canyonwalker: Cheers! (wine tasting)
Tonight I made myself a hamburger for dinner. And I also pre-made myself hamburgers for several more dinners. Well, I semi-pre-made them. 😅

Pre-making hamburgers: freeze single patties (Jul 2024)

I bought a 3-pound package of ground beef Friday. Safeway had 90/10 beef at a good price, though the rub was I had to buy a "value pack" for that price.

Usually what I do when I buy these larger packages is portion them out into Zip-lock bags of anywhere from 0.5 pounds to a full pound each and put them in the freezer. The drawback to that is it's still more than I typically make in a serving. Hawk doesn't enjoy red meat much anymore, so it's usually just me eating ground beef. Even a half pound is too much for one dinner for me. Often I make a burger for one meal out of it then brown the leftover meat in a skillet and combine it with marinara sauce to make a meat sauce for pasta. But still, it means when I defrost a small portion of meat I have to be planning two meals out of it— otherwise I risk some of it turning gray and going to waste. I hate wasting food.

This time I decided as long as I was making one hamburger patty for tonight and parceling out the rest of the ground beef to freeze for later, I could make several hamburger patties. I made a total of 7. One went on the grill right away. The other 6 got wrapped individually in wax paper (seen in the photo above) and stacked in a large freezer bag. Now I can thaw just the right amount for one dinner at a time.

"You know you can just buy pre-made hamburger patties," you might observe. Yes, I can. But I don't care for the frozen ones. They're not as good as making my own. And buying the fresh ones is pricey. Yes, I kind of traded off time for cost here by forming patties myself... though even if I bought preformed patties fresh from the grocery store I'd still have to parcel them out into separate wrappers for freezing.


canyonwalker: Cheers! (wine tasting)
It's been about a year since I've written about my dining-out habits. A year ago I observed that, post-Covid, I'd returned to eating restaurant meals (dining there or taking it home) 8x per week. That was a big drop from dining out basically every day for lunch and dinner before Covid. During Covid I dined out way less. In fact at the start of the pandemic I ate strictly what was in my own kitchen/pantry for a full month. I broke my fast after 31 straight days when I had a jones for a big, sloppy burger. Then I did it again a few weeks later, risking my life for a shitty burrito. But, hey, the lockdown era is in the rear view mirror. We've had a few years of getting back to normal. So, what's the new normal?

My new normal is dining out 8-9 times per week. That includes lunch most weekdays, either lunch or dinner each weekend day, and one or two weeknight dinners out. For these purposes I count takeout/takeaway food as dining out, though I do that less than once a week. For me part of the pleasurable experience of dining out is dining out.

How have I landed on a new normal of 8-9 restaurant meals per week instead of basically 13? It's a few things. For one, Covid was like a big reset to break old habits. But old habits are easy to get back into. After all, I'd been dining out most of the week for years, decades even.

What's really helped me is the reset opportunity Covid provided for relearning that I can make tasty food at home. And it's not hard. I've thought about that the past few days as I've pondered what to make for dinner. In the past I would've been, like, "Ugh, do I even have anything to eat at home?" But now it's like, "There are at least three tasty things I could make for dinner; which one do I want tonight, which tomorrow, and which two nights from now?" Thus yesterday's dinner was a roast beef sandwich (I'd bought fresh roast beef slices and sandwich bread at the supermarket), tonight's was shrimp cocktail, and tomorrow's will likely be ravioli with marina sauce.

canyonwalker: wiseguy (Default)
I've been a temporary bachelor the past few days. Hawk has been away on a business trip. She left early Tuesday. For the past four days now I've been on my own.

These past four days have been nothing like the pop culture notions of what happens when a middle aged married guy is left on his own for a few days. The house is not a disaster zone. There are no piles of pizza boxes and takeout bags in the kitchen. There are no stacks of dirty dishes, either. The fridge was never filled with "care packages" of precooked food for a man who can't boil an egg without burning the pot. In fact during the past 4 days I cooked slightly more than I ate, so there's a "care package" for my spouse in case she wants an easy meal of reheating some pasta.

As for things outside of keeping the house clean and cooking for myself? Well, to borrow a phrase Hawk has used when the roles have been reversed 100s of times in the past, "It was nice having the place to myself for a few days." I woke up at my normal times, not when her too-early alarm jolted me awake at 5am or when she came to bed at 1am. I focused on my work during the day. In the evenings I took it easy and only worried about my own wants and needs.

I've quipped in the past that periods of unemployment have been like practice runs for retirement. Is this temporary bachelorhood thus a practice run for being a widower? Oh, hell no! It's just been a few days of living alone knowing things will return to normal afterward.
canyonwalker: Cheers! (wine tasting)
A few weeks ago I read in one of my usual haunts on FlyerTalk.com about a new (to me) variety of Rao's pasta sauce. Rao's basic marinara sauce has been a fan favorite among Costco fans for quite some time. I've tried it myself and have been... underwhelmed.

"It tastes like a basic marinara sauce I'd make myself," I lamented to the fan group.

"Yes, that's the entire point!" they assured me. "It's the most like homemade!!11!"

But here's the thing.... For 3x the price of other brands of jarred sauce at Costco, I'd rather actually make homemade. Making marinara sauce isn't even hard.

Thus I was skeptical about this newly available variety, Rao's Homemade Calabrian Chili Marinara. But I have a rule about food: don't hate it 'til you try it.

Rao's Calabrian Chili Marinara sauce, bought at Costco on a sale (Feb 2024)

By the way, Rao's Calabrian Chili variety is even more expensive than their basic stuff. Ounce for ounce this stuff comes out to almost 4x the price of Prego or Classico marinara sauce when Costco has it on sale.

But how did it taste?

A Costco trifecta - pasta, Parmesan cheese, and Rao's spicy sauce, all bought at Costco (Feb 2024)

I tried it first with a basic pasta. In the bowl (photo above) are gemelli noodles, Rao's Calabrian sauce, and shredded Parmesan cheese. Curious this is a Costco trifecta. The pasta, sauce, and cheese are all from Costco! (The bread with garlic and melted mozzarella cheese you see in the opposite corner is pretty much all ingredients bought at Safeway.)

I've got to say, for all the ambivalence I have about Rao's basic marinara sauce, I am impressed by how good their Calabrian marinara tastes. The Calabrian chilies have a nice, medium-low spice burn. They don't bite at all upfront but provide a nice, sustained heat. Underneath that the sauce has a brighter tomato flavor than Rao's basic variety. I like that aspect of it, too.

As I write this I've now had 4 or 5 dinners with Rao's Calabrian marinara. So far the simplest is the best. After trying it with spinach and cheese ravioli (also bought at Costco!) I've come back to basic pasta garnished with Parmesan cheese.


canyonwalker: Cheers! (wine tasting)
Hosting a dinner party is tough nowadays. I don't just mean the effort of shopping for food, cleaning the house, preparing food, and cleaning up afterwards. Even just planning the menu is getting difficult. So many people have food allergies nowadays that if you get 2-3 people with different no-can-do lists it's hard to assembly a reasonable sized menu that offers enough choices for everyone.

BTW I don't dispute people's food allergies. Many folks out there observe that food allergies "didn't used to be" so common and therefore conclude that they're fake. I instead attribute the apparent increase to better awareness of medical conditions today versus years ago. I believe the same proportion of people have always had various allergies or sensitivities but now more of them know they have such conditions.

For example, one of my college roommates learned a few years after graduation that he's lactose intolerant. "When did that start?" I asked. "You always loved splitting a pizza with me." "I've probably always had it," he explained. "I just thought I had a weak stomach. Now I know why."

For a small gathering we hosted Saturday night there were already competing allergies and religious restrictions in play, even with just a few people attending. The menu was quickly whittled down to, "No meat, no dairy, no eggs." Ugh, what's left? I grumbled silently.

Cutting across the issue of planning a menu around different people's limitations is the matter of how hosts view their responsibility for entertaining guests. At one end of the spectrum people take the attitude of, "Our house, our menu, and guests are rude if they don't eat all of it and say thank-you." At the other end of the spectrum are hosts who bend over backward to accommodate a guest, setting the entire menu around pleasing a single person even if the hosts and their family find it unsatisfying. From reading online discussions of hosting problems it seems not uncommon to find people operating at either of these extremes.

In the lead up to Saturday's party I felt we were reaching the bend-over-backwards extreme. My partner had quickly negotiated a menu with the guests that respected all of their needs— including the tough restrictions of a person who told us he might not even be able to attend, and if he did come, it would be hours late. Finally I told my partner on Saturday after lunch that I was probably going to eat nothing at dinner. In my own house. I was even considering no-showing my own party because I found nothing on restrictive menu appealing to eat.

Fortunately it didn't come to that. My partner agreed to relax some of the restrictions when she realized how dissatisfied I was. I got her to recognize that when we're entertaining people with limitations we don't have to make everything on the table fit everyone's limits simultaneously. At the same time, of course, we're not going to tell a guest, "Hey, we heard you can't eat X, so here's the one thing with no X in it for you!" There's a happy middle ground in making sure that each person has at least a few food options they can enjoy.

canyonwalker: Uh-oh, physics (Wile E. Coyote)
Last night I made a pan of brownies. One of our friends who came over for dinner is allergic to eggs, so in making this recipe I substituted the one egg called for with flaxseed and water. It's a common substitution in baking for people who can't eat eggs, and usually it works well. But last night it failed... weirdly.



When I took the pan of brownies out of the oven it was sizzling. Oil and water were bubbling on top of the brownie making a loud sizzling sound. I've never seen this happen with baking before.

I set the pan aside figuring it was a failure but also figuring I'd check after dinner to see if anything enjoyable to eat could be salvaged from it.

After dinner the brownie had cooled fully... and petrified. I couldn't cut it with a spatula. I couldn't even cut it with a sharp kitchen knife. Figuring it was a total loss I tried just wedging it out of the pan so at least the pan wouldn't be a loss, too.

Sizzling brownie - it came out of the pan almost petrified (Dec 2023)

The brownie popped out of the pan surprisingly easily. I attribute that to me coating the pan well with a thin layer of butter before pouring in the batter. Hey, at least something wasn't ruined. 😅

The brownie was one stiff piece. It still wasn't amenable to being cut with a knife, but I did find that I could break it into chunks with my hands by folding it. I put the pieces onto the wooden cutting board and carried it out to the dinner table. "Let's see if any of it is worth eating," I laughed.

Our two dinner guests joined me. It was tough... but the flavors were good. I dubbed it Brownie Brittle.

Update: I tried another piece this afternoon. It had hardened even more overnight. To soften it up I broke off a chunk, wrapped it with a damp paper towel, and microwaved it for 30 seconds. That loosened it up a fair bit. It still wasn't soft and moist like a proper brownie but at least it wasn't a jawbreaker.


canyonwalker: Cheers! (wine tasting)
A few weeks ago I bought a Wienerschnitzel kit from Costco. I made half of the meat in the kit following the recipe on the box.

Pork Schnitzel meal kit from Costco (Oct 2023)

The result was pleasingly similar, visually, to the picture on the box. I note that because that's not always the case with boxed meals. See this chicken parmigiana from Trader Joe's as an example. The schnitzel tasted okay... but merely okay. The meat was tough and bland— a problem I've found, BTW, with all sous vide meats, including (and especially) those cooked by friends who've sworn up and down while inviting me to taste their cooking that it's the most tender, flavorable meat they've ever had and is comparable to a high end steakhouse. High end steakhouse? I'd send it back at a Denny's!

Like I said, it was kind of bland. So I got the idea to try preparing it differently when I cooked the other half. Here I made a jump between cuisines and geographies. Let's switch from doing it à la Vienna to Parma. Pork cutlet parmigiana!

Wienerschnitzel no more; it's pork Parmigiana! (Oct 2023)

I reheated, breaded, and sautéed the meat the same as when I made it as schnitzel. I did sauté it at a lower temperature, though, to avoid charring the breaded coating. Then I put it in glass baking dish with marinara sauce and a covering of shredded mozzarella cheese and placed it under the broiler until the cheese melted and became just slightly crispy. On the side (not included in the meal kit) I made spätzle— I kept that part of the meal Germanic 😅— creamed spinach, and garlic bread.

BTW, my recipe for creamed spinach is different from most. Instead of making basically a béchamel sauce with milk, butter, and flour to mix in with the spinach I simply use a few tablespoons of butter and a few ounces of cheese. For seasoning I use a pinch of nutmeg— but literally just a pinch, as even 1/2 tsp. of nutmeg can overpower a dish— and salt to taste. I wish I could claim credit for this recipe but I found it on the label of a can of spinach years ago. I've been enjoying it ever since.


canyonwalker: Cheers! (wine tasting)
One of the nice things about shopping at Costco is their wide variety of ready-to-cook meals. Some of them are on the basic end of the range, like packages of pre-seasoned meat. At the opposite end are meal kits, with multiple ingredients and/or side dishes included in a package. One that caught my eye on a shopping trip two weeks ago was this German-style pork schnitzel.

Pork Schnitzel meal kit from Costco (Oct 2023)

The kit includes the ingredients for what's in the picture: pre-cooked pork cutlets, breading to coat them (and pan-fry them), and mushroom gravy to serve with them.

Not everybody's interested in looking through pics of the prep work so I'll put those behind a spoiler guard. Skip down to the finished result if you prefer!

Unboxing and prep steps (click/tap to expand) )

Here's the finished meal.

Pork schnitzel kit, prepared... spaetzle sold separately (Oct 2023)

The spaetzle (a German style egg noodle pasta) and wine are sold separately. 😅

Other than that, the result looks pretty much like the picture on the box. That's a good thing! Too often with these ready-to-eat meals and meal kits what you get at the end of the process looks like a very sad version of the pics on the box.

But how does it taste? Well, that's where the news is not so good. It tastes bland.

The pork cutlets, the main part of the dish, are tough, dense, and flavorless. The breading turned out to stick on fairly well even though there was no batter with it. It adds a bit of crunchy texture... but alas no real flavor. And the delicate flavor of the mushroom gravy completely disappears when paired with the pork. I found it was more enjoyable mopping up with the spaetzle I added.

Would I buy this again? No. But it does inspire me to try making schnitzel on my own. I mean, this kit shows that it can't be that hard. The only time savings it offered was not having to a) cut and sauté pork or chicken, and b) make mushroom gravy. I can buy mushroom gravy in a jar or make it from a package, so there's not a lot of savings there.

canyonwalker: Cheers! (wine tasting)
One of the challenges of living in our post-industrial society is sorting through the amazing array of choices we have. Which is the best for each of us? That question applies to big-ticket purchases like cars as well as prosaic, everyday purchases like groceries. With cars it's well understood that a shopper should test-drive at least a few before buying. Such a comparison might only be checked once every several years, though. But how about groceries? How often do you buy a few of nearly the same thing and try them all? With groceries the costs are way lower than cars, yet I'll bet few people think of doing that very often. I know I don't. Hence the Beer Tasting 2022 project I started months ago. Recently I decided to apply the same idea to two different brands of mozzarella cheese.

I love mozzarella cheese. And as I've been cooking at home a lot more the past few years I buy it fairly regularly. There are several different brands I see at the grocery stores I usually shop. For years I've basically bought whichever one's at the store I happen to be at, or whichever one's on a small sale versus the other. Embedded in that habit is the assumption that the cheeses are equally good, so all I've got to solve for is price and convenience. But are the cheeses equally good? It's time to check!

Taste testing blocks of mozzarella cheese (Jun 2023)

To keep this comparison simple and apples-to-apples I bought two blocks of mozzarella cheese. One is the pseudo-Italian brand Galbani that Safeway carries, the other is Trader Joe's brand. (I call Galbani pseudo-Italian because while the label and all the advertising touts it as "Italy's #1 Cheese!" the fine print says what's sold here is made in the US.) I left pre-shredded cheese out of this comparison. I already know shredding it fresh from a block myself tastes better than pre-shredded. I did that comparison over a year ago; I just didn't write about it. These cheeses are also both the whole-milk variety rather than part-skim milk. That's another comparison I've already done. Buy the whole milk stuff, it's better!

These cheeses look virtually the same. The shapes of the blocks are slightly different, but once shredded the cheese is indistinguishable. It's the same color and texture. Of course, color is not the basis for choosing cheese. Taste is! So, how do they taste?

There's a clear difference in taste between these two. I was surprised because I thought they'd be close. Trader Joe's mozzarella is way better. TJ's has a creamier, very slightly nutty flavor. Galbani tastes like plastic. If I hadn't just opened the sealed package and shredded it by hand I would've though it came from a bag of shreds.

I invited Hawk to try the cheeses, as well. Without me telling her my opinion first, she made exactly the same observation I did.

"Are you going to throw the Galbani out?" she asked.

"No, it's not quite that bad," I said.

She agreed and offered to use it on a dish she was making. But then once she made it she said the flavor of the cheese was so poor she left that part of the meal uneaten. So maybe I will throw out the remainder of the 1-pound block. We're well enough off that we can afford to trash $5 of cheese we don't enjoy.

canyonwalker: wiseguy (Default)
The other day my last piece of CorningWare broke. Hawk was moving it from the sink to the dishwasher, accidentally banged it against the lip of the granite countertop, and it cracked.

My Corningware saucepan broke... after more than 30 years! (Jun 2023)

This piece is a small saucepan, maybe 0.5L rated capacity. It was part of a small set I originally purchased back in 1991. I've had this piece of cookware— and used it regularly— for 32 years!

The other components of the set, a small skillet and a 1.5L saucepan, didn't last as long. The nonstick coating on the skillet wore off maybe 15 years ago, so I tossed it. The 1.5L saucepan cracked even longer ago than that. My mother told me the folklore that CorningWare "could survive one drop but not two". Indeed the other saucepan cracked after a small drop a few years after it survived a big drop. This piece... I don't remember how long ago, if ever, we dropped it.

Some might wonder, "Half liter/one pint, that's so small, why bother?" In a two-person household it's actually very useful. It's the right size for heating a can of vegetables or a cup of sauce. And the beauty of CorningWare is that it's safe for the stove top, the microwave, and the dishwasher.

Ironically within a day of this last piece of my old CorningWare collection breaking, Instant Brands, the company that now owns CorningWare— along with brands like Instant Pot, Pyrex, and Corelle— declared bankruptcy. 😬 Example coverage: ABC News article 14 Jun 2023; CNN article 13 Jun 2023.

The bankruptcy is only Chapter 11, a restructuring bankruptcy not a liquidation, so the company may come back. But already reports have emerged that classic kitchenware sets on auction sites have shot up in price. A quick check I performed showed the 0.5L saucepan by itself going for about $65. A three-piece set (technically it's called "5 piece" because they count the lids) similar to what I bought in 1991 is around $250 now. In 1991 I paid $12.99, new.

canyonwalker: Boarding KTX at Seoul Station (Riding the Seoul train)
On a Costco shopping trip a few weeks ago we picked up a package of Kevin's Korean BBQ-Style.

Trying Kevin's Bulgogi (Korean BBQ beef) from Costco (Mar 2023)

Our experience with heat-and-eat packaged foods at Costco has been mixed. A few are genuine hits, items that we buy again and again. Most are "enh".... They're edible, but not enjoyable enough, or not good enough in terms of quality-price ratio (QPR), that we'd ever buy them again.

We bought this package of bulgogi because (a) we haven't had it before and were curious to try it, and (b) we like bulgogi. I've traveled to Korea numerous times and always enjoyed the barbecued meats there— bulgogi, bulkalbi, etc. We've enjoyed numerous Korean restaurants in the SF Bay Area. And I've made the dishes myself at home from scratch, including making the meat marinade/sauce from scratch as well as from bottled sauces. Oh, and (c) this was on sale, $5 off. 😅

I can make a decent Korean beef dish from scratch. It's not restaurant quality, but it's good enough that you know what it is. I hoped buying a package would yield at least as good results with less effort.

The 32oz. package contains less than 22oz. of meat (Mar 2023)

Inside the package are 4 sealed envelopes. Two are precooked meat, sous vide style; two are sauce.

Above I mentioned QPR.... I was disappointed to find that this package marked "32 oz." contained maybe 20 oz. of actual meat. (The scale shows 22.36 oz. but those plastic envelopes weigh almost a full ounce, then there's all the cooking fluid packaged in with them.) For the full price of $19 per package this is already looking like a poor QPR.

Kevin's Korean beef at least looks tasty. Sesame garnish is my own addition. (Mar 2022)

Because the meat is already precooked, preparation is just a matter of draining the meat, briefly searing it in a skillet, and tossing it with the sauce. I used just one of the two sauce packets as it seemed like both would make it overly saucy. Also, the sauce is sweet; adding both packets would make the dish overly sweet. I garnished the meat with sesame seeds before serving.

Potatoes and green beans are not very Korean. Neither is Kevin's bulgogi. (Mar 2022)

I wasn't feeling like going full Korean with dinner the other night so I made mashed potatoes and green beans to go with the meat. That very non-Korean pairing turned out to be fine as Kevin's Korean BBQ-Style Meat is not very Korean, either. The flavor is way too sweet, even with only half the sauce used. And sweetness is practically the only dimension of the flavor. There are no real notes of garlic, onion, or ginger. It might pass muster for "Korean" food in Iowa.

Even worse, the meat isn't good quality. It's tough and stringy. In Korea, a good barbecue restaurant is basically a butcher shop with stoves. People go there not just because the sauce and preparation are good, but because the meat itself is fundamentally good.

I finished off the meat from Kevin's because it wasn't bad enough to want to trash, but it's nowhere near good enough to buy again.
canyonwalker: Cheers! (wine tasting)
A few weeks ago I decided to try a pre-made lasagna from the refrigerator case at Costco. No, this wasn't Costco's Kirkland brand lasagna; we tried one of those a few years ago. This is a new brand I saw for the first time and decided to try it.

Rana Beef & Short rib Lasagna from Costco (Feb 2023)

At only 42oz. (about 800g) it's less than half the size of a Kirkland frozen lasagna. I figured if it sucked there'd be less waste to throw out. 😅 But seriously, I bought it in hopes that it would be better than the Kirkland variety. The fact it's sold under a third-party manufacturer's name is a positive sign... even if I've never heard of them before. The fact it's advertised as beef and short rib is a plus, too. I don't like lasagna that's got too much pasta and not enough protein. And since it's sold refrigerated rather than frozen I figured it's likely higher quality.

Rana Beef & Short rib Lasagna from Costco (Feb 2023)

Hawk decided she wasn't going to be part of eating this lasagna. Even if she were, the package would be 2 meals for us. For me, solo, it's 3 meals. I decided since the lasagna come refrigerated, not frozen, I'd divide it into 3 pieces, cook 1, and pack away the other 2. So I had three, 14oz. (400g.) portions.

How did it turn out?

Rana Beef & Short rib Lasagna from Costco (Feb 2023)

Well, since I portioned out the lasagna before cooking it I didn't cook it in the plastic dish it came in. It got a bit sloppy on the baking pan, especially when I went to scoop it up with a spatula after 20 minutes. Thus what landed on my plate didn't exactly look delicious... but I didn't let that faze me because it looked tasty enough while cooking.

The lasagna tasted fine. The texture of the noodles, sauce, and cheese were reasonably good— the best so far I've had from a pre-made, store-bought lasagna. (Not that I've had many....) It was nicely meaty, too, with the bits of short rib providing a nice textural difference from the ground beef.

Of the two portions I set aside, one I put one in my fridge and the other I froze because I wasn't sure how long it'd take me to get back to it. I wasn't ready for more lasagna the very next day but it was tasty enough I was ready for another meal of it a few days later. The lasagna kept well in the fridge, and the piece I froze cooked fine from frozen.

This is one store-bought lasagna I'd actually buy again. The quality is good, and the smaller package size— 3 meals for me versus 7— makes it easier to embrace than a larger frozen package or the standard pan size of making it home-made.



canyonwalker: Cheers! (wine tasting)
When we were shopping at Costco last weekend we spotted this little number I've never seen before:

Definitely No Pigs In These Blankets! (Dec 2022)

The idea is pretty obvious. Think "Pigs in a blanket" for people who don't eat pork (as it's against religious dietary laws). I call it "Definitely No Pigs In This Blanket!"

The idea is so obvious we've already made it ourselves at home. We've combined Hebrew National's kosher hot dogs with ready-to-bake dough like Pillsbury croissants, rolling them up together. The results of that have been... a little spotty. It's hard to get the hotdog cooked the right amount (not under, not over) while also getting the dough baked the right amount. We figured a ready-made dish like this might be designed to have both parts bake correctly together.

How did it turn out? Well, the first thing we found is that that these Definitely-Not-Pigs-In-A-Blanket are small.

Definitely-No-Pigs-In-These-Blankets are... Small (Dec 2022)

It takes about 4 pieces to equal the size of one normal Hebrew National hotdog. I guess that's good if you're serving them as appetizers, though I gotta say: the picture on the box makes them look not tiny.

So, again, how did they turn out? They were okay. As we hoped, they're designed so that the meat and bread both cook up appropriately. As for the taste... well, there's something just more special about when we crafty it ourselves than when we pour it out of a box straight onto a baking sheet.
canyonwalker: Cheers! (wine tasting)
I've written a few times recently about how cooking delicious meals requires time + planning. Sometimes the planning people do is very focused on one meal. Like, "To make X and Y with a side of Z, I'm going to need these 23 ingredients" — and many of those ingredients are in small quantities. Think of all the ways tasty cooking involves adding a pinch of this, a teaspoon of that, and sprinkling the other thing to taste.

Frankly it's not practical to plan shopping around getting everything for a specific meals. I know, because I've seen people try it, and they almost invariably get overwhelmed by the sheer number of things needed if starting from nil. Instead it helps to build up a well stocked kitchen over time. Once you do that you can extemporaneously create great meals— or at least class up otherwise simplistic ones.

Prime rib sandwich (Nov 2022)

I did that recently when my plan for dinner was "roast beef sandwich". Don't get me wrong; I enjoy roast beef sandwiches. The ones at delis taste great. But the ones at home are usually poor cousins. Instead of making just-another sandwich of cold cuts and cheese and mustard I decided to make a hot prime rib sandwich.

I started with the cold, sliced roast beef. "How does one make this hot again?" I asked. I made 2oz. of savory broth in a dish (I used water plus a "Better than Bouillon" paste we have a small jar of in the 'fridge), soaked the roast beef slices in it, and microwaved them for 45 seconds or so. Meanwhile I sliced open a sandwich-sized roll and spread some tasty sauce on both sides (a yuzu sauce we have a bottle of in the 'fridge). I layered on the hot, moist roast beef slices— now very much like hot, sliced prime rib, because, well, they are prime rib— covered it with a mixture of two kids of cheese (we have 4-5 different kinds in the 'fridge), and broiled it to melt the cheese.

How good was the result? Well, it wasn't quite as good as a prime rib sandwich I pay $20 for at a restaurant... but it wasn't far off, either! And it cost a lot less than $20 and didn't require going out to eat. And I could pull it together in 5 minutes on the spur of the moment thanks to having any number of things ready to go in my kitchen.


canyonwalker: Cheers! (wine tasting)
A few days ago I mused again how cooking nice meals at home requires time and preparation. Neither of things things are hard; they just require... time and preparation. 😅

The nifty thing about preparation is that it can be done in advance. Well, some of it can be done in advance. And some of it can be done so far in advance you forget about it!

That happened to me when I was digging through our freezer Sunday morning to figure out what I could prep for dinner Sunday night. I found I had some pieces of good ribeye steak... from last December! I'd bought a large package on sale, parceled it out into more or less one dinner size portions, and frozen each portion in a separate bag. Would the meat still be good 10½ months later? Well, I'd already done the prep work to maximize the chances. I'd defrost it, grill it, and find out.

Grilled steak, creamed spinach, and mashed potatoes for dinner (Nov 2022)

When I grill a steak for dinner, it's almost never just "I grill a steak". A good meal requires more than just good meat. And I do mean more-more than pairing it with a good red wine. 🤣 I opened a can of spinach and prepared it as creamed spinach, adding butter, a mixture of cheeses, and a few spices. I boiled and mashed potatoes. I toasted a roll of bread with butter and garlic. And, of course, I opened a bottle of good red wine.

The steak turned out pretty good. The marinade I threw together on Sunday afternoon worked well. Due to the thinness of the steak I did overcook it a bit, turning it out somewhere between medium to medium-well. I prefer medium-rare. But with thin steaks it's challenging to catch that sweet middle ground between still raw inside and slightly overdone. The good news there is that I have at least two more chances to improve my cooking technique; I have at least two more little packages of ribeye I want to use up before they reach their anniversary of sitting in the freezer!



canyonwalker: Cheers! (wine tasting)
Although I haven't blogged about cooking for a while— a quick check shows my last post on the topic was nearly five months ago— I have been cooking. I've been limiting my restaurant meals to 8-9 per week. That means in addition to eating breakfast at home always, I prepare lunch or dinner at home 5-6 times per week. So yes, I've definitely been cooking; I just haven't been doing much that's fancy.

What is not fancy? Not fancy is meals that require little preparation other than taking something out of a box or a jar and applying heat. Microwaveable or oven-ready main dishes. Canned veg. Canned soup. Grilling a hamburger or hot dog. Slicing open a roll and melting cheese on it. ...Okay, not all of those are simple; I just don't think of them as fancy. There aren't more than 1 or 2 steps per item.

What's the obstacle against doing something fancier? It's time and planning, as I noted in my last cooking blog entry 5 months ago. Making something more elaborate requires a  more time to prepare— and the planning to have that time. So often I look at the clock, see it's already well after 6pm, and try to figure out what I can have ready in the shortest time for dinner. Beyond planning the time to cook it also requires time and planning to get the ingredients and have them on hand. Recently I've resolved to do a better job of that... because after all it's not hard.

Cajun salmon for dinner (Nov 2022)

A few times in the past week or two I've had baked salmon, like you see in the picture above. There are still time-saving shortcuts in what you see on the plate.... The salmon is frozen and oven-ready in single portions in a box of 6 pieces I bought at Costco. The green beans are from a can. The mashed potatoes... well, those are actually the most effort-intensive thing on the plate as I boiled the potatoes, partly peeled them, and mashed them with milk and butter.

"That looks... health," Hawk quipped. Being healthy, making this is a "square" meal, was one of my goals. But so was making something that tasted really good and didn't require ridiculous amounts of effort. All it takes is some time and planning ahead.



canyonwalker: Cheers! (wine tasting)
When the Coronavirus pandemic started I made a huge shift in my eating habits. Overnight I went from dining out in restaurants 12 times a week— basically most lunches and dinners— to cooking and eating every meal at home. I didn't eat restaurant food at all for the first month. Since then, and especially since getting vaccinated over a year ago now, I've eased back toward my old habits. I haven't gone back to dining out 12 times a week but I'm getting close. Lately I've been dining out, say, 10 times a week.

Lately my cooking habits have regressed, too. Instead of preparing delicious, made-from-scratch meals several times a week, like I did early in the pandemic, I've shifted to making mostly convenience meals: heat-and-eat meals, microwaveable food, etc.

This week I decided I can do better. I used to do better! So I know I definitely can. It just takes... planning. And time.

Steak for dinner (Jun 2022)

Tuesday I made myself a steak dinner. I defrosted and grilled some short rib I've had in the freezer for... ugh, over a year. (I wrote the date on the freezer bag I packed it in.) That tells you how far behind my old cooking cadence I've fallen. On the side I made creamed spinach from a can of plain spinach, adding butter and cheese to it in a saucepan, and heated a roll of French bread in the stove. Not pictured: the 2½ glasses of Cabernet Franc I drank with it. 🥩🍷😋

Making this meal proved two things. ...Well, three. It was delicious. But other than that it proved two things.

First, cooking real meals at home takes planning and time. Before you can eat the meal you have to buy the food. Then you have to prep it. Then you have to cook it. The steak, for example, I already had in the freezer. But I had to plan ahead to defrost it. I started that Sunday night. But then I had such a long workday on Monday I was left with no time to dress it... or to refill the propane tank for the grill outside! So I put off making my steak dinner until Tuesday. Tuesday it almost didn't happen, either. But late in the afternoon I carved out time to buy gas and I switched my plan from marinating the meat hours in advance (I had no time to do that) to using a last-minute salt and pepper rub instead.

The second lesson is kind of embedded in the first: While cooking takes planning and time, it's doable... when planned ahead. You've got to buy the food or defrost it ahead of time. If there are prep steps like marinating meat, you've got to plan those into the schedule. And when unplanned stuff happens like working stretching 'til after 6pm with no break, as it did on Monday for me, you've got to be ready to call an audible... like "I'll make the steak on Tuesday; let's go out for pizza tonight."

That Monday night pizza was awesome, BTW. But so was the Tuesday steak dinner. And it was actually way cheaper, even though it was prime meat, because I cooked it myself instead of paying a restaurant.
canyonwalker: Cheers! (wine tasting)
I make Chicago-style deep dish pizza at home a lot. The first many times were frozen deep dish pizza. Yeah, I know. But Safeway started carrying Gino's East frozen pizza a few years ago and it's actually pretty good. Still, frozen pizza is never the best. Next I started buying pre-made crusts and adding my own toppings. Those were even better. And that also got me thinking, "What if I make my own deep-dish crust?"

This past weekend I made a deep dish pizza taking another step towards full from-scratch ingredients. I bought a ball of premade pizza dough at the grocery store. Instead of rolling it out into a traditional New York-style pizza like I've done countless times, or making a calzone like I've done a few times recently, I pressed it into a pan and topped it Chicago-style. I.e., cheese on the crust, then 1 meat and 1 veg, then fresh home-made sauce on top.

How'd it turn out? Here's the first 1,000 words:

Deep dish pizza I made at home - mostly from scratch (Jun 2022)

I kneaded and rolled out the dough into a round... -ish... shape larger than the pan. Then I laid it in the pan, pressing the extra dough up against the sides with my fingers. I brushed oil on the dough, laid on the toppings, and baked it.

One thing about the form factor is that I used a spring-form pan. That wasn't my first choice but it was all we had. It turns out we don't own a traditional round cake pan right now, so I used what we had. It worked perfectly. Releasing the sides from the pan meant I didn't have to try digging the pie out from inside it. I just took the sides off and basically slid it from the pan bottom onto the wooden board to cool, cut, and serve.

So how did it taste? I'll add another thousand words:

Mmm, fresh deep dish pizza! (Jun 2022)

Overall this was a success. The pizza had good taste and texture. The cheese was plentiful (I used 8 oz. of freshly shredded mozzarella), the toppings were plentiful, the fresh sauce I made was good.

A few things were not quite right.

— One, the dough isn't Chicago style pizza dough. It's not made with corn starch. So the flavor and texture were slightly off from a Chicago pie.

— Two, the crust was a little overcooked. Oh, it was still good; it just wasn't perfect. I baked the pie for 25 minutes. Next time I'll try 22 or maybe even 20. The challenge with cooking time is I don't know how to test for doneness other than trial and error.

— Three, as you can see in the photo above if you're a connoisseur of Chicago pizza, there's not enough tomato on it. That's on me for choosing to go light as I spread sauce atop the uncooked pie. I was trying to avoid over-sauced pizza, which I hate. As I iterate on doing this I'll fine-tune my technique to get the amount of sauce neither under nor over but just right.


canyonwalker: Cheers! (wine tasting)
Last week ago I decided to try making Chicago style deep dish pizza at home. I bought a pair of pre-made pizza crusts at Trader Joe's and topped them myself. How did it turn out? Check this results picture and decide for yourself....

Eating deep dish pizza made at home (Feb 2022)

...Okay, you can't taste it through the screen, but I think you can see it looks pretty good— and very much like a Chicago pie. It tasted pretty good, too. It was better than the frozen Gino's East deep dish pizza I've bought numerous times since local Safeways started carrying it almost 2 years ago.

How did I make it? As I said above, I started with a premade crust and topped it myself.

Making deep dish pizza at home - premade crust (Feb 2022)

First I brushed the crust with olive oil. Then I laid down a thick layer of mozzarella cheese. Okay, the mozzarella cheese was store-bought, too. I'm not into making my own cheese! Then I put on a good layer of pepperoni— okay, that was store-bought, too; I don't slaughter or cure my own meat 🙄— and, finally, a layer of marinara sauce. The marinara sauce was homemade! I'd made it the night before. ...No, I didn't grow the tomatoes. I used canned tomatoes. 🤣 But I made the sauce myself from base ingredients, including the crushed garlic I sauteed to start it.

Making deep dish pizza at home (Feb 2022)

Putting the sauce on top was key to getting the look— and frankly the taste— of authentic Chicago deep dish pizza. I could have gone a little heavier with the sauce I spooned on. As you can see in the picture it doesn't quite cover the pie from rim to rim. I was worried about it spilling over when cooked. It didn't, because the cheese melted down.

What really put this pizza over the top of anything frozen I've tried was that sauce. Its flavor was spot-on. Not just for pizza in general but especially for Chicago pizza. The marinara I made is mostly tomato (as it should be). And it's high quality. One of the problems I've found with frozen pizzas is that their tomato sauces are all terrible. Even Gino's East, which is otherwise the best frozen pizza I've found, has a sauce that's simultaneously overly sweet and harshly acidic. 🤢

canyonwalker: Cheers! (wine tasting)
I've made calzone at home twice now using pre-made pizza dough from the grocery store. Both times I used half the 1-lb package of dough. I'm glad I did because that turned out to be the right amount!

With calzone #1 I used the other half of the dough to make a bunch of garlic knots. With calzone #2, which I posted about last night, I used the other half of the dough to make a pizza for Hawk.

The idea seemed so obvious once it occurred to me: if a half pound of dough works great for a calzone, it'd work great for a individual pizza. Yet it was a revelation because every time in the past I'd made a pizza from store-bought dough I used most or all of the 1-lb ball to make the pizza crust.

Sauceless pizza (Feb 2022)

Indeed an 8-oz. portion of dough made a nicely sized individual pizza. Hawk ate most of this and left a slice for me.

The pizza shown here is sauce-less. Hawk doesn't care much for tomato sauce. I brushed olive oil on the rolled out dough, covered it with cheese, then topped it with a generous spread of sliced red onion. The yellow color you see on the cheese is from Hawk sprinkling on turmeric. Indian style pizza? Not exactly my thing... though, yes, I've tried it. Both in my own kitchen as well as at Indian pizzerias. But that's the great thing about individual sized pizza. You get your favorite toppings even if nobody else agrees!

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canyonwalker

May 2025

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