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Relaxing when Onions get Expensive

I got to put my hair down, so to speak, and go see a concert, a concert whose tickets I had been holding since before the pandemic. Joy. The show still had a VIP meetup but did not tell me about it because I didn’t buy it in July or September. I held on to my tickets from 2020.

Thanks, Moda Center; nothing makes me feel like I know what I am doing, like getting your people on phone calls and getting “I don’t know for 30 minutes” and no effort to help out. Makes me feel like a real wunderkind when the guy with half a properly working nervous system can do better.

Do I sound angry? Really I am not. Lindsay Stirling had a great concert, and I was close enough that the bass gave me a free back massage through my ribcage for missing the VIP meetup earlier.

Roommate couldn’t get her paperwork, so I invited a past co-worker who I knew liked it. All the while, I couldn’t shake the idea that I should be trying to look at different formulas for flavor profiles or work on my project and being in a group of people like that.

Well, to say out of place would be an understatement.

Moda center needs better food, though. Seating-wise, the front area near the stage was sold out. However, it was not a complete sell-out which is sad; Lindsay Stirling is a bright, bubbly person that is almost so saccharine sweet that every jaded one will feel their own hearts growing a size by the end of the show. It shows honestly, though, and I would suggest it if you like her music.

Doing other things when I could be working on my projects makes me fidgety, it makes my breath hitch a little more, and I get a little more skittish when I need to stand still.

Started building the price book and a couple new formulas I want to try that I think will be proper hits. One stumbling block has been my roommate, who was borrowing my digital scale, has lost it, so I will need to replace it to get more accurate numbers on use and volume. Overall though, it was a good experience. It made me think of more than just what but the why with some exciting introspection.

Costs are still going up, but luckily I can make things in a way that doesn’t kill the price, I feel. I still need to math it out to find out what my cost is and how to get the best profit from it.

Always some to do, but progress can be found even in lighter weeks. Hope things are going well for you.

Stay Strong.

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Fried Tofu with Teriyaki Sauce

For this dish it is suggested that you have some cooked rice to pair it with. For this you will need the following ingredients.
Serves 5-7 with rice

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Flour for dusting and Oil for frying
A block of Extra Firm Tofu (16 oz)
1/4 C Dark Brown Sugar
1/4 C Soy Sauce
1/4 C Rice Wine Vinegar
Shredded sushi seaweed for garnish

Pour your oil in the narrowest pot you have as to save on the amount of oil needed put it on medium heat. It will take a couple moments to get to frying temperature. Next put a cup of flour in a wide bowl, and set aside. Press your tofu lightly with a paper towel so it will remove as much of the moisture as possible before cutting in to cubes at an inch squared. After cutting, check the oil by pinching a small amount of flour in to the oil if you get a fair reaction that looks just like a soup on a low simmer then you can begin. Dredge them in the flower in batches before dropping them in to the oil you don’t want to do it all at once because that will drop the temperature of the oil and for most stove top burners you will not be able to hold temp without splitting them in to at least two batches. I did mine in four batches total, but I wasn’t in a hurry. Let them fry until golden brown or a light manilla color for those who know their around an office better.

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The bubbles don’t have to be big you just want to make sure that when they come out they can drain. rinse and repeat with all batches until all the tofu is drying off. For the teriyaki sauce take a small pot and put your sugar, vinegar and soy in it before bringing it up to a simmer making sure to stir until the sugar has been dissolved and let simmer for a couple minutes until all the flavors meld together or about three or four minutes.

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I got a little impatient and cranked up to high which you can do if you want to watch it for a minute or two. You do not want the sugar to burn or else you will need to try again. After your tofu has dried appropriately you can use your sauce to dip into or pour over depending on how you like your sauces to be done. Some people are picky, no judging here.

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I got my tofu placed on cooked white rice and seaweed around it and from here I just poured the sauce over the top and dug in. The picture didn’t come so clear as I had hoped but its tofu blocks on rice. So I hope you enjoy this recipe and if you liked what you saw give some of my other dishes a chance their in the cooking category on my blog.

Have a good day everyone, oh and before I forget starting in December their will hopefully be more posts I am getting a little bit more comfortable doing this as well as the youtube videos if you watch those link is to the side. I am going to try to up my game to do two a week I feel like it can be done. Wish me luck.

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Fried Rice –

Hey everyone, time for another simple recipe this time to use up any rice you may have this works best after the rice has cooled. You will need the following.

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3 large eggs
1/4 C chopped green onions
2 qt of long grain white rice

Of course you want to have your seasonings of choice on hand. In a non stick pan on medium high heat start by cracking your eggs in to the pan until they begin to get opaque. Next is to toss your rice mixing the two together until the eggs are almost completely cooked. Picture below for example. Make sure to keep your rice moving as to not get over cooked in places this dish from start to finish takes less then five minutes if the rice is already cooked.

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Last is to add your green onion as well as any seasonings you prefer, making sure to mix everything up with your spat of choice.From there just plate up Mine in the pic has a little bit of chili powder for color and a touch of heat. Shredded seaweed works well, and of course you can always just grab a spoon and dig in.

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If you do not want to use or do not have a non stick pan then just a drop of oil is needed before putting the eggs in. From there just go for it.

Next, two recipes on this blog will be a tofu dish fried and with sauce over rice once again. Rice was on sale so I got a big bag to last me for a while. The other recipe will be a dish I actually took as a challenge / idea from someone on twitter. Breakfast cupcakes. Me being a stickler for things got to be a problem there, but over all the dish tasted good and was actually very good for breakfast. If you

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Thoughts in the culinary world – Bobby Flay and James Beard

Now it seems that everyone worth their knives has something to say. The world of professional cooking is sometimes akin to the world of professional wrestling when larger then life personalities clash. Everyone has their own thing to say and everyone makes mistakes. When you do something you love so much, and someone makes you feel subpar some people are going to shoot off their mouths. From Top Chef to Paula Deen everyone seems to have their hand halfway in a boiling soup pot which is sad.

Bobby Flay is the most hated person in cooking. Which I can see as he seems very abrasive, almost disrespectful of other cultures and just sometimes acts like an ass. Seeing the food he makes and listening to him talk as well I really would not want to go to his restaurants. One thing no one can take away is he knows the business side enough that he has put himself in position on cooking shows for many years. Releasing books and through all the mistakes he has made one must give credit that he has used his business to back up where his cooking fails.

It is kinda sad he will be the most well known chef of the era because one of my cooking heroes is an Oregon born man by the name of James Beard. Cooking wise his recipes were never the absolute best, but across the board there was not a man who could boast the skill set he did. On top of that you would have to search to have someone say a bad word about him he always seemed to have a love of food that was only matched by the size of the man himself. The only thing you may find if you actually looked was how nearing the end of this life he decided to take endorsement deals to open more cooking schools. Which he even said made him feel like a “gastronomic whore”.

Sometimes we forget that the measure of a person is not just by popularity. A man can be the best without being the most well known. For the most part we as a culture bring much more infamy for all of our bad before allowing some to spotlight the good. Just some thoughts

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How to make bachelor chow

So if you need a cheap meal to not absolutely suck here is what we call ramen which has more salt then anything else you can put in your body outside of a salt brick. It does last a long time. When making ramen you usually drop it in some water microwave it until soft, add seasoning and mix.

Now often times ramen can get very boring so here some tips to help make the meals a little easier to get down. When you cook your ramen in water it rehydrates it however after it gets soft you can continue cooking. I like to saute it in a non stick pan or with a drop of oil to get some color on the noodles before tossing them back in the broth.
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Next is the sauce for those who do not know the bullion packet has the majority of the salt and many times you can make a quick sauce to toss with your noodles with.
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After you make a sauce you could finish it back in a small amount of broth or just let the sauce do the job in the pan before grabbing a fork and jumping in.
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Between making the noodles fried or soft, sauces, and broth combinations you can make thousands of dishes and even whole cookbooks have been written on the subject, but those are the things that can turn a simple ingredient in to something not so boring.

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Chicken a la kiev

Chicken a la kiev is a dish I found a recipe to in the old cookbook. We will do some slight changes here is what you will need.
Chicken breasts (skinless and boneless)
Egg for breading
Breadcrumbs for breading
Seasoning for the breadcrumbs
I use a combination of parmesan cheese and old bay to season my breading

Compound butter –
A compound butter is a butter mixed with other things to add more flavor and has been used in kitchens as a form of sauce. In this recipe my compound butter was made with an addition of crushed garlic, green onion, and honey mustard with a splash of lemon juice.

After mixing it all together you want to put your butter in the freezer. If you like everything a certain shape you can fill up an ice tray half full so you get little squares of butter already setting up.

Butterfly your chicken and after the butter has frozen stuff in the middle of the chicken before breading it up and dumping it in a frypot already heated up. Let it cool and dress as you see fit. If you do not feel comfortable putting frozen butter in raw chicken then you can put the butter on top before plating. The butter will melt to form a sauce to match the chicken.

After plating garnish with what you want. I use a small little piece of muenster cheese to work with the small amount of butter.

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Broth making

We will be going over stock and broth making. The major difference between the two is whether the addition of meat is included with the bones. When you get bones you want to get five times the amount of vegetables for the stock. Now in this case I will be using ham shanks for my broth and the basic stock mixture of vegetables of celery, carrot, and onion. You can use mushroom and bell peppers as well. Equipment wise you will want to get something called cheese cloth so you can do a final strain without getting a lot of chunks in the stock. If you have no bones from a recent roast then you can use something like in my case ham shanks. Roasting the bones, meat and vegetables would result in making the stock a brown stock. Now the color whether it is white or brown just signifies if things have been roasted.

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Using the ham shanks this will be a brown pork broth. Starting cooking the bones or shanks in this case in pot with a little oil to brown the meat and bones while you cut the vegetables. It does not need to be the best cutting if your a little self conscious about it.

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After cutting your vegetables toss them in with the bones to give them some color. When some time passes you want to add your water to the amount of ten times of the mass of the bones. So if you add 1lb of bone you want 5 lb veg and 10 lb or 10 pints since a pint of water is equivalent to a pound. Get everything in the pot after your roasted what you want and let it simmer until two thirds of the liquid is left.

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As I was making the stock the roommates needed to eat so they decided to get something else going.

Line your strainer with the cheese cloth before draining the stock. The cheese cloth will catch the smaller pieces of matter left in the stock the strainer will miss. Let your stock cool and you should have a fat cap form on the after it cools down as well as the stock turning in to a bit more like jello. That means that the gelatin has been pulled from the bones and that is what gives the stock a quality that separates it from many things you can buy now a days.

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Finally published, kinda

So I have been published for the kindle on amazon. 100 ingredients: Home Edition will be available for 4.99. Although I had to go through self publishing options it does feel good to know I can put whole books up now and other people can read them. Until I hold the book though I still think it is like diet publishing. However I can get a good grasp of advertising and other associated angles before moving on.

Diet publishing aside because of my love literary hardware I did it. I hope you enjoy it. The fanfiction is up after a couple edits. They are not as long as I wanted them to be  Still like them though so they can stay. It is still amazing that I got something published so to celebrate i am going to relax and blow up some ships in Black Flag: Assassins Creed

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Portland – Unnoticed in Tv food competition?

So I want to get some more experience in culinary competition. At first I thought I would try to toss my hat in on Chopped or Top Chef and give it a try. While doing this I thought I would look up some notable competitors to try and talk to, and get some tips or at least talk strategy. Doing my little research I looked up the past contestant list of both shows ( Chopped and Top Chef ). Not masters or teen of something or other until I realized something.

Between the two shows from their inception to the end of 2013 there has not been one single winner from Portland, Oregon. Now I have also found out the reason for this. Between the start of both seasons to the end of 2013 there has not been a single competitor from my fair little slice of the world. More then seven hundred people have tried between the two shows without a single one being from Oregon.

If I seem to be mistaken then please let me know. When every other state is represented by at least a half dozen only for one state to not have one seems a bit odd and a mistake by people who have to pick the people to go on their shows. I cannot say whether it is on purpose or on accident. It does not really matter to me, but where it does is that you cannot really say that it is truly in the spirit of competition.

Just something to think about.

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Stuffed Chicken with cheddar and mustard sauce

So with this recipe your going to need the following for one plate

2 4oz portions of boned and skinned dark meat chicken, 2 oz cheddar, 3 slices of bacon, olive oil for pan frying. For the sauce add a tablespoon and a half of dijon mustard, a tsp of honey, and a quarter cup of heavy cream.

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So start out with your pan on medium heat and begin to cook your chicken after both sides have been flipped and cooked through. Stuff them with cheddar and let it sit for a moment while the bacon cooks. Drain the pan of your fry oil before dropping your bacon in to the pan. Cook your bacon through while making sure that it does not turn to glass. This will be the layer between your sauce and the chicken.

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While this recipe is very rich the sauce should have a very refreshing bite. Either from the horse radish and acidity in the mustard or from additional seasoning. Other ways you can roll it is using addition of chives or cayenne pepper for additional color. The light heat of the seasoning or the fresh aroma of the chopped chives adds anew dimension to this. When you make the sauce all you have to do is put it all in a clean pan let it simmer after whisking together until the volume decreases by a third to a half.

Layer your bacon on top of your chicken and pour the sauce on top of the bacon gently then enjoy. So hope you enjoy and hopefully after eating this you get one step closer.

 

 

 

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