Turkey out of the oven and the thermometer climbed.
Breast is most important not the dark meat at this time.
No cover no huge amount of juices to deal with but the flavor is still there.
Skin crispy too.

Breast cooled off enough and separated from the bird.
Bird flipped over and put back in the oven at 350F with a good dusting you don't see because it's not on it yet.
Probably munch on this critter for lunch this week.
And make some turkey and dumplings.

The lovely and long suffering Mrs. Gotch's Croissant Paninis...replete with secret weapon Braunschweiger: And her positively marvelous, breathtakingly browned Spanakopita The Gotch

I love Braunschweiger for a couple of days every other year or so. I'm not really loyal to brands because they all taste the same to me.

Shrimp with broccoli shoots. My broccoli that didn’t produce such great central heads is now redeeming itself by going nut producing side shoots. I actually like these side shoots better than the main event.

I cooked some chopped garlic in a mix of butter and olive oil until fragrant then tossed in the broccoli side shoots. Once those got a little wilted in went the jumbo peeled shrimp. Meanwhile, I had a pot of penne pasta going. Once the shrimp got closer, I put in a little cream and grated Parmesan.

All that plus a little reserved pasta water got tossed together with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice at the point of plating. Easy dinner.

Sous Vide filet. This might be the last of it. Three kinds of garden lettuces, little gem, some type of oak leaf, and a Turkish romaine baby lettuce that has a greasy texture, plus Astro arugula in its absolute prime.

Picked up a couple of more pounds of the shrimpys before they went off sale.
Having some sort of shrimpy pasta with Alfredo sauce for supper.
Naturally with extra EVOO since I have some.
Decided on Ditalini pasta for a change.

Yum!

On superbowl day, I made a dish I was originally going to make on my Birthday, but there was a lot of it leftover, so I had some tacos with it 3 times today! It is one of my favorite Mexican dishes, though I don't make it as often as I used to, since it has 2 lbs of shrimp. The dish is fairly easy to make...as long as that salsa negra is on hand! And that is something I always keep on hand (I have to make another batch now). The original salsa negra of Rick Bayless has 4 oz of dried moritas, and some peeled garlic, both shallow fried, then put in a syrup made with some piloncillo. When the mix cools, it is then blended until totally smooth, then cooked down to a paste. The later recipe he came up with because it was easier (it was in a later book, and the one online), with canned chipotles, and brown sugar, but it simply wasn't as good as the one with moritas - what makes it black.

The shrimp recipe calls for just a 6 oz broiled or grilled tomato, but this time I used dried tomatoes - just under .5 oz, and water up to 6 oz, to soak. And I used a shallot, instead of a small onion, which I didn't have. And I had 2.2 oz of salsa negra in the jar - the recipe uses 2-4 oz, and this was the maximum, and it is definitely warm!
Shrimp in salsa negra chipotle sauce, on corn tortillas. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Here are all the photos together, if you want to see how it's made!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/91097628@ ... 314744662/

Making skillet burgers tonight. These are the vegetables. Like lettuce is prone to suddenly start to grow. Now I have too much out there.

Second to last Bella Rosa tomato. My wife and I sampled a wedge. Good enough for a burger.

Been making egg stir-fry basmati-rice.

Pressure cooked the chicken gizzards, and using the water as broth to cook the rice.

Some sort of rice egg bacon concoction.
Bacon.
Rice.
Celery.
Onion.
Egg.
Spices are.
Homemade curry powder.
Shrimp bullion powder.
Five spice powder.
Soy sauce.
Turmeric.
MSG.
Black pepper.

I made some butter chicken, but I made it with skinned legs, not boneless, as it is usually done. I pulled the cooked chicken off the bones, cut some smaller, then put it back in the finished sauce. Most call for heavy cream at the end, some for "hung" curd, which is like Greek yogurt, but not quite as thick. What I did, since I had it on hand, was used creme fraiche, which turned out great! This was served with some jeera rice. Absolutely delicious, and I almost went to get a silicone spatula to scrape the last bit out of the bowl!

Jeera rice, with a tarka cooked in ghee, of mostly cumin, plus a few cardamom pods, whole cloves, an Indian bay leaf, a star anise, and some minced up green chilies. by pepperhead212, on Flickr



The butter chicken sauce about 3/4 finished, with the chicken added, to cook 14 minutes under pressure, and release 15 minutes. by pepperhead212, on Flickr



Chicken removed, to cool some, then added a little more salt, and garam masala, and some methi leaves and creme fraiche. by pepperhead212, on Flickr



Finished butter sauce, before adding the "pulled" chicken back into it. by pepperhead212, on Flickr



Butter chicken, served with the jeera rice. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

I wanted a cheeseburger so bad for lunch yesterday I was about to buy one.
But I held off and had my cold can of ravioli instead.
I got home and made one from my 50/50 ground brisket.
Toasted buns.
Mayonnaise sweet pickle relish.
Lots of black pepper.
Meat patty.
Two slices of Velveeta cheese.
Fried onions from the Netherlands.
Bun with mayonnaise on top.
French fries.
Fried shrimpys.

One of the better shrimp scampis I’ve made. Could have cooked the shrimp a minute less. Sauce was perfect. I used a splash of Sauvignon blanc, good EVOO, butter, the right amount of garlic. Good fresh parsley.

Aldi had some Spanish garlic that I used and it is a great flavored garlic. It’s a hardnecked type with a white exterior and individual cloves with a red streaks. Not especially big cloves. Good garlic. Looking at photos of Spanish Roja garlic, it isn’t that one.

Making Sous Vide yellowfin tuna tonight. Cousin caught a nice yellowfin a while back that I vacuumed packed and froze. Going to Sous Vide for 45 minutes with fresh dill, salt and olive oil at 110 or 115° and then coat in coarse ground pepper or hulless sesame seeds on cast iron.

I made an unusual dish for a late lunch, or snack - some 1,2,3,4,5 chicken gizzards, or 5 spice chicken gizzards, for a name most would know better. The 1,2,3,4,5 name is from a dish I've been making since the 80s, which is for spareribs, chopped into 1 to 1½" pieces (I have a large, heavy chopping board that one side is all hacked up, from chopping hundreds of those things, through the years), and 1½ lbs gets put in a 9½" sauté pan (or the 12" sauté pan for a double recipe), to which I add 1 tb Chinese cooking wine, 2 tb soy sauce (I always do 1 light and 1 dark), 3 tb white vinegar, 4 tb sugar, and 5 tb water, and just an option, but delicious, about a tsp of Chinese 5 spice powder. This is brought to a boil, and cooked 45 min. over medium low heat, stirring a couple times. Then the liquid is boiled down to a syrup (sometimes not much is left!), then served, with all that syrup scraped from the pan. This is a favorite among my friends, and I have used the method and numbers for many other dishes - usually 1 lb, if boneless, and for things like boneless chicken thighs, I'll remove the thighs after 20 min, then boil down the liquid by itself, then put the chicken back into the syrup. In this case, I cooked the 2 lbs of gizzards in the Instant Pot, under pressure for 75, and it released after 13 minutes, then I hit Off, then Sauté, and adjust once, to cook on high, until syrupy - maybe 15 min, or a little less. They were super tender, and had that "irony" taste gizzards have, even more so.
The gizzards in the Instant Pot, showing the syrup after boiling down on High Sauté mode, from about an inch deep. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

About a quarter of the finished 5 spice chicken gizzards, pressure cooked 75 minutes, then boiled down to a syrup. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

For dinner, I made a batch of mushroom, barley, and lentil soup, with some unusual purple barley, plus some mung beans - in this case, some split, but not hulled, available in Indian markets, and I often use to thicken things like this. I started it by soaking 3/4 oz of boletus mushrooms, washed them out very well, and used the strained soaking water in the soup. I made a mirepoix of a large onion, medium carrot, and a stalk of celery, cooked on Sauté medium in the Instant Pot about 5 minutes in some olive oil, then for about a minute cooked about a tb of minced garlic, and a couple of tsp each of rosemary and marjoram, minced with the garlic. Then I put the finely chopped boletus, and the soaking and washing water (about 2 c), switched the IP to Sauté High, and boiled almost all that off, then added 8 c chicken broth, and let it come back to a boil. Then I added 1/2 c each purple barley, and the split, but not hulled mung beans, and about 1½ tb soy sauce, for the salt. I set that for 30 min on Manual, let it release 15 min, and the barley still needed some more cooking! I also added about 1/3 c more of those moong dal, as it needed more thickening, and set for 10 minutes more cooking, and released 12 minutes (hard to believe that barley was still visible!), and after this, put the browned mushrooms in (cooked separately, while doing these other things), and just simmered another 5 min. This way, the mushrooms keep some flavor and "bite" to them, instead of getting overcooked, and the boletus give most of the flavor to the soup.
I made a batch of mushroom, barley, and lentil soup, with some unusual purple barley, plus some mung beans - in this case, some split, but not hulled, available in Indian markets, and I often use to thicken things like this. I started it by soaking 3/4 oz of boletus mushrooms, washed them out very well, and used the strained soaking water in the soup. I made a mirepoix of a large onion, medium carrot, and a stalk of celery, cooked on Sauté medium in the Instant Pot about 5 minutes in some olive oil, then for about a minute cooked about a tb of minced garlic, and a couple of tsp each of rosemary and marjoram, minced with the garlic. Then I put the finely chopped boletus, and the soaking and washing water (about 2 c), switched the IP to Sauté High, and boiled almost all that off, then added 8 c chicken broth, and let it come back to a boil. Then I added 1/2 c each purple barley, and the split, but not hulled mung beans, and about 1½ tb soy sauce, for the salt. I set that for 30 min on Manual, let it release 15 min, and the barley still needed some more cooking! I also added about 1/3 c more of those moong dal, as it needed more thickening, and set for 10 minutes more cooking, and released 12 minutes (hard to believe that barley was still visible!), and after this, put the browned mushrooms in (cooked separately, while doing these other things), and just simmered another 5 min. This way, the mushrooms keep some flavor and "bite" to them, instead of getting overcooked, and the boletus give most of the flavor to the soup.
Mushroom barley soup, with the boletus and cooking down, with the mirepoix and soaking water. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

1/2 c each of purple barley and split, but not hulled, mung beans, for the mushroom soup. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

A pound of creminis, cooked separately, while the barley and lentils are cooking. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

The mushroom, barley,, lentil soup, almost finished. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Finished mushroom, barley, and lentil soup, topped with a little reggiano. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Everyone has seen cooked wide egg noodles and cooked angel hair pasta.
I had the egg noodles with olive oil and the angel hair pasta with butter and black pepper.
The egg noodles were leftover from before and the angel hair was from a package I had opened.
Ate them separately for supper.
Then a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Every time worth mentions a can of cold ravioli I get the picture of the fonz at Christmas...and yet when I was kid and saw that the first time I thought how lucky he was because he got to eat ravioli whenever he wanted. I loved chef boyardee ravioli. the big ones chopped up, not the minis. Orange stained lunch box thermos to prove it.

HEEYYYYY!

The can of ravioli was a real treat for me as a kid.
I recall the time a bunch of girls came over to my place and saw me eating a can of cold green beans.
They were flabbergasted and felt sorry for me.
For the life of me I can't remember why a bunch of girls come over to my place.
I explained to them that I had spent weeks at a time eating out of a can in the desert and just got used to it.

Today I peeled a bunch of Yukon Gold potatoes that were almost forest green and a russet that needed attention.
In the cold water they went for mashed potatoes later on.

Just clearing out a few things no need to actually cook.