Anna N

Mine too. I chilled it off in the sink and stuck it in the fridge and it looks like it’s going to make it before dinner time to be able to just lift off the fat.

Lunch for me it was a cup of coffee and a plum. No photograph unfortunately which gives Kerry an opportunity to rib me because I hound her incessantly about posting photographs. Still not very pleased with the beef but it’s definitely falling off the bone tender. I am hoping that I can skim the fat off the braising liquid and reduce it before dinner time. Somewhere I am positive there’s a gravy separator here but I haven’t found it yet. Worse comes to worst I will resort to the old pour it into a Ziploc bag and cut off the corner! There is also some osmazome In the refrigerator and I’m planning on combining it in some way with the braising liquid In the hopes of boosting the umami quotient. Sides I think will be glazed carrots and the rest of the sugar snaps. Both can be more or less prepared ahead of time and finished a la minute.

My idea of good eating is a variety of things from which to choose even though I know I will eat all of them anyway.

Well, after 40 minutes at high pressure I’m still not particularly happy with the beef shank. It is going to get another 20 minutes. But I am beginning to question whether I am dealing with the kind of beef I am accustomed to which is corn finished supermarket beef. I do not think that Max finishes his cows on corn but rather keeps them grass-fed until they are processed and I am not at all used to working with grass-fed beef. Much more production today may not happen as, in my effort to save a pan which I thought I had ruined, I didn’t bother to grab a towel first. Consequently I have one nasty burn on my working hand. Nothing that needs medical attention but damn it stings. I did manage to throw two small sweet potatoes into the CSO before they became much older. Mashed with some butter and who knows what else they tend to make a good part of meal for youngster.

It’s always nice to think you have something in common with Thomas. And yes the bug was a moth. I’ve always found it a very interesting development of the English language.

The recipe. The modified mise. No celery for starters. But if Thomas Keller can turn his nose up at celery I feel no real regret that there’s none here. White wine? Why? It’s beef for heaven’s sake. And beside there’s no white wine here either. Canned tomatoes – – ditto. It is probably sacrilegious to use fresh tomatoes here and Kerry might have a kitten but her constant mantra is, “It’s easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission.”* On that basis I am willing to take my chances. And just to be fair, Kerry has never called me for using anything! Chicken stock – – I like a combination of chicken stock and vegetarian stock using Better Than Boullion. Being vertically challenged once again it is easier for me to do the browning on the stove top rather than try to reach inside the Instant Pot which is already above eye level for me. It is now in the IP coming to pressure and I will give it 40 minutes instead of 35 only because I can. If the final product warrants it, I will make the gremolata before serving. * credited to Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper. She is also credited with popularizing the term “bug” to denote a computer flaw.

By no means. See my answer above to another post.

Still strongly attached to my first two options – – Japanese style stuffed cabbage rolls and gyoza. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak!

Good morning. It is sunny but brisk here on the Island. This is a pleasant change and I am not complaining. Kerry is on call in emerg but only until 4 pm today which means she can have a cocktail when it’s over. And she might well need one! Breakfast! Eggs scrambled with mushrooms and tomatoes. Plans today include making the last beef shank into an Instant Pot meal. The cabbage sitting on the counter is not looking any fresher. I know I need to do something with it very soon. I am resisting!

So long as you know that once you cancel you will no longer have access to any of those books! Just saying.

It may look classy, Japanese and expensive but it is none of the above. I picked it up HomeSense for probably about $11. Perhaps manufactured in Japan but even that I question.

Hope you love it as much as I love my stable of roombas!

Tonight’s dinner began with a salad dressed with a Japaneasy dressing at Kerry’s suggestion. It gave me the opportunity to use the small ceramic ginger grater that somehow got lumped in with the small dipping bowls in the photos from Sudbury. It is small but very effective and works as well with garlic as it does with ginger. Dinner was shrimp in garlic butter and olive oil which looked terribly plain until Kerry stepped out onto the balcony, snipped some parsley and showered it over the shrimp.

Oh wow! I can’t say I’m jealous now but there was a time... It is surely the most perfect gift for you! Someone pays attention to who you are and what you do!

Found it! I’m still just as wealthy as I was before I found it. Or just as poor!

So lunch was a cup of coffee, another brown butter cookie and a handful of cherries. I would love to see that brown butter cookie with something other than chocolate chips as an inclusion. Or perhaps no inclusion at all. It’s not that I’m anti-chocolate but that I’m pro brown butter. After rereading that shrimp recipe I linked to above at least three times, I realized it was not the direction I really wanted to go. So I stole bits from that recipe and I will combine them with what is in my head and with some luck we will have something worth eating for dinner. The shrimp shells, garlic and hot pepper infused olive oil seemed like a good idea. I stole that part. Simmering away. Perhaps the shells could’ve gone a little longer but I was concerned about the garlic. Burnt garlic would have destroyed the whole thing. Shrimp have been given a salt massage and are resting in the refrigerator. All the components of a salad are prepped and stored separately. Dinner should be just a matter of throwing together all the prepared ingredients. Just like a meal kit.

Haven’t seen that five dollar book deal perhaps it’s not available on .ca or I’m incapable of finding it.

This is the rice portioned out and wrapped. I portion it into one US cup (250 mL) packets which work out just fine for me. The rice must be wrapped when it is still quite hot and left to cool before being put into a resealable bag and thrown into the freezer. It is a fast meal for me. Two minutes in the microwave to resuscitate the rice and then top it with whatever is handy or can be quickly put together. It is probably not for purists and I never said I was a purist just puritanical.

Why would you need to pasturize it unless you were intending to store it? Having cooked quite a number of pork loins sous vide of various diameters and circumferences I couldn’t imagine leaving one in there for nine hours. And I tend to lean towards the anal in regards to food safety. To each their own. I have no wish to engage in arguments.

Ah so. I suspected you would properly curate that butter, but I did read it that you had sauteed that other stuff in there. I feel much better knowing the truth.

I have bookmarked that cocktail because it does sound delightfully refreshing. I am not sure that ginger beer is absolutely not available on the Island. Sometimes I am surprised at what we find. The popsicles also sound very refreshing. We actually have popsicle molds here which we keep swearing we will try never do. The road to hell and all that.

Doubt you could even tempt me with this. Seems like a shameful waste of lovely butter. But then what do I know?

No. I might do that if I was using it as a marinade but it will be used to deglaze the pan after the browning happens.

Ah ah. I may have found the answer to my cocktail dilemma. In the Chambord topic there is a suggestion that Chambord could, in a pinch, stand in for cassis. There is a cocktail recipe that Kerry sent to me before we came up here suggesting that we give it a try. It is for a Bourbon Decay. When we went to make it a few nights ago we discovered that we had no cassis. I will run that by the boss and see if it flies. Here.

So today I am going to take the final beef shank from the freezer and allow it to defrost in the refrigerator. Tomorrow or perhaps the day after I will give it the treatment it deserves – – a true, well almost true, braise. It will go into the Instant Pot along with some aromatics and some wine and we will enjoy it a la osso buco. Before Kerry left on her adventure we discussed dinner this evening. Shrimp tempura needs to be saved for a day when Kira is being well cared for by a sitter! Tempura waits for no woman. But like me, Kerry is finding those shrimp in the freezer are weighing heavily on her appetite. So tonight it will be shrimp Spanish style mostly following this. I also need to get some Japanese rice cooked, packed into portions and frozen. I did not bring my rice cooker along so the Instant Pot will have to be the stand-in. But ever since I learned that every grain of rice cradles seven gods (click), rinsing and cooking rice has become fraught with danger. The very thought of washing 7, 14 or perhaps 28 gods down the drain ... But I have rolled my strength and all into one ball and will face the dangers ( apologies to Andrew Marvell). I have also been tasked with finding a cocktail which will empty yet another bottle of spirits. My choices seem to be Chambord, Rittenhouse Rye and an amaro whose name I have forgotten. Please Lord they do not all have to be in the same drink.