We should have a "What are you cooking?" thread. Now we do.

[davent]

Great looking bacon Dan, just in time for tomato season.

I bit of pork shoulder in the freezer, cubed and rubbed with a mix of ancho/chipotle/black peppers and fresh garlic, skewered and grilled.

Tomatilla salsa and salsa cruda, just enough ripe tomatoes in a pot on the patio for the sasla cruda.








dave

[davent]

BBQ'd beef hot dogs last night...

Tonight, paella for four, local rice emporium has a fresh shipment of Bomba rice in, five different brands to try.

Grilled shrimp, calamari, local chorizo, fresh sweet peas, toasted pepitas, white onion, garlic cloves, a jar of 2019 tomato sauce, cilantro, Bomba rice, chicken stock infused with shrimp shells, best one we've pulled off so far.

Self serve at the table.









Stay well, eat your peas!
dave

[davent]

Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday...

Low&slo striploin, seared on the chimney, blue cheese butter, cole slaw & duck fat fingerling potatoes.

All beef hot dog, dressed with sweet relish, ball park mustard, pepperoncini, left over cole slaw.

Back to shrimp, from Cypriot cookbook, grilled spicy shrimp with feta & ouzo, multigrain sourdough.









Take care
dave

[davent]

After last weekends budget breaker wanted to do a comparison with a more usual piece of beef for us, a chunk of blade at $8/lb vs. a $28/lb strip loin.

Two pound piece of blade smoked with mesquite for ~85minutes to 126F then seared with the chimney, this time using the chimney atop the beef. Herbed fingerling potato salad and the first local corn of the year, start of the binging.

The striploin was melt in your mouth tender like no beef i've ever cooked before, the blade you had to chew to process, flavour wise the striploin wasn't even close, the blade mopped the floor with it.








Old favourite, much reworked/altered recipe from Jamie Oliver's first book, maybe followed the recipe the first couple times then did whatever with it, an Asian informed chicken noodle soup. House chicken stock goosed with Maggi, fresh chow mien noodles, skinless chicken thighs coated with toasted sesame oil - grilled, bok choy, shiitake mushrooms, sugar snap peas & carrot slices coated with more of the oil and grilled. Finished with Sambel Olek, bean sprouts and garden Thai basil. This one goes down so well year 'round.




Have a good week.
dave

[davent]

The garden where i've been putting in lots of time this is finally getting 'round to the good stuff. A selection of tomatoes, first ripe hot pepper, had radishes and green onions for a good long time, makings of a salsa cruda. Taco is leftover grilled chicken thigh from the weekend, tomatilla salsa, feta, lime with backyard salsa cruda. First local corn of the year from the farmer' market.





Stay safe and cool...
dave

[davent]

Fridge dive 'chow mein' for two... half a bag of fresh chow mein noodles, chunk of leftover smoked blade steak, single cob of corn, a baby bok choy, piece of red onion chopped, sugar snap peas, half a carrot julienned, minced ginger, backyard kale, dregs of a bottle of oyster sauce, soy sauce, toasted sesame oil, last of one jar of Sambel Olek reinforced with a new jar, sesame seeds.







Sixty days of summer left the best is yet to come, stay well!
dave

[alanp]

Dave, never invite me to a cook-out at your place.

"Alan, how do you want your steak done?"

"I dunno, cooked."

"Raw, medium, well done, what?"

"Er, cooked in the middle?"

[davent]

Dave, never invite me to a cook-out at your place.

"Alan, how do you want your steak done?"

"I dunno, cooked."

"Raw, medium, well done, what?"

"Er, cooked in the middle?"

We can discuss it when you get here, it's all just one long experiment, exploration, search...
dave

[davent]

Don't do much cooking without including some of this, our years supply of garlic planted in November and harvested yesterday.

Enough for this weeks dill pickle production, backyard tomato sauce to last the year, a year's worth of cooking and a fall planting for next summer's harvest. Trace these bulbs directly back to the ones i bought and planted in the fall of 1994, variety is more then likely 'music'.




Take care.
dave

[mjg]

What variety is that orange one? 

But seriously, what's your storage strategy for a year of garlic?  We put them in the freezer.  The taste doesn't suffer at all, but they tend to be mushy.  Which is fine, as we are most likely going to mince them for a recipe anyway. 

I've got 4 varieties that I grow, no idea what they are now, many years later.

[davent]

What variety is that orange one? 

But seriously, what's your storage strategy for a year of garlic?  We put them in the freezer.  The taste doesn't suffer at all, but they tend to be mushy.  Which is fine, as we are most likely going to mince them for a recipe anyway. 

I've got 4 varieties that I grow, no idea what they are now, many years later.

Orange one's Top Flyte, can't remember where i sourced it?

This is the first year i've cut the stalks off at harvest rather than after curing, not suppose to make any difference and takes up way less room, we'll see. Usually two to three weeks to cure, now using the basement which is cool and very dry compared to outside. For years i cured outside in the sun covered up when it rained but i was literally getting roasted cloves of garlic here and there, soft yellow mushy anomalies in  a bulb, not suppose to cure in the sun... Basement for the past few years has worked fine.

This years trays of bulbs, fully vented on all sides, are sitting on a couple saw horses with a small fan blowing on them.

After the curing put them in a couple 5, 10lb mesh onion bags and hang those from a basement joist and that's it.

Just went and took pictures of what i have left from last summer's harvest. Sprouting here and there, surprisingly firm, cut a clove open, fragrant and oily. Last picture with the orange variety, the bulb on the left was harvested two days ago, the bulb on the right July 2019, kept great.

I've only ever grown hard neck varieties and my guess is these are Music, seems to be the most common one around.





dave

[davent]

Caponata on pasta, grilled the eggplant, onions and some of the tomatoes, garlic, capers, green olives, pepperoncini, celery which didn't have much of so bulked up with bok choy stems, parsely, basil, olive oil & balsamic vinegar.






This afternoon did garlic dill peppers, cucumbers and dill from yesterday's farmer's market, set for awhile again.






Long weekend here... or status quo. take care!
dave

[davent]

Grilled pizzas, the tiny yellow Bequinho peppers from the garden, initially suggest impending  fire but there is none beyond, taste great, added chili flakes to pump up the heat along with hot cacciatore salami, cherry tomatoes.

Second is a simple Margherita with Buratta cheese.






Summer highlite, Nicoise Salad. From the backyard, greens, wax beans and tomatoes, Bloody Butcher, usually our first tomato to start ripening up, the other Garden Peach, yellow with a pink/orange blush and fuzzy skin, very sweet, both consistently produce well here and worth growing year after year. Baby potatoes, eggs, Kalamata olives, anchovies, canned tuna in oil & aged Balsamic vinegar from the farmer's market.




Have a decent weekend, take care!
dave

[davent]

Tomatoes coming on strong now, canned fourteen jars of tomato chunks so far.

Last night tomato salad, two bloody butchers, two Wapsinicon peach, green onions, bacon, bacon fat, feta cheese, balsamic glaze...





Take care.
dave

[davent]

Some shrimp and a filet of Steelhead trout from the freezer, lots of tomatoes and other bits from the garden and market, fish stew curry. Trout and shrimp grilled and added atop the curry.

Round two, leftover makeover, had not quite enough of the curry left for two more bowls so extended it with  a cubed potato and a few of these monster, Italian broad beans were growing this year, super sweet and tender. The vines topped out the 7.5' trellis long ago and are running wild. Still had some shrimp left in the freezer and grilled those up.

Pecan butter tart from the neighbourhood bakery, no idea how she gets such a light delicate crust, delicious decadence.





Eight inch blade and the beans aren't full size.




One farmer's market down, two to go, stay well.
dave