me make food

I thought this was a silly product, but really like it now.

The idea came from seeing sauces in these squeezy bottles on cooking shows and I knew I needed them for the hash browns. I have hash brown making down to a science, will post about it soon. A vid post
When I am ready to flip them for the first time I used to put little bits of butter on the top before the flip. It made my hands all greasy and wanted a bit of oil in there as well. Bottle to the rescue. I mixed it 1/2 butter 1/2 veg oil and 20 seconds in the microwave and I am good to go. Works wonders for eggs and prob any other thing I need some lube for.

I made one up full of clarified butter as well for the peppercorn steaks I keep them barely filled so they nuke warm quick and I can keep it fresh. Stored in the fridge of course.

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The butcher gave us a 20 ounce chunk of tenderloin and we cut off a 7 ounce chunk for later. We making a cheatu Brion style peppercorn fillet tomight.

Theresa picked up this handi vac thingy mcbobber for us. We do freeze lots of stuff. I would of never bought this thing, but I am amazed at how well it works. Guess I will be washing there sucky ziplock bags like my mom used to di with the regular ones. BTW glad zip bags are so fricking cheap.

Ray had posted about caring for a bamboo cutting board. Apparently I was not caring for mine all that well. Theresa picked up some mineral oil and they are looking really good now.

That there is a fat separator. Strangely it is not easy to find one of these here in our fine city. I had to go to Amazon for this little fella. They did have a 4 cup version, but I figured 2 cups would suffice. We make broth from every chicken, and occasionally make beef broth as well, which this will work very well for. Last night it helped me make gravy with ease. It is pretty much a unitasker, eventhough it does have a built in measuring cup. The spout is not the easiest to clean and it is plastic. Still it works wonders.

I now have 3 fine bamboo cutting boards. Theresa picked me this up after one of her shopping spree’s. Cutting on the end grain is the best for knives and this board is absolutely gorgeous and I feel bad cutting on it.

Sheeeeeeeeet iffin you don’t know Theresa loves gravy, well…. A roast chicken aint bad either.

Theresa got that blue gravy boat as a present. My little lady loves her gravy. We had been serving our gravy in a pyrex measuring cup for years. I feel darn civilized now. “Wilhelm, tipsy toodle the wickersham for this eves tomfooleries, do not tallydunkins the gravy boat”.

Oh, to roast a chicken we have a roasting pan and I cover the bottom with foil shiny side down so it acts like an oven when I put it in the grill with both sides on high (grill not too badass, might do well with med for a good grill). Jam a probe in the season rubbed bird and get it pert near 160 degrees F. Spices: salt, pepper, garlic, Misty’s, cayenne, and some crushed bay leaf.

So Mr. T said something like “didn’t you go to culinary school” when we first met. Not sure if he was joking around or not. But no I have no formal training. But recently I have really enjoyed cooking. Specially from raw stuff. There is that one lady on the food porn channel who makes meals from store bought crap and she irks me. Most has been from watching Alton Brown and other cooking shows. Trying different things, ya know. And spending a whole day on the weekend making stuff is a purdy good day to me.

But I seem to muck up this dam measuring spoon thing. it really grinds my gears. First off stop abbreviating it. And really just fricking pick one. how about we just get rid of the whole tablespoon thing? How about a mega teaspoon?

I made a batch of vanilla ice cream and split it up so I could do the cookies and cream. I used 7 tablespoons when it should of been 6 teaspoons of vanilla extract. i wanted to make it a bit more vanilla powered. It was so intense. Oh man I made it through one bowl and felt sick. Dumped the whole batch and made a new one.

We have wanted one of these for a while. Jake mentioned he got an ice cream maker and had made some good stuff. We opted for the kitchenaid one. It cost a bit more than other makers, but figured it was worth it. Picked it up yesterday but had to freeze the bowl for 15 hours. But it is best to chill your mix for 6 hours or so anyway.

We have a bit of a problem. Fuggles is one long doggie with an amazing reach. She is free to roam the house when we are gone and has done a bit of damage to some of the stuff in our kitchen. She loves to get our spoons, spatulas, and any other cooking thing. She destroyed my old grill spatula which was metal, she broke the weld and chewed up the handle. Picked some nice metal ones which should be safe if she gets them again. I mean sure I could put them away, but that would be so much work.

We go through a bit of cheese and I have never really liked the pre shredded stuff. I have tried a bunch of different shredders and well most suck. The box shredder is prob the best, but it is a bit hard to clean. On the food porn channel many of them folk use microplane graters. I got one for hard cheeses, it is the smaller grating size. The thing is beautiful and very well made. The metal is molded into the plastic housing and there is no chance it is gonna harbor stuff in the crevaces. The handle is rubberized and very sturdy. The grating surface is really interesting, and looks like it has razor blades for teeth. It could do some major damage I bet. I have only used it with parmesan and it is pretty interesting. I can shave the cheese so thin it is transparent or push a bit harder and get some good and thick shreds. I plan on getting the larger shred version as well.

Got a new gadget today as well. Unfortunately I could not use it today cuz it needs to be in the freezer for 15 hours. Will post about it tomorrow.