Raamo

We finally took the time to make a sourdough starter... So this is my first real time making sourdough at home, MB's Modernist Sourdough: Modernist Pantry had a video where they make a cherry pie and chocolate sourdough bread from MB... so finally we said OK. Our starter is called Han II. Han is our cat I don't like this better then French Lean Bread, but it does open up more flavor variations. So that's next weeks challenge. My wife wants to do the cherry pie and chocolate one next...

Lunch today, homemade meatballs, and tomato sauce made from MP's Pizza sauce + jar of canned tomatoes + fresh tomato + garlic

It was Pizza again last night. What's interesting about this batch, it's the first one where I had used up the last of the 20lbs of Tony Gemignani's "California Artisan" Type 00 Pizza Flour - but I ordered 20 more pounds so we had enough! That's a lot of pizza since end of 2021 when I received the prior order. The sauce is MP's sauce as a base, but I combined it with 1/2 a small jar of tomato paste and then added a little water to fix the consistency, that ended up being 300g of sauce (I don't know how much I started with). We put on about 80g and it's very saucy and excellent if not a little messy

It wouldn't totally work with mods. I can't stand andouille sausage so we used fresh local sausage from our local grocery store. I cooked it sousvide and only added it to the bags as we froze them. They didn't contribute to the main dish at all! (My wife won't eat the sausage) The ham is there 100% for flavor and fat - so anything that would provide that would be fine. It's basically a ham stock with the holy trinity of veg. We've made it with a smoked ham hook per the recipe, This time it was Berkshire ham from December - we froze the bone section and put in a bunch of fatty meat as well.

Serious Eats Red Beans and Rice We make a double recipe of this each year for the past few. Last year it was too watery... so this year once we took everything solid out we boiled the liqud down until it was like gravy. And this is the best time yet!!!

Meatballs and tomato sauce with spaghetti noodles. Noodles were store bought, sauce is home made. Sauce is onions, garlic, oil, canned tomatoes from last summer, and fresh basil. Meatballs are beef and pork + meatball ingredients;)

I really like hash, and we have duck fat in the freezer... so potatoes + duck fat to bath in.... toss in sausage, onions and an egg on top. Yummy!

So for t-day I made dark meat turkey confit from MC. We had left overs. So I cut it nice and fine, we cooked some diced celery in butter, added some reduced turkey stock and finally added the confit and placed in puf pastry cups. Works really well! Even though doesn't look the best - taste is what counts here!

Tonight, my favorite dish Kefka in a Spicey Tomato sauce from the The New Mediterranean Table. I had to make Ras el Hanout so here's the pictures of what all goes into it. Collection of spices that are roasted then ground: Then saffron (.9 g of it!) along with some flowers and orange (simply ground not roasted): Finally some stuff that's just pre-ground: Once it's all ground together you get: Pretty non discript but the smell / flavor is AMAZING. This is the much more complex version in the cookbook.

Lunch today, I was digging through the freezer last week and found chicken stock. My wife remembered and suggested rissotto. So Risotto with a 2015 Chardonnay

It got COLD in Minnesota but that means it's pizza time. First pizza of the season was dinner last night:

America Waygu Ribeye with mashed potatoes and a glass of 2010 cab from whitehall lanes. Cooked to about 130F then seared, it was excellent.

Harmony, I've had it before - I think in Japan so I spent a while hunting for this bottle.

A few weeks ago I finally aquired a bottle of hibiki, I drink it like I drink my cognac: neat.

I just read that part of the book last night, folks used ways to make salt that would normally not be profitable - but it was due to the war.

So many words I didn't expect to come from Salt do, google lead me to this list: It forms all or part of: hali-; halide; halieutic; halite; halo-; halogen; sal; salad; salami; salary; saline; salmagundi; salsa; salsify; salt; salt-cellar; saltpeter; sauce; sausage; silt; souse.

Yup, We also checked out Paper by same author I plan to read after.

I'm reading a book on the history of Salt.... There were wars fought over salt access, salt was the key to preserving everything. Before refigeration the world was very different and salt was king.

Good old spaghetti and meatballs with fresh tomatotes!

Last night I spent about 2 hours making Grandma's slow cooked green beans from the New Mediteraian Table cook book The bread is french lean loaf from MB. I've made a lot of this the last 2 weeks. This all made for a very tasty lunch:

Well at tons of resturants they must use a ton of carbonated water to mix with syrup to get soda.... Can you carbinate it then get it cold, or do you need to carbonate the cold water. My wife does this the soda stream way - cold water then carbonate it.

We're blessed the be 1 hour away from a company that grow tomatoes in big green houses - so we get high quality tomatoes year round! https://www.bushelboy.com/

Lunch today, we had leaf lettace, strawberries, goat cheese, and nuts... so why not make a salad!

American Wagyu Ribeye with Caramelized Onion and Date Tarte + salad.

Continuing to perfect (IMO) ratatouille crapes All the veg ready to go in the hot oven. Open veg on a crepe. Closed up. So good. I think I ate 6 of these.