Whatcha Cooking today?

[worth1]

Getting a good sear on all sides.
Then it will rest for quite some time before I decide to roast it to practically blue rare and slice very thin against the grain.
I already tested a piece and it's delicious and very tender.
If you try to cook this cut to anything but rare it's going to dry out and get very tough and chewy.
Then you might as well braise it and in my opinion ruin the thing.

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[Sue_CT]

Enjoy the Cherries, 3.99/lb here, 2.49 on sale and 1.99 if you have a digital coupon as well at the right store. I love them. I love most fruit.

[worth1]

If you're willing to take the time this is what you can get with bacon ends and pieces.
Also breakfast sausage with sage.
Breaking out the 12 inch skillet for what I'm fixing to eat.
Also warming up the comal.

I have chopped dates I'm putting in my pancake mix I make from flour tortilla mix with powdered milk and extra baking powder.
Eggs fried in the leftover sausage and bacon juices.
Whole dates on the side.

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[karstopography]

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Had a big bowl of cherries as an appetizer. Then, a lunch of skin cut off sliced Kellogg’s breakfast tomato, These tomatoes get so extra good tasting in hot weather. Most certainly going to have to grow it again in 2024. Sliced pear is from my ancient unidentified pear tree. These pears have a great firm yet melting texture, so definitely not a hard cooking pear. Anyway, the flavor is very good and they are juicy. Really outstanding pear that I get about 3 a year that the critters don’t get first. I pick them unripe but at full size and let them ripen inside. If the tree continues to produce next season, I should protect the crop from the vermin.

Cottage cheese and hard boiled egg with paprika rounds out the rest of lunch. Now I’m wiped out. Crawling around under a mower deck busting nuts loose in the heat isn’t exactly boosting my energy levels.

[bower]

Really loving the heat inspired meals!
I too bought cherries (which I adore) for $3.99 a lb on special. No matter it's worth it. And some green seedless grapes which are another rare treat for me. I was on a grocery rampage and they didn't have any good apples worth buying at the price.
I want to make some kind of fruit tart or flan.
Have some meats to roast tonight for cold consumption - which didn't happen last night. So although it's still pretty warm from today, I have to jump on that train. And I will make some kind of crumb crust for the tart that I can bake the once before or after.
Got a little fan to set up in the kitchen and blow the hot air away.

[worth1]

Texas gulf shrimp on sale boiled in spices and cooled off and thinly sliced roast.
Using fingers to eat.
Soy sauce and lime juice.
No vegetables.
No bread.
Port wine for beverage.

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[pepperhead212]

I made another, even larger batch of of that raw tomato and pasta dish, but this time I added some other flavors to it, like I usually do. Besides the 3 lbs of tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, and 3 basils I had in the basic sauce, I added some olives and olive pastes, some anchovies, and some capers, plus a tb of red wine vinegar. I made almost the same things to add to the the pasta - this time 5 oz spelt, instead of kamut, and an ounce more of channa dal, pre-cooked in the Instant Pot, before cooking 12 oz spiral pasta. The pasta was drained on the dal and spelt, to re-heat that some, before mixing it all with the tomato mix. Even after that large bowl I had of it, I have about 4 qts leftover of it, for many more helpings. I know one friend who will help me with it!
48 oz of tomatoes, diced, with 3 huge cloves of garlic, and some Thai basil, minced. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

20 Greek style olives and about 3 tb of anchovies, chopped, plus a tb green and 3 tb kalamata olive paste added. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

3 tb salted capers, soaked a couple of hours, then chopped, and added to the tomatoes. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

pasta, with channa dal, spelt, fresh tomatoes, garlic, 3 basils, anchovies, olives and EVOO, and capers. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Finished pasta with the raw tomato mix by pepperhead212, on Flickr

[worth1]

I wish I could like the spiral pasta but I can't.
I've had too many cold dried out gummy pasta salads with too much canned sawdust parmesan cheese made with it to last a lifetime.

[bower]

@worth1 I've read that alcoholic beverages can be dangerous in extreme heat, as they cause you to dehydrate faster instead of hydrating. I took this as a sad fact, because personally the hot weather does incline me to sit back with a glass of wine while cooking or eating. There just isn't a great substitute - well there is some dealcoholized stuff that's approaching palatable now, but the price is so high, you almost might as well buy the real thing. Still it might be a safer option when there's no retreat from the heat..
What do you think about the caution on alcohol?

[worth1]

@worth1 I've read that alcoholic beverages can be dangerous in extreme heat, as they cause you to dehydrate faster instead of hydrating. I took this as a sad fact, because personally the hot weather does incline me to sit back with a glass of wine while cooking or eating. There just isn't a great substitute - well there is some dealcoholized stuff that's approaching palatable now, but the price is so high, you almost might as well buy the real thing. Still it might be a safer option when there's no retreat from the heat..
What do you think about the caution on alcohol?

I don't think anything about the caution on alcohol.
It's a matter of how much alcohol to water ratio.
I drink wine with ice in it.
Not giant glasses of plain wine.
Sometimes with 50% water.
Fortified wines like Port and others were originally intended to be diluted anyway after the ship arrived at it's destination.
The other problem is energy drinks.
They're worse than wine or beer and I've only tasted one once in my whole life.
It isn't like I'm burning up in the house I just don't like hot weather.

Some of these so called bosses at work are telling people to not drink alcohol during the week due to extreme heat when in fact they need to consider having ways to cool people off.
One guy called OSHA on a company last year because of the extreme heat and no way to cool off.
It forced the company to put cooling units in the building.
I was working there and it was horrible.
Ambulance coming to get someone more than once a week.
Probably because of energy drinks and no water.

[karstopography]

When it’s summer weather like this is about the only time I want a Mexican lager like Modelo, Sol or Pacifico, icy cold in the bottle, dressed with lime and salt. I had one last night before dinner and that was all I wanted for the evening, but it sure was good. Anyway, don’t blame me, the yeast made me do it.

I wonder which substance is a more potent dehydration agent or causes more problems in hot weather, ethanol or caffeine? Those energy drinks tend to be loaded with caffeine. I can’t stand energy drinks. A cappuccino is a different story.

The heat really isn’t so bad and almost every person here in Texas has the means to cool off their place to whatever temperature they want. I’ve done work in the poorest of poor neighborhoods and even those places have AC here. It isn’t like up north where AC isn’t in every house.

The hot weather does make rich food and sauces not so desirable. I think I’ll grill a cut up whole chicken tonight with a side of oven roasted okra and sliced chilled watermelon. And one of those Sol lagers dressed with lime and salt. Or a homemade margarita on the rocks made with fresh lime juice, lime zest, silver tequila triple sec and simple syrup.

[worth1]

I cooked the roast to an internal temperature of 110 and let it coast.
Now maybe I can slice it in the right direction because last night I didn't.
I also saved the shrimp boil liquid for today.
Probably going to have a cold roast beef sandwich with mayonnaise and onion.
The roast was 4 something a pound and the shrimp was 5 something so I bought a heavy 2 pounds of the shrimp.
Too hot to fry anything so cold shrimp it is.

I had made a sauce out of the marinade but I accidentally got dish washing liquid in it so I tossed it.

[worth1]

I put about 1/2 cup of dried Anasazi beans in a zipper bag with more than enough water to soak over night in the refrigerator.
Drained and rinsed.
Going to make some sort of cold bean salad out of them after they are cooked and cooled.
Probably with frozen corn and celery.

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[PlainJane]

Rub is on the chicken and the melon basil soup is chilling.

The cold soup was a great way to use a couple of ripe honeydews and an abundance of basil. Just has a touch of lime juice and I’ll add some piment d’espellette to serve.

Now I just hope the weather cooperates later to do the chicken outside on the grill.

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[bower]

That sounds amazing @PlainJane . Melon basil soup.... brilliant!!!!

And thanks, Texan friends, for perspective on the heat vs alcohol question. (also vs caffeine/energy drink!).
That makes perfect sense to me.
I also can't usually get through a whole beer or even a fake beer unless it's a really hot day, and then I enjoy it.
Many hot climate cultures served wine with food as the norm, and nobody stopped doing that in the hottest part of the year. True they did not have our tendency to abuse alcohol in those cultures either.
So as with other 'medical' advice in media circulation, I'll take it with a grain of salt.

[worth1]

Well that didn't take long.
And I did it all in one little kettle.
First I cooked the beans and while they were cooking I prepared the corn white onion and celery.
Corn thawed not cooked.
Put in olive oil white vinegar and the juice of one fresh lime.
Mixed everything in including black pepper and whole cumin seeds.
Beans drained and cooled on their own in a colander and added them.
Don't overcook the beans.
Put water back in kettle and cooked pasta.
Drained in same colander and added.
Put in a big dollop of mayonnaise and a little sugar.
No salt added because the pasta was cooked in salted water.
Nothing else added especially not sawdust cheese.
Into refrigerator to get cold.
In this case let the vegetables do the talking not a bunch of herbs and spices.

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[bower]

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Here's the fresh fruit tart experiment. I've never made one before so I am wingin it.
I decided to do a crumb crust instead of pastry. Slightly modified the crumb I used for apricot squares, made with flour, coconut, ground almonds, 2 eggs and oil and brown sugar and vanilla. That was pressed into the dish and baked last night, left to cool overnight.
I found a recipe online using cream cheese blended with sugar and vanilla instead of the traditional custard, so I went with that. I was really surprised how much this tastes like the original custard. It also set up very solid in the fridge overnight, so I have hopes it won't make the crust soggy between now and supper time. Spread that into the shells and then layered fruit on top.
I had some crabapple jelly melted to use for the glaze, but when I went to apply it, it had gotten solid again! So I reheated just a little and added some fresh lemon juice. I could do with some pointers on the glazing process for future.
I just dug into one of the mini tarts as a tester, and it's a very pleasing combination of tastes.
The crumb is a little unnecessarily sweet, due to really packing the brown sugar, so I would let up on that next time.
Also the crust is super thick and more than necessary in the mini tarts, which were packed in a hurry to deal with extra crumb. I might actually try rolling it next time and go for thinner crust, not to overpower the fresh fruit which is star of the show. I could make more shells from the same recipe and either freeze some extras or double the cream cheese filling. The nut/coconut crumb taste is great with the fruit though.

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[worth1]

That's a far cry from Pop Tarts.
@bower

[worth1]

Now I've got a pile of shrimp to clean and boil.
The boil consists of hot smoked paprika.
Chipotle powder.
Cumin.
Garlic powder.
Juice of a whole lime with the lime husk tossed in.
Black pepper.
Lots of salt to make it as salty as the sea.
And whatever the devil I thought would be good.

[PlainJane]

@bower that looks fantastic!