Norm Matthews

We had cap steaks. I made potato pancakes and Charlie made a last minute request for mac and cheese... the Kraft kind. He is particular about that. I cooked the steaks sous vide first then finished on the grill.

Someone I know, has a food blog about baking, and posted a cake recipe that didn't adhere to usual cake making procedures but I made it anyway and regretted it. I don't trust anything she posts anymore and I probably shouldn't be so negative.

I saw a thing on facebook for Cuban empanadas but there was no recipe as such. There was a video with a caption of each ingredient and the amount as it was going along. I stopped the video each time a new ingredient was added and wrote it down. I was thinking this was going to be a lot different than the empanadas I usually make but then I took a closer look at the recipe and decided it would be a disaster. It had a cup or a tablespoon of almost everything. The dough had a cup of flour, a cup of shortening and a tablespoon of salt. That was way too little flour and way too much of everything else. The filling was a cup of green pepper, a cup of red pepper, a cup of orange pepper and a cup of ground beef. It had a Tablespoon of cumin, a Tablespoon of salt, a tablespoon of oregano, etc. I looked up several other Cuban empanada recipes and they all had more reasonable ingredients in more reasonable amounts. They were actually all pretty much like the ones I had made several times before. The difference with the one I used is that it had a chimichuri sauce which I thought was a good idea and made it too.

I hesitate to post this because I expect a lot of blowback but the last time I got some ribeye cap steaks I cut them (3) in half and retied them because one each was more than either of us wanted but half of one was not enough and I regretted cutting up the other two but I had done it and they were in the freezer waiting for me to decide what to do with them. I decided to grind them up and make hamburger with them and sous vide any I may get in the future. Charlie had two well done and said they were really good. I had one medium and it was good too. I figure they cost around $5.00 each. Four more went back in the freezer.

I saw a recipe for Malaysian chicken that looked good. It had curry, coconut milk, anise, lemongrass and tamarind along with a lot of other ingredients that I had to make a special trip to find. About 20 minutes before it was done, I told Charlie to start thinking about where he might like to go out for dinner because this didn't look all that good. It smelled good and tasted OK but not so much that I thought we'd like to make a whole meal out of it. Charlie took one look and didn't even want to taste it. We ended up going out to a Chinese buffet restaurant.

Our dinner tonight was schnitzel with mushroom gravy, German style potato salad and cucumbers with egg noodles.

I like a lot of different cuts of beef, depending on how I plan to prepare it. I like chuck and brisket because they are both tasty and can be cooked a lot of different ways. For grilling I like most loin cuts and ribeye is my preference. Flatiron is good too but it is getting up there in price . I used to get it a lot but it isn't the bargain it used to be. Ribeye has always been pricy. My preference for pork is shoulder butt although I occasionally like a loin chop. Lamb is relatively inexpensively at the local Mexican grocery but you have to buy a whole cut, like a whole leg or shoulder. I can often find low cost lamb at one of the Asian markets too. I like it marinated and grilled on a skewer. I just discovered the availability of lamb and have not had a chance to try different ways to cook it.

The other day I was interested in trying a version of kimche tartar sauce after I saw it in a menu posted by @HungryChris but when I proposed it to Charlie, he said he wished I'd make Korean food more often so today I did. I made spicy pork, Kalbi and Korean bean sprouts. The rest came ready-made from the Asian market. The ribs were cooked outside and the pork cooked at the table. The tartar sauce will wait for another day.

I didn't get any ribeye cap steaks at Costco today but I did get a rib roast.

25 or 30 years ago in a magazine that had recipes each month by a featured chef, I found the exact same recipe, wording and all, from two different cooks probably a year apart. I don't know if it was the cook or the magazine that did it.

We had shrimp scampi tonight with spaghetti, grilled corn and mixed vegetables with teriyaki sauce (not shown): yellow squash, zucchini, onion and mushrooms.

I ran out of counter space until I moved everything into the basement except my coffee maker and Breville toaster oven. I use both of those often enough to keep them out. The rest of the stuff is getting dusty downstairs. I know lots of people love the steam oven but mine might end up in a yard sale someday. PS my KA mixer is out too but it isn't on a "counter". It's got its own island stand .

Some friends were saying how good Costco rotisserie chicken was so I went to get some. While I was there I had to get some ribeye cap steaks too and that is what we had tonight. One whole one is more than either of us care to eat so I cut one in half but afterward, we were still hungry. Charlie reheated a leftover hamburger and I had some ice cream. Charlie has stopped eating salads so I wanted to be sure to cook some vegetables. I thought I got a potato when I was at the store but when I got home there was none in the bag and not on the sales receipt so I made rice. Then seasoned the vegetables with teriyaki sauce, soy sauce and garlic.

Our neighbors and some of our family came by for dinner today. The brisket cooked for about ten hours yesterday. I cut off the point, cut it in chunks and today I added some more rub, lightly sauced it and smoked it for a couple more hours. The flat was not done well enough yesterday so it went back in the smoker for about 4 more hours. I also smoked some ribs. I cooked them longer than usual. They were falling off the bone tender. I usually don't cook them that much but a lot of people like them that way. I also grilled some skewered lamb and hamburgers. I made a fruit salad and we had a late birthday party for Charlie. We had store bought potato salad, slaw , BBQ beans and a Dairy Queen ice cream cake.

I switched to a brand new probe and is still read wrong both in the meat and out. Out of the meat with a previously unused probe, it read the outside ambient temperature as 120. Today was in the mid 70's. Ten minutes later with the old probe it started reading correctly.

I have more that two. I'd have to go count how many but it's at least two more.

My son is having friends over tomorrow. His birthday was yesterday but friends are coming tomorrow. I smoked a brisket today, at least i started it and will finish it tomorrow along with some ribs and hamburgers. The brisket flat was smoked to 195 and needs finishing tomorrow. The point went to 204 and was done nicely. I cut it off and will finish it as burnt ends. The strangest thing happened with my thermometer. After three hours, it read 193. There was no way that could be accurate. I switched probes and it still read 193. I switched to another thermometer and it read 130. I figured it was time to toss the first one and get a new one but when I took it inside and tested it again, it worked just fine. Both thermometers are in the picture. The faulty one is the round one.The pictures are of the brisket about half way through. I forgot to take one of it later. I cut some of the flat for our dinner tonight and it needs some more time in the smoker. I will put it back in tomorrow with the ribs.

My biggest hesitation is: will a cloned Scotch taste like a generic scotch or will it taste like my preferred brand of single malt?

This recipe for lasagne in a bundt pan looked like fun to make. It wasn't all that much fun. They put the lasagne noodles in the bundt pan and they went in so nice but when I tried it, the noodles were not long enough to go up one side and hang over on the outside. Even if they had been long enough they were too limp to stand up on the inside of the bundt pan. I finally wrapped an extra piece of pasta around the tube and hoped it would work. The bundt pan was non stick and pretty well greased but when it was done it didn't want to come out. One piece of noodle didn't come out and I covered it up as best as I could. It cooked for 45 minutes but after about ten minutes I worried that it might get too browned on top so I checked and it was getting really brown so I covered it with foil but the top (bottom) was crusty enough that we didn't eat very much of that part. Charlie had seconds so I guess it was not a total loss. I don't have any desire to do it again though. The picture with the recipe showed a bowl of red sauce in the middle but I put it in a gravy boat and made some bechamel with cheese as well. Neither of us ate any of them though... well i ate some from the one I put sauce on for the picture.

A few years ago I saw some packages in the meat cooler marked "the other white meat" and it sure looked white alright. When looked closer, it was pure pork fat.

My son has been searching in restaurants and looking for recipes that might replicate the chicken fried steak he had at the high school cafeteria. A friend of mine gave me one to try. I doubt it will be like the one he remembers but it sounds really good. It is seasoned with Creole seasoning, used buttermilk instead of egg in the coating and is fried in bacon fat. Here is the dish but we have not tried it. I will re-warm it as soon as Charlie gets off work.

We had chicken and fish in a beer batter and "chips".

I was thinking they must make different sizes. Thanks for the lead.

I just made empanadas for dinner later . Since I have not been able to locate frozen discos, I have to make them from scratch, so when I saw the tools shown I thought they would be a lot faster to make them. I should be old and wise enough to realize that there is always a catch, but I am just older. The catch is that the press makes the pieces so small that i had to made a lot more and it takes a lot longer. A lot longer. Making one was easy but in order to use up the dough, I had to make close to 60 instead of a little over a dozen. The press seems to be intended more for dim sum sized dumplings instead of Puerto Rican ones.

They were about three inches thick and hard to cook through evenly. I plan to do as you did and SV them next time. I have one left over and plan to re-tie it on both ends and cut it in half so there will be two thinner steaks.