Sometimes regular

It's almost time for my Sometimes Annual Orphan Thanksgiving Potluck. I'm planning ahead and have started clearing out space in the freezer. Hunk of pork loin frees up a cubic foot. Woo Hoo! Will you be joining us for Early Orphan Thanksgiving this weekend?

Roast pork loin with rosemary prune gastrique. The sprig of parsley means I've attempted to have green vegetables this week. Delicious prune sauce will be awesome paired with duck. We will be having duck in the near future. And maybe bunny.

I heart salt

Tonight, I work on making heirloom quality Loo Juice. A sodium umami bomb to pass onto the next generation. Soy braised chicken wings, tofu, beef shank, shiitake, and eggs. I should probably get one of those home EKG machines. I'd mod it to spit out menu planning advice. And my EKG machine would support RSS.

Pumpkin pulpit

I wonder how Barack O'Lantern sales are doing? I have yet to see one in the neighborhood. And they were never there when I walked Preston over to buy one.

Camarones chimichurri con arroz. I had to pack away my organic local seasonal pulpit and admit that every ingredient came out of the freezer. Frozen shrimp. Frozen chimichurri marinade. Frozen rice. Yes, I keep my rice in the freezer. Trying to eat organic local and seasonal takes a lot of time and effort. I'm often lazy.

Pig latin

It's been ages since I've seen one of my favorite Sachi's. We will catch up and reminisce with the aid of pork dishes. Sachi brings gifts of beautiful irises. Are irises edible?

A bit of wine, some manchego, and a nibble or two of salame while I finish up the other courses.

We will be guinea pigs* to my new invention. Interactive caesar salad. Slightly grilled romaine lettuce for a bit of smokey flavor. And the components of a traditional caesar dressing broken out and treated as their own individual side dishes of fried eggs and warm bagna cauda. Just mix everything together however you wish when you eat it. This was a bit too interactive for my tastes. I'm essentially lazy, so I'd rather not play with my food on the plate and would prefer something pre-tossed. Sometimes, it can be too much work to eat something. But I have to admit it looks nice on a plate.

But the old standby of tomatillo braised pork loin never fails. It's doubly wonderful today because pork is cheap this week due to the Jewish holidays. I have 18 lbs of pork in the refrigerator.

I kleenz krumms auf u.

*there was no lipstick on the above mentioned guinea pigs

Fruitful events

Wintermelon sorbet. The graininess of the ice crystals... sigh... disappointing. This flavor may be better in gelato form so the milk fat and egg custard help smooth it out. Next time. Next time.

Tuna, artichokes, and bean crostini. A spoonful of capers, splashes of olive oil and red wine vinegar. Another lazy man concoction. Aside from the toasted bread and chopped red onions, everything came out of a can or jar. 5 minutes, tops.

Banana plant finally flowering! Bananas hopefully soon. Giant tarantulas not as welcome.

Today's harvest. Herbage and tomatoes. Not produce self sufficient this summer, perhaps next year.

Home made spaghetti-O's. The crostini may be from a can, but tonight's pasta is made with backyard basil and tomatoes. Go figure.

6 years of living in this house, and this is the first time I used the bathtub. Now I'm good for another 6 more years.

Winter stores

It's the tomato sauce time of the year. This year's Summer of Garden Neglect has produced much less bounty than last year. But we will make do and be grateful for with what we have. Thankfully, supermarkets and Costco have been invented so I'm in no danger of starvation this winter.

I went totally nuts at the Super H Mart bulk bins. All sorts of flavored and dried and pickled fish products. The octopus jerky and candied anchovy snacks were especially delicious. All you pasty white people gagging right now need to get over your food prejudices and keep an open mind. Delicious is delicious in any culture.

I only bought this because she reminded me of those WW2 Rosie the Riveter "We Can Do It." posters. I had no clue what these were when I threw her into the shopping cart.

Tomato sauce. And crimini mushroom tapenade. If I had a basement, I'd totally have a giant freezer chest. And I'd buy an entire hormone free grass fed cow to fill it.

I made Nancy chocolate toffee chunk cookies for Greg's party tonight. I even followed the recipe. It was painful to do so.

Moon, my ass

It's the Autumn Moon Festival time of the year now. But I celebrate with rigatoni and meat ragu rather than Chinese food and moon cake. I should probably learn to cook Chinese food at some point in my life, but I've always despised moon cake. Moon cake. Ick. I was not even tempted to buy moon cake at Costco this year- and I'm normally a sucker for anything Costco. Moon cake. Ick.

August moon in September. Chinese mythology says there is a bunny that lives on the moon. Western mythology says the moon is made of cheese. I say, mmmm... braised rabbit with cheese souffle.

Preston is totally uninterested in the August moon. He might like Costco moon cakes though. And he definitely loves cheese and bunnies.

Magically delicious

Preston no longer stricken with sympathy jetlag.

Rigatoni magically appears from the kitchen larder. One of the benefits of fully stocked freezers and pantries. Bring on the earthquakes!

Free range ragu

I'm reaching maximum capacity in the freezer again. We'll start working through some of the oxtail ragu to free up some room. This jar was zinged up with artichokes.

Brown eye

Trying a new interesting recipe for mushroom olive ragu on linguine with pecorino romano cheese. Basically, you blitz up a bunch of brown mushrooms in the food processor with some olives, cook the mush in red wine, and you're done. How could something so simple be so delicious? The sauce freezes well too.

Chocolate sorbet has a very alien texture. Even straight out of the freezer, it has the consistency of liquid latex. Wrong. It's just wrong. Fail!

Will power

I need adult supervision when I go to grocery stores. It's impossible to practice restraint and self control. I want to try everything I see. It's like I'm five years old.

Crazy soda pop. Rather than the usual screw top cap, pressure generated from carbonation forces a glass marble in the upper chamber to seal tightly against the opening. The pinch in the middle keeps the marble from settling into the bottom after it's been forced down by the bundled punch mechanism. A marvel of pointless physics and engineering.

Anything sporting panda illustrations or panda logos will pretty much guarantee a spot in the shopping cart. 

The first of the string beans this season are ready. I started with an equal number of green, yellow, and purple bean seeds. For some reason, the yellow beans have taken off, followed by purple, and the more common green beans are withering away before producing flowers. A lone strawberry survivor. And it wasn't even all that tasty. Slugs got to all the other ones.

Nowhere near a peck of pickled peppers. But we don't need that much quantity as these peppers are intense enough to strip varnish. The radishes will turn a shade of flattering pink as it pickles.

Looing assorted items. This is the start of a master loo juice sauce base that can be passed down many generations. Each time it's used, you add a little more spice, a little more water, a little more soy sauce. It's supposed to darken with age and bloom with complex flavor like a fine wine. If you treat me right, I will bequeath this sauce to you upon my death.

Loo lo. Loo gee. Loo zhu. Loo hsiang goo. 

Sautéd dandelion greens. My mulching efforts over the past year have cut down the number of weeds growing in the yard. So I actually paid good money at the farmer's market for these weeds.

Chocolate blood orange sorbet refuses to freeze. The flavor is incredible, but WHY WON'T YOU FIRM UP?

Tonight's batch of chicken stock yielded over a gallon and a half. I'm not going to will this to anyone upon my death, so you'll have to make your own.

Delayed gratification

Beef roast with porcini braised overnight with Pinot Noir at 220 degrees rather than 3 hours at 350. Instead of waking up in the middle of the night to deal with the roast, wafting porcini smells flavored my sweet dreams.

Camarones ala chimichurri. I used the shrimp liquid from last night to make the rice. When I took the first bite, I realized that I ate pretty much this exact dish a few years ago at the El Avion restaurant in Costa Rica. Mine might be better, though less scenic.

Crimini mushroom ragu. Has potential to be delicious. We'll know for sure at some future time.

Prep school

This year's entire loquat harvest was consumed within an hour of picking. Very juicy and fresh. But all gone. No more delicious loquats until next year.

I'm practicing my Top Chef skills by cutting roasted beets into centimeter cubes. The ugly ones went into my stomach. At some point in my life I'd like to go to cooking school and learn these things for real instead of watching TV and making things up as I go along.

Searing a roast for stracoto with porcini mushrooms. A little care in the beginning yields a lot of delicious later.

Extracting flavor from the peeled shrimp shells. The broth may wind up in a sauce, mayhaps. Or the beginnings of a bisque, perhaps. Maybe a poaching liquid of some sort, possibly. But certainly, I'm getting my money's worth from this handful of shrimps. I'm skipping composting the spent shells after I'm done. For they be super stinky for long time.

Shrimps will marinate overnight in a chimichurri.

And for even more Top Chef fun, I will be breaking down two Costco chickens tonight.

Chicken building blocks sorted and organized for dishes yet to be imagined.

I may have gone overboard with the food prep and pyrex containers.