Norm Matthews

@gfweb It could be injected into the middle!

@Kim Shook Speaking of bananas, Charlie just showed me a recipe from a place called Atomic Age Recipes. It was bananas wrapped in ham and melted Velveeta drizzled over all.

I tried a new recipe today. Charlie was skeptical because the printout picture made it look green, but it looked better out of the oven . He said it was really good. We had it ( Apricot Chicken) with rice, mushrooms and salad with that China Coast dressing.

Yesterday was my birthday and I was planning to make a small beef tenderloin roast with a wine sauce and an apple cake. I found out at the store that that roast cost $28.00/lb and changed my mind. I got a couple of ribeye steaks instead. I already bought the wine so made the sauce anyway but I didn't like it and threw it out. Right about then Charlie asked me what I wanted to have for dinner and I asked if our favorite Korean restaurant had reopened yet. He said it was open for pick-up orders so i said that was what I wanted and it was a very nice dinner. The apple cake was dessert. No pictures were taken. The steaks got grilled today.

It probably wasn't a brilliant idea to decide to be baking all day today but I did it anyway. There were two recipes that I wanted to try. One was brioche with extra butter and honey and a roast chicken with a sauce made with star anise, cloves, soy sauce and ginger. There were directions for making pancake wraps but I had tortillas and use them instead.

Now I am tempted to smoke some salmon. Years ago I saw Alton Brown cold smoke salmon but these look like regular smoking. Maybe next time I do a brisket, I'll put some on behind them.

On the potters wheel, I recently made a fermentation jar like those used in China except smaller and was planning to use it for sauerkraut but then I saw some fermentation lock that fit wide mouth canning jars and felt those would be better because I can see inside a glass jar and not with a ceramic one. I would have to take the lid off often to check it. The first batch is going to be like my Aunt used to make. If it turns out, I plan next to make Cortido Kraut with other vegetables and seasonings.

I have dried tomatoes in the oven for a pizza topping. They are almost like candy. This method does not make very many at a time unless you have multiple racks. Oven-Dried Heirloom Tomatoes Makes enough for one 12-inch pizza. • 3 heirloom tomatoes, sliced crosswise 1/2-inch thick • 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil • Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper Place a wire rack on a baking sheet and top with the tomato slices . drizzle with olive oil, S &P. Place in a 250º preheated oven and bake until dry and shrunken, about 3 hours.

I was thinking about trying a lasagna recipe I saw a couple of days ago but then remembered the last one I made and gave some to my niece and we ate the rest and everyone made nice remarks about it, so I chickened out and made the old one instead.

BTW, wet wood chips don't start smoking until the water steams off. The white smoke is steam. It helps keep the meat moist but does not add any flavor until the wood itself starts smoking. Wrapping wood in foil or putting them in a metal box made for pellet smokers in an excellent way to get optimal smoke flavor as because the wood only smokes, never ignites. Even dried wood gives off un-tasty smoke when it first starts burning. Franklin BBQ, for instance burns the logs outside the smoker until it has burned down to charcoal then shovels it in the fire pit.

You're welcome. Almost any time I post, there is a link at the bottom (blogspot) that will take you to the recipes I used. As for sesame oil, I am so used to it that I don't think I can give an assessment of how strong it is. Maybe you should add a little and decide whether you want to add more.

Glad to share: China Coast Salad Dressing Ingredients 1 cup Mayonnaise 10 tbsp Rice Vinegar 4 tbsp Sugar 4 tbsp Sesame Oil 2 tb Soy Sauce 1/2 tsp Garlic Powder My advice is to use a blender and add the oil last, a little at a time so the mayonnaise does not curdle. Serve dressing cold.

I tried a chicken teriyaki recipe that looked good. Charlie told me that there were teriyaki restaurants everywhere in Seattle and that they all served a simple iceberg lettuce salad with a dressing he really liked. He said he ate those salads. He looked on his phone for a teriyaki restaurant salad dressing and one came up. Turns out it was the same one. He not only ate the salad, he asked for more lettuce. Neither of us were as excited about the teriyaki sauce. I'll try see if I can find one we like better.

@Franci They often have sales.

Charlie and his best friend from grade school- who is also half Korean- discovered an Asian market that is Korean run and he told me that they had better kimchi. I had just ordered some Wagyu Kalbi from Heritage Food and we needed some rice and kimchi so I went to this market and found the kimchi was the same brand as was at the other Asian market which is not as Korean focused. The Kalbi came today and I got the other stuff yesterday. I also got some kim bob which we had for lunch yesterday. The kimchi was much, much better. It was the same brand but much fresher so it looks like they have faster turnover.

If you want advice on grilling type BBQ, and whether you want to use charcoal or propane, then it would help to know that is the kind of outdoor cooking you want. If you are interested in smoking type BBQ then that is another kind or outdoor cooking and is best suited to other types of equipment.

I think he just got tired of my salads because they were always pretty much predictable and his medication must have changed his tastes. With just the two of us, a salad bar would be kind of wasteful, I think.

Charlie has only had a couple of salads in the last few years, so I went looking for "salads for people who hate salads". Honestly I have to wonder about some of the ideas. I wouldn't eat some of them and I like salad. Anyway I decided on Watermelon Poke Bowl. We both liked it and both ate most of our servings. The picture is before the dressing was added. We had it with grilled steak. Charlie had mac & cheese and I had half a baked potato with sour cream and bacon bits from Smoking Goose.

I was going to say I don't have a pantry but I guess I do after all. One is over the stove, one in a corner shelf, one over the main prep area next to the sink and one for mostly baking stuff.

I've bought several things from ThermoWorks so I am on their email list and sometimes they send me links to recipes. Filipino Chicken Adobo came last week and I tried it today. It wasn't braised but grilled and we both liked it. Charlie said he'd like for me to make it again sometime. I forgot to take a picture until we were almost done. We had it with just rice and kimchi. I made a half recipe.

I have never seen whole briskets at the grocery store before but they had a whole end aisle of them the other day and they were not expensive so I got one and smoked it yesterday. I also had just got a roll of butcher paper and used that too, but when the brisket was almost done I was testing if it was ready with a probe and punctured the back and the juice started running out so I added foil for the last half hour or so. I made BBQ beans and corn and had store bought slaw and potato salad.

About a week ago, I got an email from ThermoWorks with a YouTube link to "Texas Style BBQ Ribs with Rusty Monson". I had some ribs that I had trimmed in the freezer so when they thawed, I tried it today. There are a lot of things in this recipe that are similar to Franklin's Brisket technique so I doubted it would turn out as well on pork ribs, but it worked out very well. I thought cooking it to 202º would be too long for ribs but it wasn't. I had cooked ribs by time but I probably will go with temperature from now on. The flavor was a lot more robust than how I have always made them. He wrapped it in butcher paper and two ply of foil. I didn't have butcher paper and used parchment which was not wide enough to hold itself down so the foil made it possible to hold it tight around the ribs. I took the paper off before I took this picture. Sides were garlic bread, slaw and potato salad.

LOL> I did not mean to knock it. I just meant to ID what it was. My son is a huge fan of it and I don't hate it. I like it left over, cold, right out of the refrigerator.

As far as texture, I have noticed about a year ago that both Bob Evans and Jimmy Dean are not as firm . I like to cut them thick and press them out into a bigger round and I noticed when I did that that they were both looser or softer in feel before cooking them.

No Wegman's here as well.