Whatcha Cooking today?

[worth1]

I love picanha.@worth1 My wife thinks it is too rich tasting. Picanha has a rich beef flavor on steriods. I’d much rather have a picanha steak than a ribeye and the picanha is a lot less expensive. I cut picanha up into steaks before cooking also. Steak and eggs are wonderful together. Fried Eggs need lots of fresh ground black pepper, just like those in the photo. I’d eat different things than I do now if I wasn’t married, not completely, but some meals.

I remember this flavor from growing up on the farm with our home raised custom butchered beef.
Not quite as good but close.
Not graded but I can assure anyone it was on the top end of USDA Prime.
Grass and vegetable scraps fed supplemented with grain.
The animal was rolling in fat.
Sometimes my mom would cook me up a big Ole fatty T Bone when I got home from school because it was easy.

[worth1]

Counting the one I ate this morning I managed to cut 5 steaks about 1.250 thick and wrapped them in cling wrap.
There was a small triangle at the end I cooked in the skillet for a snack.
3 of the steaks are in the freezer and one in the refrigerator for later eating.
5 really good reasonable sized steaks for 20 bucks isn't bad at all at basically $4.00 a steak at over 8 ounces each if my math is right because I had to convert decimals to ounces and the package said 2.88 pounds I didn't weigh the first steak or the end snack piece.
------------------------------.
I just weighed them.
The one I'm going to eat is 11.5.
The other three are.
9.9.
8.5
9.6
Any who.
Now I have to cook down some pancetta for the mashed potatoes with gravy.
Back in the 90's there was a chef that opened up a nice higher end restaurant in Lake Jackson Texas were it was expected you dressed up.
The meals were more on the haute cuisine side I believe from looking at the dinner menu.
It had a separate area for lunch meals for regular working folks to come in for lunch with separate menu.
He had a Chicken fried ribeye steak that was to die for.
It came with the best mashed potatoes and gravy I've ever eaten at a restaurant.
The service was formal correct and impeccable.
Sadly the demographics were all wrong for food like this and it closed down.
My friend told me that there were people in the area that appreciated food like this and it would last.
I sad yes but not enough people to keep it in business.
Do you remember this place? @karstopography

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[karstopography]

@worth1 I vaguely remember a place that fits your description. I’ll have to ask my dad, he’ll likely remember the name and details. I lived in Houston for most of the 1990s.

Our town has never been a foodie place and especially anything white table cloth, high end type of establishment. Demographics have only worsened for anything like high end dining. The places that seem to pack them in are The Olive Garden, Denny’s and Chick Fil-A. I still have a hard time finding a decent, not previously frozen local seafood dish and we are 10 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. Things aren’t quite so bleak as I paint it, there are some fun places with creative and good food.

It’s striking, though, going to foodie places like Houston, Austin, or Santa Fe and see what’s available in those places.

[worth1]

I haven't been back to lake Jackson since I hauled back I think a hundred pounds of flash frozen shrimp back in around 2002.

Any who I'm cooking down some of my homemade pancetta for the future gravy while I'm cooking down my tomato preserves.
House smells heavenly.

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[worth1]

My pancetta roux is completed and ready for later.
Approximately 50% flour and 50% butter and whatever oil the pancetta gave off.
Black pepper added also.
It's frigging hotter than the dickens outside right now and no desire to be next to a fire in the blazing hot sun.

[worth1]

I cooked it in the fire box of the offset smoker on a blazing inferno to rare.
Also fire roasts red ripe pablano pepper.

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[pepperhead212]

Today I made a salad, with some dill, among other things, of course. All that talk somewhere about dill recently made me think about it, plus I wanted some salad, since today was supposed to be hot, and up to 90° tomorrow. And the talk about dill and fish going together, reminded me of a salad I had made in the past, with the kippers. The only cooking in this was about 2/3 c each of barley and channa dal in the Instant Pot. I put a little asafoetida in, to get some of that onion flavor in, and one of those black cardamom pods, for sort of a smoky flavor. I let that drain, while getting some things from outside - a bunch of dill, some garlic chives, and some sugar snap peas. When I came in, I put the barley and dal in a bowl, with some olive oil and some white wine vinegar, and let that soak in, while cutting everything up. I had a generous quarter cup of dill, about half a cup of chopped garlic chives, and 7 or 8 sugar snap peas, de-stringed and halved, and 2 hard boiled eggs, quartered, then all the pieces into thirds. And can of kippers (6½ oz?), drained, and broken into pieces. The last thing I cut up (I always leave these until last) was 3 Hanoi Market peppers, and stirred all this together, along with a good grinding of black pepper. It seemed to need a little more sour, but I didn't want more vinegar, and I didn't feel like thawing any lime juice, so I just put very a large pinch of citric acid, which made it just right.

As much as I love those sugar snap peas, the flavor was a little overpowering, with everything else, so I just dug them out, and ate them by themselves, and the salad by itself.
Salad, made with some barley, channa dal, sugar snap peas, kippered herring, hard boiled eggs, and dill. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

[worth1]

Bought a pound of ground 80/20 ground chuck the other day.
Using my tortilla/hamburger press and another attachment I'm able to press out slightly thinner less weight patties.
The metal disk fits perfectly inside the mould.
16÷3=5.3333333 etc.
I figured 5.1 to 5.3 or so is close enough.
New scales in action too.

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[worth1]

Hamburger buns toasted to perfection.

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[Sue_CT]

You make your own charcoal briquettes too? Nice.

[worth1]

You make your own charcoal bruchettes too? Nice.

It's a satire or whatever you call it in relation to some of the cooking videos I've seen by the top guns of YouTube.
It's obvious the food isn't cooked to perfection and more like totally messed up slop but they refuse to admit it.
Everyone else sees it but proclaim it's wonderful in the comments section like in the story the Emperor's new clothes.

I didn't burn the buns on purpose for the picture.
I was in the middle of making kosher pickles and totally forgot about them until I saw the smoke.

[karstopography]

I’ve burned a few buns, doesn’t take long.

Wife was head chef last night, I was labor. Meatloaf, green beans and fresh corn on the cob. Corn on the cob was store bought, but oh so tender and good. Green Beans came from the garden and they were delicious cooked in bacon grease. My wife’s meatloaf is my all time favorite and was her mom’s recipe. I sliced up a big Dester tomato as an appetizer.

[Sue_CT]

That sounds like some serious comfort food, Karstopography!

[karstopography]

That sounds like some serious comfort food, Karstopography!

Wife is getting her messed up molar extracted as I type this, with potential for a bone graft. Liquid smooth food on the menu for her after surgery, at least for today. She was wanting some comfort going into this.

I’m in the waiting room, hoping there’s nothing too complicated going on.

[PlainJane]

Hope all goes well @karstopography and she has a quick recovery.

[karstopography]

Hope all goes well @karstopography and she has a quick recovery.

Thank you. We are home now and she is sleeping off the anesthetic. Sounds like the procedure went well.

[pepperhead212]

Best wishes for a speedy recovery for her, @karstopography! Keep that comfort food going for her!

[karstopography]

Best wishes for a speedy recovery for her, @karstopography! Keep that comfort food going for her!

Thank you. She’s back sleeping again after a liquid lunch of bulgarian style whole milk unflavored yogurt (made in Austin) whipped up into a smoothie with fresh bananas, blueberries, tupelo honey and a squeeze of fresh lemon. She said she loved it. I thought it was pretty good. I hadn’t made a smoothie in forever.

[Kurt]

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Finally gots the system down with cedar plank salmon,tunas.And my new stile old school habachi .We use charcoals ,no chemical self starting briquettes.Start to finish two hours.

[worth1]

I picked up a different sous vide machine because the other one went on the blink.
Long story and I'll never buy another one of that brand but it was I think a 100 dollars off from 200 dollars.
This one cost $85.00 with fifteen off coupon.
I bought a nice ribeye that looked like prime but priced as select with the savings from the coupon.
This sous vide machine doesn't have any extra WiFi capability.
It's totally manual pushbutton control with timer.
HEB store brand Kitchen chen and Table.
Everythings made in China anyway.
Do they really have to make everything compatible with a frigging smart phone?
I've got the other days mashed taters and some frozen corn in the water with the steak at 130°F for 2 hours.

The other one circulates and ony heated up by a couple of degrees at a time
If you set it to 140 or anything more than 2 degrees above the water temperature it won't heat up.
Frigging strange.
But you can run it at any temperature if you get the water to that temperature first.