mgaretz

Hi Everyone! This blog is going to be a very mixed bag! I’ll be eating out more than in a usual week (not because I’m blogging, it just worked out that way) and I also want to detail a fabulous meal/experience we had at the Napa Rose in Disneyland. First, a little about me: I’m 58 and live in San Ramon, CA (East Bay of San Francisco) with my wife, Ellen, my 21-year-old daughter Rebecca and our dog Max. In my previous marriage, my ex did all the cooking and I did all the cleaning. I always had a good palate and was good at telling you what was in a dish and/or how to fix a dish that was lacking, but never really learned anything beyond very basic kitchen skills. My kids always dreaded the days when Dad had to cook! From 1992 to 2003 I owned a beer and wine brewing shop and also a commercial microbrewery. I designed all of the recipes for the beer kits and most of the recipes for the microbrewery and they were very successful. Our IPA won Best of Show at the California State Fair, besting beers from all over the state including the big guys, and the smaller like Sierra Nevada. The next year we won a gold medal at the Great American Beer Festival for the IPA and a Silver for our Red. In 1994 I wrote and published what is still the definitive (but now very dated) guide to using hops in craft brewing. (Bottom line: I always was good at creating recipes.) I got divorced in early 2007 and during the break-up I was working at Best Buy as the appliance manager. Along with washers and dryers I was selling ranges, microwaves, ovens, dishwashers, refrigerators and counter-top appliances - helping people to outfit entire kitchens. When I bought and moved into my own (and current) place, finding one with a decent kitchen was paramount because I intended to learn how to cook! There were several motivations for that: I wanted my daughter (who was staying with me half time) to look forward to meals, not dread them. It would also allow me to better sell kitchen appliances. And it would save me a lot of money compared to eating out! I now do 99% of the cooking for the family, and my daughter lives with us full time - learning to cook had something to do with that! So I enrolled in a 12 week cooking class at the now defunct Viking Cooking School in Walnut Creek and learned my way around the kitchen. I like the cooking part, but for me the joy is in creating recipes and tweaking someone else’s to my liking and/or methods. I started to upgrade my cookware and counter-top appliances - but that will be the subject of another post! The food I cook tends to be somewhat simple, comfort food. Normal stuff a family of picky eaters will eat! My plating skills are minimal, especially compared to some of you here. Now I work as a graphic designer/marketing person/data analyst at a large financial firm. I also read palms as a sideline. My current hobbies besides cooking are playing bluegrass guitar and sewing/embroidery. Off to work - will post more this evening.

Napa Rose in the Grand Californian hotel in Disneyland. Superb. Also Catal in Downtown Disney. Haven't been in 35 years or more but Mr Stox used to be good.

I actually discussed this with Douglas via email and he said that while the dark meat would technically be cooked in shorter space of time (similar to white meat) that many simply prefered the taste/texture when it was cooked for a longer period. My wife likes dark meat, and I prefer white. I solved the problem by cooking a bunch of thighs, two per package, per Douglas' recommendations and then quick cooling and then freezing them. When we want chicken I put the raw white meat in the bath along with the thawed thighs and the bath just reheats the thighs. (separate bags if that's not obvious)

I failed to take a usable picture but tonight we had sous vide sirloin with baked potato and Tuscan kale from our CSA. I sautéed the kale in a little olive oil then simmered in a broth of chicken stock, brown sugar and a splash of balsamic vinegar.

Select is one grade lower than choice, with prime being the grade above choice. As you move up in grade there should be more marbling of the fat resulting in a more tender and flavorful cut, all else being equal. Select is what you find in the typical supermarket, usually under a marketing name like rancher's reserve or master cut. If a market has choice beef then it will more than likely be labeled as such. Retail Costcos carry choice or higher grades. Not sure which is best for sous vide, I've done both (for steak, not short ribs) and my experience has been varied. Sometimes you get a great steak from select, sometimes from choice. Sometimes both can be less than ideal.

Tonight I made grilled salmon with a honey-mustard-orange-port glaze along with roasted brussel sprouts.

I made some fresh pesto about a week ago. It was olive oil (about 2/3 cup), one bunch of basil, a small garlic clove and about 1/2 tsp salt. I put the salt in due to this thread, but no vinegar and no cheese. All into the BlendTec and then into the fridge. Tonight I used it on pasta: It's still a nice bright green. When you taste the pesto straight, it's a bit salty, but the saltiness disappears when on the pasta. Edited to add that I didn't blanch the basil either.

Great dishes everyone! I've been lurking because I haven't made much new and/or interesting lately. My wife and daughter have been having similar but unrelated stomach issues lately, so they haven't wanted anything too flavorful. Tonight I made pasta with pesto. The pasta was storebought, but I had made the pesto about a week earlier. It was just olive oil, a touch of fresh garlic, touch of salt and a bunch of fresh basil. No cheese because I can't eat it and my daughter is being dairy-free as a test to see what's wrong. The pesto kept its green color just fine.

Thanks Peter. Would there be a problem extending the time of the second step? I'm just thinking about the practical side of dinner on a work day. For example, one could do the first step overnight, then go to the next step in the morning and have ribs ready to sear when you get home. That would make the second step 9 hours or so.

Um, Pedro, could you say that in English? Seriously, an example with times and temps to try would be great!

Very timely! My 21-year-old daughter has had stomach issues for the last few years - the docs can't find any real physical issues so they were chalking it up to stress of college etc. But now they want her to try a gluten and dairy free diet for a while and see what happens. We don't think she's lactose intolerant because the symptoms don't match (though me and her older brother are) and she wouldn't appear to have celiac disease, but something is going on. Anyway it will be an interesting couple of months!

First, I'm not an expert either, but vacuum bags are still somewhat permeable. They will let some, albeit very small, amount of moisture and gases in and out - and I expect that is exacerbated by the higher temps from cooking sous vide. Especially with longer cooking times you will smell some of the aromatics - at least I have. I also suspect that a good deal of this odor comes from the area above the seal (outside the bag) where you will invariably have some amount of food/liquid/whatever residue. So when I cook something with a lot of aromatics for a longer time - say baby backs with smoke flavor for 24 hours - you can certainly smell it when I take the lid off the bath. But there are no leaks in my bags. Last, and maybe I'm missing something, if the whole bath is at the cooking temperature and the bags were leaky, I can understand that flavors might intermingle and/or be diluted and the food might not be what you wanted from the excess water contact, but why would it be unsafe? Anyway, I think it's normal to "smell what you're cooking" some of the time and doesn't necessarily mean you have problems.

Thanks but I thought the photo was pretty bad (existing light with an iPhone). The rice actually looked much better than in the photo!

Looks like BART to me.

Thanks Kim. It was basmati. I had made it a few days before and used the chilled leftovers for the fried rice. We all really like that rice and buy it in 20lb bags at Costco, so we tend to use that for anything rice - except sushi.

Tonight I made a "who knows what" fried rice. It was chicken breast that I had basted in hoisin sauce and cooked on the BBQ, basmati rice, scallions, peas, carrots, egg and cashews. The sauce was a mix of soy, hoisin and cream sherry. Nothing too spicy as those were my orders from the rest of the family!

I haven't broken a clear glass item yet, but I have been in the kitchen when a Corelle item has broken (essentially the same tempered glass). They explode into thousands of tiny shards and few bigger pieces. The shards are needle sharp and go everywhere. So when one breaks it's a mess. The upside is that they are very durable, so I still use them.

Yes, just put it in a container and freeze. I own a FoodSaver vacuum sealer, but do not use it for rice because it tends to crush it. And, if you don't seal at full vacuum, you have the same freezer burn issues as not sealing it and are, IMO, wasting a bag when a reusable storage container would work as well. Also, if you look for square/rectangular shaped containers, you can pack the freezer pretty efficiently. I haven't found the FoodSaver will crush the rice - it looks like it does, but upon reheating it's fine.

And be sure to have your anti-hernia belt on when you try to lift the box!

Kayb, the slow cooker is likely going to run too hot and fluctuate too much. I was hestitant to take the plunge into sous vide, but I am very glad I did. Get the Sous Vide Supreme from somewhere that has a good money back guarantee so you can return it if you don't like it. Last night we had some friends and their kids over for dinner, so I made sous vide baby back ribs. In the bath for 36 hours at 140F then basted and charred on a hot BBQ for a few minutes, then, after basting again, at lower heat (about 225F) for 20 minutes to let the sauce really stick to the ribs. They came out beautiful - juicy and tender and pink. The picture is about half of what I made:

Crab cakes, Cole slaw, fries, beer

The quality is very good. I can't tell it from what I make in the rice cooker. The frozen then reheated rice I do myself doesn't suffer perceptably from fresh from the rice cooker. OTOH, I have had plenty of other folks' homemade (and even restaurant) rice that is overcooked, starchy, dried out and host of other issues - the TJs is far, far better than that!

I used to buy the TJs frozen rice until we bought a rice cooker. But the rice cooker's smallest batch usually makes 3 times as much rice as we need for a given meal, so I freeze the leftovers in two portions. I vacuum seal it and the reheat just like the TJs by cutting a small bit off one corner and microwaving for three minutes followed with a one minute rest.

Thanks ScottyBoy. No, those are grapes on the plates.

Our local Sprouts had red bell peppers on sale four for a dollar, so I decided to make roasted red pepper coulis. Last night we had it with mixed whole wheat and regular spaghetti, served with chicken apple and chicken basil sausages. Tonight we had the leftover coulis with home made fettucini, peas and sous vide shrimp: