• Whatcha Cooking today?

Posted: **Thu Feb 03, 2022 9:41 pm**

karstopography wrote: ↑Thu Feb 03, 2022 11:19 am @Tormato I mostly use floating fly lines with relatively short heads, 30-40 feet that taper off on the back side to the running line. There’s so many names and makers and various tapers out there now. I hate to hear how the industry stole the ideas you had, but I guess I’m not surprised.

Nothing wrong with garden hackle either. My kids and I used to turn over logs along the Charles River in Millis and find abundant earthworms that devasted the yellow perch and LMB in that river, not that we kept any of the fish. I’ve had a ton of fun tossing the 6 1/2’ cast net into the surf here and then putting whatever mullet and others I got on a circle hook and see what I can get, sharks, redfish, gafftop, you never knew. I’ll fish bait I catch, or lures or flies, no purity here. Problem with using shrimp for bait here is that it can attract some species I’d rather not deal with like hardhead catfish with their poisonous spines, gafftopsail cats with their super abundant slime, and other undesirables. Plus, the shrimp have horns that can poke you and I don’t want to mess with bait camps.

Fly fishing is actually an advantage many times here in the real shallow stuff. I won’t get into the reasons why, but I do partially fish to bring home something tasty for the table and fly fishing makes it easier to do that in some cases. Plus, it is fun. I often bring along a low profile baitcasting rig for chunking soft plastics and hard plugs for when the fly tackle becomes more of a burden than an asset.

I never want to try and do anything to make a living from fishing as I see how that might ruin fishing for me. I don’t think I could guide simply because of the people and their expectations. Most of my fishing is solitary and I like it that way.

Back to food and cooking, the garden spinach sautéed was excellent. A little olive oil, a couple of crushed garlic cloves briefly cooked in that until fragrant, then removed. We this time served the spinach with sliced hard cooked egg on top, something I grew up with and my wife hadn’t done before. She liked the spinach like that.

Tonight, it’s taco soup. Easy and good for the cold weather we are getting.

I'm sure I can imagine a floating line staying up above the junk that any other line might sink into. I grew up with lead and mono. Now there's the more expensive tungsten and fluorocarbon. While those things may help, skills like reading the water (including sight fishing?), knowing fish feeding habits, and casting accuracy are more important. But then, I've reached the point where I don't have to get a bite, to still be happy.

My "guiding" is asking someone inexperienced if they would like just a little help with their struggles in learning how to fish.You'd be a good guide for me and any other rare client. Going in with no expectations, learning something new, and having a nice time, no matter what. I've learned much more by not catching any fish, later trying to figure out what I could do better. The internet has likely made the learning curve easier.

I've never made a bucket list, and likely never will. But If I did, it would be a bluefin tuna, thresher shark and swordfish all on a fly.

And, thanks for mentioning the circle hook. Some of my inventions are still in my head, and I need to write them down.

Posted: **Fri Feb 04, 2022 6:14 am**

Stuffed manzano report.
Some heat in mouth.
Head heats up like a tea kettle.
Very flavorful and so much so you want to keep eating.
Not like stuff that is screaming hot with no flavor.
Very realistic complicated dreams back to back all night.

Posted: **Fri Feb 04, 2022 10:01 am**

Folks this is a perfect example of not stereotyping and how it rolls in Texas.
My coworker and good friend Salazar is at home making a bagel and I'm making Elote.

And yes his mother makes her own corn and flour tortillas.

Posted: **Fri Feb 04, 2022 10:37 am**

The best Louisiana style boiled crawfish cooks I know are from Mexican roots. They have the best spice blends and their crawfish tend to be significantly better than the best cooks with the Louisiana roots. My daughter’s boyfriend has boiled crawfish and all the add ins absolutely dialed in, his mom is from Mexico. He’s and his dad along with his Hispanic friends have gone over to the heart of Cajun country and kicked tail in crawfish cooking competitions. He’s sort of ruined eating boiled crawfish for me as no one else measures up. I’ve watched him do the cook. They don’t launch satellites with as much attention to detail as these guys handle a crawfish cook.

Posted: **Fri Feb 04, 2022 11:10 am**

@karstopography
No doubt.
And that spice influence is how I boil shrimp and the occasional crawfish.
But not as good as theirs I'm sure.
I think they make the best BBQ and so called grilled meats too, from my experience and tastes.
The citric acid in the Tajin is for sour taste not a preservative.
The same stuff you find in any sour candy.

Posted: **Fri Feb 04, 2022 11:27 am**

I’m not as crazy about the Tajin as some others. I find the citric acid taste to be too overwhelming. I don’t like drinks and foods with very much added citric acid either, those white claws and most bottled fruit juices and sodas are just awful with the added citric acid. I like citrus fruit and sour tastes in general, but the citric acid in natural fruit seems somewhat different than processed versions and less harsh on the tongue. Maybe there’s buffering agents in the fruit that is lacking in processed foods. I can’t stand store bought “fresh squeezed” orange juice, but love orange juice I make squeezing fresh oranges. You would think they are the same, but two foods couldn’t be more different that share the same name.

Posted: **Fri Feb 04, 2022 11:38 am**

@karstopography
I don't care for the citric acid either.
I only drink fresh squeezed orange juice from juice oranges with seeds.
They aren't pretty like the ones you see and everyone buys.
Store bought orange juice is an abomination to me.
Much like any other thing like tomatoes and sour fruit.
I'm working on making my own Tajin without the citric acid and using chile de Arbol for the chilies.
I just have to figure out a way to dehydrat limes and juice.
My first attempt was a total failure.

Posted: **Fri Feb 04, 2022 11:44 am**

You must be getting good oranges. Like tomatoes, oranges can be good or bad depending on the weather for that year. I'm OK with big label (with pulp) oj, as it's basically a fairly consistent middle of the road blend from many orchards. It would be nice to always have the best tasting oranges, so good there'd be no reason to make juice, but that's not reality, with me. The bad ones seek me out like a siren.

Posted: **Fri Feb 04, 2022 11:58 am**

Tormato wrote: ↑Fri Feb 04, 2022 11:44 am You must be getting good oranges. Like tomatoes, oranges can be good or bad depending on the weather for that year. I'm OK with big label (with pulp) oj, as it's basically a fairly consistent middle of the road blend from many orchards. It would be nice to always have the best tasting oranges, so good there'd be no reason to make juice, but that's not reality, with me. The bad ones seek me out like a siren.

My oranges are grown in Texas in and around Hidalgo County.
They are seasonal and once they're gone they're gone.
I don't buy oranges from any other state unless I can get a Hamlin from Florida.
I rarely make orange juice and if I do I will still eat the pulp they are so good.
Seems like the more you breed the seeds out of things the more you lose flavor.

Posted: **Fri Feb 04, 2022 12:08 pm**

My dad grew the most amazing blood oranges. Moro Blood oranges need very cool, near freezing to just below freezing nights in the fall to really color up well. The store bought California blood oranges tend to be very bloody, but lack the brightness of flavor that distinguished dad’s blood oranges. His weren’t consistently as bloody as the California ones, but the flavor for the juice was a near perfect balance of sweet and tart. Some years were slightly better than others depending on the weather. His orchard froze to the ground last February.

“Fresh Squeezed” from the major labels is months old deoxygenated reconstituted juice from cold storage with odd industrial flavor packs of many times the natural levels of buytric acid added in just prior to packaging. https://civileats.com/2009/05/06/freshl ... -in-boxes/

Posted: **Fri Feb 04, 2022 1:07 pm**

One of the stuffed manzano peppers nestled in a bed of toasted rice I pulled from the freezer.
The rice had some chicken bullion added for flavor.
Charro beans mayocoba style on top of the rice.
With avocado.

20220204_130549.jpg

Posted: **Fri Feb 04, 2022 1:39 pm**

I read some book, many years ago, where the author had his first wake-up call to the real world. As a college student, he was an intern at a "100% pure" orange juice bottling plant. He was wondering why there were so many pallets loaded with 50 pound sacks of cane sugar, around.

Posted: **Sat Feb 05, 2022 9:20 am**

@Tormato
Lucky it wasn't high fructose corn syrup.

Posted: **Sat Feb 05, 2022 10:13 am**

worth1 wrote: ↑Sat Feb 05, 2022 9:20 am @Tormato
Lucky it wasn't high fructose corn syrup.

All I can say is that it was a two decade old book, and the author was middle aged writing about his youth. Today, it's likely a tanker truck of liquid (you know what) pumped in, rather than manually pouring 50 pound sacks. Technology at its finest.

Posted: **Sat Feb 05, 2022 1:45 pm**

I was never so glad as to hear that other people dislike the 'freshly bottled' orange juice. I thought it was just me. Also to hear that there are still oranges worth eating, somewhere in Texas.

I do love the flavor of oranges, but that stuff in the bottle... ain't it.

Posted: **Sat Feb 05, 2022 3:32 pm**

Bower wrote: ↑Sat Feb 05, 2022 1:45 pm I was never so glad as to hear that other people dislike the 'freshly bottled' orange juice. I thought it was just me. Also to hear that there are still oranges worth eating, somewhere in Texas. I do love the flavor of oranges, but that stuff in the bottle... ain't it.

In season I have an orange for dessert at night.
Never have liked any type of store bought orange juice.
My mom always made it fresh in season.
My wife said I was spoiled and a food snob, because there were and still are things I refuse to buy from a store.

Posted: **Sat Feb 05, 2022 4:40 pm**

@worth1 by my definition, a food snob is someone who rules their taste by what is trendy or "officially" the thing to eat. That is about opposite to someone who follows his/her own tastes and simply eat what you like, or don't eat what you find distasteful.
I don't have a clear memory of how my dislike of available oranges and orange products developed. I just gravitated away from them. And then you have the social situations where somebody is urging you to have orange juice. Sometimes you drink it, then after awhile you get the firmly no thanks.
I still know how to pick out a juicy vs a crappy dry orange, as I've bought them for my Mom countless times, and there are oranges even she can't abide in the market here. I can only imagine that people buy them by mistake. Or do they believe it's good because somebody told them? an orange is an orange and a score on your healthy eating whatever.
Sometimes I see organic oranges that look good, and I buy them on rare occasions for baking purposes where you can use the zest as well as the juice. Also will sometimes buy a good looking orange to use the pulp peeled from inside when boiling berries for jelly. Adds some good pectin.

Here's my chicken heart stew. Olive oil, bay leaf, onion gets it started. Chicken hearts in. Black pepper. A load of grated garlic and summer savory when they get their first good stir and turn. Carrots added around the time they are cooked both sides. Let that get an oily coat for a few minutes of simmering before adding the salt. Then some liquid in this case a mix of wine and water, enough to scrub the gravy fixings off the bottom with a wooden spoon. Cover and let the carrots cook. Served over rice. One time it was cheap eaten. Now it is comfort food and health food - if you know what and why you're eating. Like it is good enough for me.

chickenheartstew-534.JPG

Posted: **Sat Feb 05, 2022 5:18 pm**

@Bower
My fondest memory of citrus and oranges is a long story and goes way back to when I was a teenager and a drop dead gorgeous part apache Indian girl.
And an orange grove in Arizona.
But it even goes back farther with her in Oklahoma where I met her and her family.
She was adopted by a man that left Texas during the depression to head west for a better life.
The man was younger than my father but the family left Bend Texas and my father knew them.
It wasn't until the 70's that my father met the man again in Oklahoma at his cousins place in the Ouachita mountains.
That's when I met this lovely girl.
She was cousins with yet another lovely blonde girl that I hung out with in the country.
There were 4 girls all together.
Two sisters and the two cousins.
One from Arizona and one from Tulsa.
They were fighting over who got to go out with me.
I settled the argument and took all 4 out.
They were all beautiful but the one from Arizona was stunningly so.
So much so I didn't think I had a chance but I tried anyway.
We first got together at one of my moms taco parties.
All the girls and people were there.
Then later in they year I drove out to California to go to my first duty station in the Marines.
Stopped off in Arizona to visit the people I had met in Oklahoma.
Stayed for a week
I helped them pick Oranges and sort them.
The father of which my father had known in Texas sold fruit at a stand.
While in Arizona I got to taste all manner of delicious fruit right from the orchards.
I left Arizona to go on my way to California and never saw these people again.
It's like I stepped out of one world into another at that time of my life never to returned.
I might as well went to another planet with no return ticket.
Even if I wanted to go back nothing is as it was.
The orchards are gone covered up in concrete strip malls and tract houses.
All I have for memories is that beautiful girl and I sitting in a tree shooting my 30 Gibbs rifle at the irrigation canals at cans.
And picking citrus fruit out of the trees.
To this day every time I hold an orange I think of that Apache girl and those innocent days of youth.

Posted: **Sat Feb 05, 2022 11:56 pm**

I threw together an Indian dish tonight, as a one dish meal in the Instant Pot - fast to do, since I already had the spice mix made (enough left to do one more smaller batch). I soaked some dried eggplant and some dried tomatoes - the tomatoes I blended up smooth, as a base. I sautéed 2 small onions chopped up, followed by 3 large cloves garlic, minced, flowed by 3 tb of the sambar masala, to cook briefly, then the tomatoes went in - equal to about 3/4 lb, blended in about a cup of water. When this reduced to a thick sauce, I added 6 c water, 3/4 c whole mung beans, 1/2 c toor dal, and 3/4 c oat groats, plus a large carrot, diced up, and the drained eggplant. I salted this lightly (added more later) and covered it, and set it to 10 min. "manual", then let the pressure release naturally. While cooking this, I peeled and diced up my last 2 potatoes, and I thawed 1 lb of bottle gourd cubes in the MW, drained all the water out, and added this, along with 1/2 c masoor dal (red lentils), adjusted the salt, then simmered about 20 min. While this was cooking, I got the spices ready for the tarka, and chopped the cilantro. When it seemed ready, I prepared the tarka - mustard seed, cumin seed, 2 types of peppers, curry leaves, and asafoetida, in a tb of coconut oil. Added this, then the cilantro, and it was finished. It actually took less work time than it took to type this! lol

Surprisingly, the frozen gourds still keep their shapes after the blanching, freezing and thawing, and cooking. And the dried eggplant the same - all this cooking would turn fresh EP to mush.

Tarka added to a vegetable curry. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Cilantro added to the curry, just before serving. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Finished curry, with 3 dals, onion, carrots, bottle gourd, eggplant, and tomatoes, plus some oat groats. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Posted: **Sun Feb 06, 2022 6:49 pm**

I was in the mood for some beans tonight so I made Three Bean Stew in the Instant Pot. I soaked the beans all day. I used 3 kinds that I grew, Black, Bolita and Lazy Housewife beans.

I sauteed some bacon, green pepper, onion and garlic and then added the soaked beans, water, a can of crushed tomatoes, oregano, salt and pepper, Cooking time was 55 minutes.

Soaked Beans by Brownrexx, on Flickr

Three bean stew by Brownrexx, on Flickr

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