alwaysdrawing

Surf and turf for my wife’s birthday

Stuffed shells and salad. Old school Betty Crocker type stuff…with homemade marinara.

Dungeness crab, with a baked potato with butter, sour cream and scallions, and sautéed spinach with garlic

The internal temp was 130F after searing. Might have been 45 seconds per side—I didn’t use a timer. Worth noting that the steaks didn’t go straight from 120F sous vide to the grill—I dried them and waited about 30 minutes before finishing them. I didn’t take a cross section shot, but you can kinda see the interior doneness near the edge here:

Steak, asparagus and bernaise. Steak cooked sous vide at 120F, then finished for 1 minute a side over a charcoal chimney.

Yes, skirt steak. The fat made the end result wonderfully tender

Made some bulgogi with rice and sugar snap peas, served with onion chili relish

Made a knockoff version of spicy rigatoni from Carbone. It’s a version of penne alla vodka served at Carbone in SoHo NY (and Hong Kong and Vegas). Basically a vodka sauce with San Marzano tomatoes and Calabrian pepper paste, combined with an onion soubise.

Made the rest of the spinach pasta with Mario Batali’s bolognese. Garlic bread and salad (not pictured).

Broke out the pasta machine for some spinach pasta. Made some of it with butter, garlic, red pepper flakes and Parmesan Reggiano

Thursday night chicken tacos and margaritas

Bacon wrapped filet, roasted broccoli, and a baked potato with home grown chives, sour cream, butter and cheese. Served with Smith & Hook Cabernet Not bad for a random Thursday night dinner.

Fresh Mozzarella, basil, proscuitto and roasted red pepper sandwiches

Garlic cilantro shrimp tacos with guac and cilantro lime crema

Maangchi’s Korean Fire chicken with sugar snap peas, and pajeori scallions

steak au poivre with mushrooms and onions and broccolini

yes, it fits—it’s just a normal size crockpot. I think this shoulder was 8.6lbs. If I get a bigger shoulder I’ll either cut in half and freeze the other half, or just save to grill/smoke on a weekend.

Crockpot all day, then shredded, added additional seasoning (garlic, chili, black pepper, paprika, cumin) and crisped in oven. Easy weeknight cook. Sometimes I’ll smoke it when I have a whole day, but crockpot + oven is the simple way.

I crisp the edges in the oven at 400 after pulling, but clearly not enough! and yes, bone in....$7.50 for an 8lb shoulder

Found a pork shoulder on special for less than $1/pound (what inflation?!) and made some carnitas. have tons of leftovers, and made a not especially authentic huevos rancheros for breakfast (no ranchero sauce—just Pico de Gallo, onions, cheese, avocado and some hot sauce)

Swordfish with a butter, white wine, and caper pan sauce and roasted Brussels Sprouts

Always room to improve. I’d like to feel more confident about the process, and the noodles themselves could be made more uniform. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy with the result, but I’m always looking to get “the taste”. Being able to dial in the flavor, noodle thickness, texture to 100% my preference will just be a work in progress.

the picture of the rolled pasta was intermediate after #1—it was rolled out to #4, which I think it about right. overall, I’m hopeful I can continue to improve. the end result was very tasty

Made homemade pasta for the first time today. Pleased but not satisfied with the result. Used the egg yolk pasta recipe from the Vetri cookbook, with 3/4 tipo 00 flour, 1/4 semolina flour, 9 egg yolks, water and olive oil. Served with homemade marinara and Italian sausage.

Made some hummus and shishlik with recipes and inspired by the Zahav cookbook hummus right out of the food processor shishlik with a marinade made of onion, parsley, lemon juice, garlic, salt, pepper and oil filet with the same marinade veggies after cooking—cooked in the oven because I didn’t want to get out the grill. Would have been better over charcoal hummus topped with garlic, toasted pine nuts, olive oil and paprika