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Everything posted by Porthos
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My idea was that instead of defrosting the meat and then putting it into a ziptop bag, I would defrost and drop the vacuum-sealed bag into the sous vide bath. I wonder if I frozen the meat on a cookie sheet, then seasoned it and sealed it if that might prevent or seriously reduce the cured texture. I dislike reheating food I've cook in a sous vide bath. Personal preference. YMMV. Edited to add: I don't like having leftovers in general, and so only prepare enough for whomever I'm feeding.
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A Southern California chain supermarket put boneless beef short ribs on sale this week for $3.99. Given that chuck roast is running $7-8/lb, I think it's a bargain. I bought enough for 3 meals for the 2 of us. I'm braising some for tonight's dinner. If I'm happy with them I may go back and get more into the freezer. I don't see 5-6 lbs total of meat fitting into the "hoarding" category. For the 2 of us I typically prepare about 12 oz total of whatever meat I'm using for dinner. Hoping to pick up some wild-caught salmon from Costco soon. I'll serve larger portions of that.
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That price is shocking. I'd have to think hard before buying it.
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I picked up enough boneless short ribs to make 3 meals for my Sweetie and me. One meal will be pan-braised tonight. One has been vacuum-sealed and is in the freezer. My question is about seasoning, sealing, freezing, then defrosting and cooking at a later date. I'd like to season and seal the 3rd meal's worth. Can I use a dry rub on the meat, then seal, freeze, and cook at a later date? Does anyone else do this?
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I bought Salt, Fat, ... I enjoyed the series and watched it a few times.
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High Risk Nestle Prepared Foods Company Recalls Lean Cuisine Fettuccini Alfredo Products Due to Misbranding and Undeclared Allergens
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As I said up-thread I don't strain my bacon grease. Today after adding more from breakfast I did gently heat (50% power in my inverter microwave) my liquid gold just enough so that the accumulated "bits" could settle to the bottom. It's now back in the fridge. I think I need to get some russets so I can make us some German potato pancakes. I only keep waxy potatoes in the house.
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Yesterday while in Orange County my Sweetie and I went to the Westminster Costco Business Center and the Garden Grove Costco. The second stop, Costco GG, had things on my list and also was using up time before we went to visit my FIL. At the Costco BC, people were wearing masks and generally practicing social distancing. At the regular Costco, however, most of the members were acting like social distancing was a marketing gimmick they weren't going to fall for. In the past I've only gone to that Costco during the week, and that was before COVID 19. It's always been a little bit like bedlam there but this was ridiculous. I told my DW to tell me, "Oh hell no" if I suggest going there in the future. I found it interesting that the GG Costco didn't have any Kirkland mild cheddar (wasn't after that) or Sharp cheddar, a staple in our home. Picked up some Tillimook sharp cheddar to fill the gap. My 2 regular Costcos haven't had any cheese stocking issues. Not food, but nitrile gloves at still out of stock. We're using vinyl for the time being but if you wear them very long, say a half hour, they tend to stick to your skin and tear when you try to take them. I always take gloves off the way I was trained to do for dealing with blood-borne pathogens. I don't have the tearing problem with nitrile.
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Risk:HIgh Conagra Brands, Inc. Recalls Frozen Not-Ready-To-Eat Chicken and Turkey Bowl Products due to Possible Foreign Matter Contamination
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@chefmd Impressive. Given that the numbers relate to the "eye" size on a stove, the owner of such a pan would have to own a very large stove.
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I found The Making of a Chef: Mastering Heat at the Culinary Institute of America Kindle Edition - 1.99 . I was just thinking this morning that I'm almost done with Kitchen Confidential and was going to need new reading material for our (being hopeful here) vacation. I don't care to lug dead tree books around if I can avoid it.
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I have an orange one put away somewhere. A few years ago I found a Gricer Mfg company clamp-mount crank-operated shredder that is similar to the KitchenAid shredding attachment. It's good for traveling/camping. I found the mouli-julienne a bit awkward to use, but I think it's me.
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@chefmd I need a green-with-envy icon. That is a great bargain. I've never seen anything larger than a #8 here in southern California. And since the shelter-in-place order from our Governor in March, there's been no thrift shopping. I'm jonesing to go thrift shopping again so bad they may have to put me into a medically-induced coma to help me survive. 😏
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No offense intended to me it just looks like a super-duper Instapot. Not sure what I'm missing.
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For that money I'd buy a Blue Star range.
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I got up early enough to go to my supermarket's seniors hour, only to discover that they have discontinued the seniors hour. I rarely set my alarm, one of the perks of being retired. Our county has eliminated face masks being mandatory, but almost everyone there was still wearing one. I definitely was. The store was mostly empty, more staff stocking things than customers. The ice cream novelties freezers had big holes this morning, including the 2 items on my list, so I chose something else to try. Although my Sweetie and I eat them for dessert, I'm more interested in making sure we have treats our grandchildren will eat when they spend their one evening a week with us. Mom and dad don't keep much in the way of desserts in their house so this is a treat for the grand kids. Mom and dad are fine with it. Oh, I was able to get everything else on my list. I should be able to not go grocery shopping for several days now. A couple of days ago we were able to change our reservations for vacation this year, which means we can now go. Fishing at a mountain lake makes social distancing a no-brainer. Part of my shopping this morning became buying some of the dry goods we'll take up. We've invited our daughter and her husband and kids to join us. My daughter has been jonesing to go to the lake again for a couple of years. I hope they can make it. Menu planning will have to wait until we find out if she and the kids will go, and if my SIL will go. If just my daughter and the grandkids go then my Sweetie will ride/drive up with them to help with the grandkids. Before my FIL got to sick to make the trip to the lake my Sweetie road up with him so he wouldn't be alone on the drive, so I've been making the seven-hour drive myself for many years. No matter who all comes up, one night will be grilled steaks. I'm thinking we should do a make-you-own taco night if they come. Fortunately, the pandemic is not really making any impact on the availability of meat in my area to that's not a concern for menu planning. I continue to be vigilant when shopping and either disinfect or quarantine all of the groceries when I get home. Since I keep chlorine test strips around it's easy to make sure the disinfecting solution is still up to snuff.
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Our daughter came over Tuesday afternoon to color my wife's hair and have dinner with us. My wife will have to have a new driver's license photo taken and hair salons are non-essential so no hair cut but at least she could get her hair colored. My daughter mentioned that when trying to order things from Costco through Instacart that Costco was out of butter. I've not seen any shortage of butter there and was surprised to hear that. My Sweetie and I went to Costco yesterday to pick up a prescription for me and do a little shopping. We found the quantities of butter I had been seeing so we picked up some for her. Picked up more sharp cheddar for us. Before heading to Costco we went to the Claro's Italian Deli/store in Upland, part of a small chain. Tuesday I had thought of something I wanted from their store and told my Sweetie that, since we knew we had things we needed to do on Thursday, we should go on a "get out of the house" afternoon then. However, come yesterday morning I couldn't remember what it was I wanted. We still went, hoping that walking around the store I would remember. I never did. But I did pick up some envelopes of powdered saffron and we also bought some Italian Fig Cookies and some anise biscotti. I wanted to go to Cost Plus World Markets, not far from Claro's, for some Walkers shortbread for my FIL. I'm so used to the stores I normally go to being open during the "essential businesses only" shelter-in-place it never crossed my mind that they might be closed. They were. Oh well ...
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I've saved the metric PDF to try sometime. Regarding the lemon juice my mindset is to always make the recipe exactly as presented the first time I try it. I will use my squeeze lemon juice bottle for the lemon juice.
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Mother's Day Dinner for my Sweetie. Sous vide rare rib eye, Peas and Cocktail Onions with Butter and Dill, Saffron Risotto.
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This is the one I use in our house freezer (from a thrift store). The ones for the upright freezer are maybe 4-5 cm narrower.
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@Amy D. I turn 67 this year. I've been around freezers my whole life here in Southern California. I've never seen an upright freezer with pull-out shelves anywhere here. I have baskets that I use. I recently did a complete clean out and defrost and still need to get a couple of them back in. The ones that still need to go back in have one end of the basket much lower for reaching in. For grins I'm going to search on the internet and see if freezers with drawers can be had here, as an academic pursuit; I have no need of a new freezer.
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@dcarch interesting solution. @KennethT I wondered the same thing about a landslide. We've had both, upright and chest. We have an upright now and that's all I'll ever own in the future. I apparently don't keep enough stuff in my upright freezer. I keep most of the meat for our meals in the garage fridge freezer. There's a lot of blue ice in there, including the door. The bottom shelf is ren faire-related food, including 65+ lbs of corned beef that was destined for the Southern California Renaissance Pleasure Faire this spring that COVID-19 put the kebash on. Hopefully the Northern California Renaissance Faire will happen and I can cook it and sent it up there.
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The weather is cooling off a bit so I've made the aforementioned beef stock. I'm not interested in running the oven at 400F when it's hitting the nineties. The stock is chilling in the fridge for easy de-fatting. Then I'll check to see if I'm happy with the amount of reduction of the stock. If not, I'll reduce it more. My Sweetie and I happily gnawed the meat off of the bones after I pulled them and the veggies out. Now I need the right weather and timing to make Barley Beef Soup, something she has been asking about having. Scaring up some beef to cube and put in it will be easy. Jackpot! I just remembered that I have some left-over trip-tip in the freezer. 😄 We're going to "visit" my FIL this afternoon, which is standing on the patio of his room at the care facility, looking at him through the French doors and talking to him on the phone. His is frail, but still hanging on, the cancer continuing to do it inoperable damage. The care facility shut it's doors to visitors pretty early in the ramping up of the virus here in the US, for which I'm grateful. We'll have to briefly stop at a market on the way. We bring him cookies and have none, due to my lack of foresight. The cookies are left on the table on the facility's main patio. The wonderful, caring staff will retrieve them from there. Makes for a no-contact delivery. Because of how we time our visits with my FIL (when he will most likely be awake) our dinner tonight will be some lucky fast-food drive through. We live about an hour away from him and waiting to eat when we get home isn't an option. I pretty much eat on a schedule as part of managing my Type 2 diabetes.
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Yesterday morning I realized that I needed potatoes for the potato salad I was serving for dinner. Off I went, and I made use of already being there for a few other groceries, then head home. This morning I bought an almost 7 lb bone-in choice ribeye roast. Interestingly, when I went to bone it it had already been boned and the bones packaged with it. I cut it down into a 2 lb roast and 3 steaks. I had planned on making a mushroom-bacon quiche for Mothers Day dinner. When offered a ribeye steak instead my Sweetie chose the steak (color me so surprised). The real point of this pandemic post is that I don't make my own stocks. As I was looking at the beef bones I had just acquired I figures I would make some beef stock. As I thought about my general reticence to make my own stock I realized that the major impediment to doing is that I rarely, really rarely, buy bone-in meat, which leaves me with no scraps to utilize. I don't foresee changing my buying habits, and I use maybe 2 quarts of beef broth a year so it isn't really worth my effort. I have to confess that shelter-in-place isn't happening very well with me. The good news in that, however, is that I go to the store, buy what's on my list, leave and come home. I'm practicing social distancing, wearing my mask, wearing gloves, and either quarantining my purchases or disinfecting them as needed. I'm using and sanitizer or soap & water as needed. My go-to supermarket does not offer a shop-for-you service. You want food from them, you do the shopping. I have no problem with this. My grocery budget goes much further there than the gimmicky typical chain stores.
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I thought I'd just pop in here to let you all know that I sous vide about twice a week but it's nothing to post about. A protein of choice with seasonings, nothing special. But the proteins I cook this way are done sous vide to keep them moist enough for my Sweetie. The only exception to that is steaks. I like the control of doneness it provides, and a quick sear finishes it off.