Food
chuck roast (left over) sandwiches on homemade sourdough. The Baking Steel is pretty great as a griddle.
Homemade Naan atop a piping hot Baking Steel.
Falafel soft tacos tonight since we had dry chickpeas, the herb garden was begging for it, and we always have corn tortillas. Topped with red onion quick pickle and herbed buttermilk 🧆
Our (majority) whole wheat crust pizza.
Home fried sweet potato chips. Because we didn’t use the potato in a Massaman curry last week (had spaghetti instead).
Yellow Dal w/Garlic & Brown Basmati and make ahead veggie enchiladas all at once.
Takeout from a local Orland, CA restaurant. Even in rural California, online takeout is available! Several restaurants here are offering online orders or call-in. One restaurant has kits to make meals. Another has frozen takeout. 🤞
Sous Vide London Broil (Beef)
We had a two pound London Broil in the freezer chest and nowhere to go because of SARS-CoV-2. Might as well try Sous Vide!
We did the water displacement method with a 1-gallon freezer bag. I massaged out as many air bubbles as possible. I also pinched the sides of the bag together. The idea is to make sure as much direct contact happens with as much meat surfaces as possible with water.
Straight out of the Sous Vide bag the meat is grey and even more oddly, not leaking juices (which always happens with meat removed from blazing hot cooking environments creating a huge temperature and pressure gradient):
Then we cooked it in the water bath for 8 hours at 132ºF or 55.56ºC for 8 hours. It looked grey straight out of the bath and was as you’d expect after reading Kenji’s The Food Lab.
We seared it off in a smoking hot cast iron on all sides and suddenly it was quite appealing to the eye! (plus actually added tangible flavor at the crust).
Seared off in a smoking hot cast-iron gave the meat some color and delicious Maillard reaction
We’ll do this again but next time try it at 131ºF or 55ºC; some of the meat closest to the surface was getting close to over cooked despite still being mid-rare. The meat had just enough chew after being thinly sliced. I doubt this tough cut could get any more tender. I’ll also push the meat down flush against the cast-iron to get better color and take my time searing the sides.
Mid-rare doneness - tender enough and not dried out:
Not going anywhere unless necessary so time to try Sous Vide London Broil. Just under two pounds of meat held at 132°F/55.6°C for 8 hours. Just salt and pepper for the beef. Will sear it to finish.
There are many **vision**s brewing in these caskets at [Moksa Brewery](https://moksabrewing.com).
Alcohol dreaming to escape their bottles. Later, I had a dry gin martini on the rocks.
Ember leaping from a pepper roasting over a gas flame.
We love this red curry paste. Fortify it with fresh lemon grass! 🌶🌶🌶🥵
One of two Valencia oranges from the backyard tree 😋
Warmth and a marshmallow on the Carrizo Plain in 2010.
Sweet mandarins reflecting a whole lot of red showing just how ripe they are. Picked last Saturday to share at work. They were gone shortly after lunch.
Color Stages of Caramel
I use Alton Brown’s dark caramel recipe with some minor modifications to suit taste. First, the mixture always gets to 230°F a few minutes faster than expected and it takes 10 minutes instead of 6 or 7 to get to 300°F. Then, I heat to 340°F instead of 350°F because that’s too burnt for friends. I combine the broken up butter with the cream in a Pyrex measure cup so all of that goes in at once – making it less stressful with one less step. Finally, for a softer caramel, I pour it out at 245°F. YMMV 😁🍴
Just cracked open the homemade boozy eggnog that’s been aging since September 8 2019. It’s delightful, smooth, and not gloppy.
These Extra-crispy Parmesan-crusted roasted potatoes by J. Kenji López-Alt are pretty great.
Today’s sourdough with a side of Annie Cat stare.
