Food
We love this homemade smoked beef salami — could use a bit more paprika but great first try.
A day of discovery making salami for the first time with a smoker we were given. Smells and looks great but it may be a bit loose.
Kimchi-Brined Fried Chicken
Kimchi-Brined Fried Chicken Sandwich Recipe by J. Kenji López-Alt is an excellent recipe — those with lower spice tolerance may want to drizzle the finishing sauce instead of liberally brushing. We did not make the sandwich, but served simply with white rice and kimchi.
Still currently reading: The City We Became by N. K. Jemisin – and enjoying it! Making me look through my photos of New York. Oh look, Brownstone buildings! But hardly anything of The Bronx and no surprise: nothing of Stanten Island. 📚
Overcome a poorly seasoned cast iron pan by cooking lots of fatty things like Guanciale.
Frosty garden grown hot peppers (from the freezer) about to become hot sauce. We harvest over the summer and freeze until ready.
Falafel on a grid.
These Sourdough Dashi Scallion crepes were not stationary for long.
Peppers among peppers. Nachos for dinner tonight. The red jalapeño and yellow wax peppers were home grown.
Garden Update
Experimental pepper garden update: Cayenne, jalapeño, Anaheim, Hungarian wax. We will ripen all peppers to red for making hot sauce and tastier eating. Direct seeded March 29.
The makings of Chai ice cream (admittedly without the tea).
Sous Vide Filet Mignon, Medium Rare
We set the Filet Mignon into the water bath (in a bag of course, air displaced by water so water touches as much steak surface as possible), then set the Sous Vide to 130ºF. Once the water hit 130ºF, we set the timer for an hour to officially start the cook. When the Sous Vide cook was finished, we removed them to pat them dry, and then generously salt and peppered them. We then seared them off in a smoking hot cast iron pan with a tiny bit of peanut oil. After about 1 minute and 15 seconds, we flipped the filets, put unsalted butter in the pan, and basted the heck out of them for about a minute. So after about 2 minutes and 30 seconds of searing heat, we removed them and put a bit of finishing salt on them. This method worked perfectly for Medium Rare-- without the guess work of typical cooking methods! The steaks weren’t mushy, which can happen if you overcook thin pieces of meat in a Sous Vide.
Tostones or patacones (made whenever we find green plantains at SavMor, which isn’t often). 😋
[Crispy Cheese and Kimchi-Topped Skillet Rice](https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2019/10/kimchi-cheese-rice-recipe.html) — quite delicious.
... made from the left over Bulgogi the next day, Bibimbap! Crisped up the white rice a bit too.
Homemade Bulgogi.
Inaugural cook on the Baking Steel Mini Griddle. We love the original size for pizza, cooking lots of vegetables etc but it is too big for most of our griddle applications.
Lunchtime snack: Sweet Cherries fresh from the backyard tree.
Freshly churned strawberry ice cream.
Lunch today: Chuck Roast (left over) Sandwich. Cooked on Baking Steel.
