CT]

Lemon butter chicken with parmesean zucchini (bread crumbs, coarsely grated parm, salt, pepper and oil mixed and put on top of zucchini rounds), and lemon scallion couscous. Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies. First time trying to add pumpkin. Surprised I like them as much as I do. They are for my breakfast club in the morning. We meet in a restaurant so I have to slip them to them surreptitiously in ziplock bags. Restaurants frown on bringing your own food, lol.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

[pepperhead212]

And you're going to torture us by just posting a photo?? How did you make those?!

[worth1]

The cheek cooked in the oven all night at 220F for almost exactly 12 hours.
Here it is before I took out the cooked fat and melted fat.
After that..
I hand crushed the whole tomatoes and put them in with the sauce in the 28 ounce can.
I put in the 10 ounce can of diced tomatoes and habaneros
Added the 30 ounce can of homeny without the juice from the can.
Added a good amount of Mexican oregano.
It's back in the oven lid removed at 300F to reduce.

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[worth1]

Here the stuff is in the oven, I cranked it up to 350F.
Also I have a cup of mayocoba beans cooking in salted water that will go in it.

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[worth1]

In the mayocoba beans I added turmeric whole cumin seeds and whole fenugreek seeds.
The turmeric was added to make the beans turn and stay yellow.
The other two is an experiment.
Everything is ready to go in the main vessel.

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[Sue_CT]

Here is the recipe for the cookies. It is a combination of a recipe online and my own chocolate chip cookie recipe that I adapted from the Toll House recipe.

PUMPKIN CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

Preheat oven to 350 (I used 360F but not everyone has a digital oven)
Ingredients:
2 sticks cold butter, cut into cubes
1C white sugar
1C light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 tsp Vanilla
1 C pumpkin puree ( I used canned pumpkin)
3 1/4 C all purpose flour (next time I will try 3 1/2 C because the dough was very soft and sticky)
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves
3 C semisweet Choc Chips
1 1/2 C coarsely chopped walnuts (Do not use pre chopped nuts if you want chunky cookies)

Mix together dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, salt and spices). In a seperate bowl using electric mixer, beat cold butterand both sugars. It will be lumpy, you want it to still have pieces of butter up to marble size. Add eggs, one at a time and beat each until just mixed in. Add vanilla and pumpkin and beat until just combined on low speed. Add chocolate chips and walnuts and either combine by hand with a sturdy spoon or mix on lowest speed in "spurts" until just mixed in. Refrigerate dough for 1 hour, minimum.

Place 2 1/4 ounce heaps of batter on cookie sheet. Make them as high as possible to make a chunky cookie and decrease spreading. Do not flatten.

I use a heavy resaurant supply half sheet pan for cookies. Make sure it is cool. i use several so there is time for each cookie sheet to completely cool before putting more cookies on it. Putting batter on a warm cookie sheet will make them spread more and you will get larger, thinner cookies. I use a scale for conistency because once I know the baking and time and temp I can "set it and forget it". Still expirimenting with the time on these, but I have found 2 1/4 ounces of batter bakes for about 20 minutes minimum. Some were probably a little under done in the center.

Please note, different brands of flour will make different texture cookies, according to an old test by consumer reports. I always use Pilsbury Best White flour for chocolate chip cookies which they found resulted in a chewier cookie. Even with that these are a bit on the cakey size due to the additional moisture from the pumpkin. Walnuts must be coursely chopped. I buy walnut halfs at Costco, put them on the cutting board and then only go over them with a Chef's knife once in each direction. There are still many large pieces.

HAVE FUN AND SEND ME SOME, LOL!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

[pepperhead212]

Thanks @Sue_CT! I copied that, and will definitely be making that, come cookie season!

[Danny]

Be trying out that recipe soon, sue, looks good.

Trying to decide between some crab or a piece of salmon this evening.... Probably the salmon as I am not hungry yet.

[pepperhead212]

Probably the last batch of one of my favorite tomato/pasta salads, using probably the last bit of basil I'll get, until I start the hydroponics. Tomatoes are still coming in some, and this had 3 lbs of diced up tomatoes, 1 lb of them cherries. I cooked 1¼ c black beans, with 2/3 c spelt in the Instant Pot - these cook in about the same time, and when they had drained, I cooked the pasta, and drained it on top of the beans and spelt, to sort of reheat them, then mixed them all together.
Maybe the last batch of hot pasta salad of the season, with the last basil, given the cold weather. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

The hot pasta, black beans, and spelt, added to the tomatoes, garlic, basil, anchovies, capers, olives, EVOO, and wine vinegar. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Finished hot pasta salad by pepperhead212, on Flickr

[Sue_CT]

Found out today the combination of spiced pumkin and chocolate is not for everyone. Makes a lot of cookies. You might want to cut the recipe in half and see how you like it before making it in large quantities.

[worth1]

The braised beef cheeks came out wonderful.
After I put the beans in I put everything back in the oven at a low temperature for a good while to darken on top like Boston baked beans.
Very flavorful and something you could put on a flour taco if you wanted.
But I didn't and had mine in a bowl.
The spicy heat level was there, but not so as people couldn't eat it.
Total cooking time at different temperatures took about 18 hours.

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[worth1]

The Padrón peppers were inedible because they were far, far too spicy. So spicy, far, far beyond any serrano heat that I’ve encountered, that only swishing milk around in my mouth for several minutes took the burn to a tolerable level. So spicy that one tiny Padrón pepper gave me instant and intense hiccups. Wife spit hers out instantly and still had a horrible reaction.

I wonder if these peppers I have are actually Padrón?

I just sampled a volunteer Peperoncini that came up out of a tub that had nothing but Peperoncini plants growing in it last year.
It was red and the plant is for the most part neglected.
One of those plants from last year had a wee bit of heat to it
This morning from the sample the thing lit me up big time.
I mean really big time.
First it was really sweet and then the heat kicked in.
I have no proof of how this thing got that way.
The tub next to it had ghost pepper plants in it.
Possibly a cross?
No idea.
Probably lack of water and neglect?
No idea.

[worth1]

The chicken back thighs combo got deboned and turned into a ramen soup I had for supper the other night.
Very flavorful and spicy.