What's for dinner?

[abnorm]

Just make sure to always turn off your propane tank when not actively in

What are you worried about.........the tanks and hose have auto-valves

the only failure mode is if you cut the HOSE...........

 

[JDub]

I'm still at home, trying to figure my next steps in life, but I've been using some foodstuff that i have on hand to makes some meals and save some cash-so tonight it's baked bbq tofu and leftover rice that i just reheated and some fresh veggies on the side. I had most of the ingredients for the bbq sauce, but i had to alter it a bit. For the sauce i chopped an onion and sautéed until brown, then added some garlic, diced tomatoes, vinegar, molasses, cayenne peppers, since i was out of red pepper flakes, salt, sugar, mustard and liquid smoke. Added some Tobasco for some extra kick. Pressed the tofu and sliced it into slabs and then coated the slabs in oil and soy and threw them in the oven to get crispy and brown. Here are a few pics. Also baked some bread in the bread machine...not the best looking, but mmmm it's good!

Both the tofu and the bread look great Highway. I like the BBQ tofu idea! We eat a lot of Tofu back home, you can even get it fresh from the little tofu factory in Kalihi. I got some of the firm stuff the other day to make this: https://onolicioushawaii.com/chicken-tofu/ It's really tasty. Try it if you have a chance

Cheers!

 

[Random Painted Highway]

Both the tofu and the bread look great Highway. I like the BBQ tofu idea! We eat a lot of Tofu back home, you can even get it fresh from the little tofu factory in Kalihi. I got some of the firm stuff the other day to make this: https://onolicioushawaii.com/chicken-tofu/ It's really tasty. Try it if you have a chance

Cheers!

I just had a look at the recipe, it sounds delicious, and i'm adding it to my list to try! Tonight It's just simple pasta and pesto...a few pics on the way. Nothing fancy, but turned out great with the items i have at home. Just me and the cat here since my wife passed last month. Just trying to keep moving forward through the grief...we liked cooking together, so it is a comfort being in the kitchen again.

 

[JDub]

Evening all.

Went to the neighbors for a BBQ tonight (chicken, hot dogs, small children, and pork steak) I brought home made Banana Peach ice cream ( made it a couple weeks ago so no pix). It was a nice mild evening and a good time. So I skipped the Shawarma tonight but had to BBQ it for tomorrow because the yogurt based marinade will make the meat too mushy if you leave it more than a day. Here it is.

Tomorrow I'm going to chop it up, fry it up with onions and stuff it into fresh pita bread with a chopped salad and (drool) LOTS of Yogurt Garlic Sauce! Here's a really good recipe for all of it ( NOTE! If you make the sauce DON'T use the Tablespoon of salt it calls for - It's a mistake. Use a teaspoon). I highly recommend you leave the chicken thighs whole and BBQ them first vs the method called for. Also - Uhhhh don't get near anyone for at LEAST 6 to 8 hours. It's pretty insanely garlicky but irresistible

It's Saturday night so go out and party like it's 1632! Get in lots of trouble - just don't get CAUGHT!!! Stay safe folks.

Cheers!

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/halal-chicken-rice-recipe_b_870318

 

[JDub]

I just had a look at the recipe, it sounds delicious, and i'm adding it to my list to try! Tonight It's just simple pasta and pesto...a few pics on the way. Nothing fancy, but turned out great with the items i have at home. Just me and the cat here since my wife passed last month. Just trying to keep moving forward through the grief...we liked cooking together, so it is a comfort being in the kitchen again.

Really sorry Buddy... I can relate, mine's been gone for 5 years now... Let yourself grieve though. It's part of the healing. Just remember though, she'd want you to recover and go on. I knew my wife would want me to pick up and press ahead so I did. Doesn't make the pain any less though.

Hang in there.

 

[JDub]

Rei, Walmart, Dicks, Big5…. I’ve seen the hoses for 20lbs propane tanks that connect to stove/heater just about everywhere that sells mr. heater/buddy heaters. Just make sure to always turn off your propane tank when not actively in use.

I use my Mr Buddy hose and filter for attaching all my lower pressure stuff. Works great.

Cheers.

 

[JDub]

So it's time to make use of that chicken from yesterday, I've sliced and diced, and chopped up everything. Just had to make the Pida bread. I decided to go with one big plate sized one (and that's what I'm gonna use it for!), actually very common in the Med Basin and N Africa. Used to be in Europe too. Big slices of bread served as the plates for the food. Trenchers. It's where the very old saying "he's a trencherman (big eater)"came from in the 1500's. I'll pile everything on top and then tear it up and SCOOP! Nothing like playing with your food!

Rolled out the whole wheat dough thin, preheated the oven and plancha to 500 F. Dropped it on, baked 6 min till puffy, and VOLARE (That's LEBANESE ya know)! Not really ready to eat yet, I'm gonna have a shower and then a beer first. Been working outside all day long. Installed my new water heater for an outdoor shower and kitchen. Lovely day but cooler. Aren't we supposed to have another couple Humdinger storms this week?



Cheers!

 

[JDub]

All Pau! This looks pretty good (especially w xtra GARLIC sauce!). It's interesting that this resembles Navajo Frybread Tacos in form if not in flavor profile. Nothing new under the sun I suppose. This is pretty easy to make while camping out too. I've made it for a group cooking over a campfire and grill before. Make sure you wipe off the extra marinade before you grill it. Get some store bought pita, brush with a little olive oil and grill it too. For the salad, just chop any combo of lettuce, tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, and fresh herbs - mint, parsely, and coriander are great in this. You can dress the salad with fresh lemon juice if you like.

If we are having some strong storms this week, please stay safely parked, buttoned up and warm. Don't forget that nice hot drink either!

Cheers!

 

[Frood]

What are you worried about.........the tanks and hose have auto-valves

the only failure mode is if you cut the HOSE...........

With how my luck goes the one time I don't turn off the tank the hose will suffer failure from micro abrasions I hadn't previously noticed.

 

[JDub]

Evening all. Tonight, think simple, hearty, and Eastern European. I boiled a batch of red taters today and got a taste for something my Dad used to love. Baked sausage, potatoes, and onions over a bed of sauerkraut. Dug around and I had everything. Had a pack of Hebrew National Jumbo Franks needing to be used too (and coincidentally his favorite brand ). I just layered the kraut, then wedged (parboiled) potatoes, along with onions. then sprinkled the mess with with mustard, celery, and caraway seeds and then marjoram (big in Eastern Euro cooking) Finished it off with half a can of beer for steaming liquid. Covered it with foil and baked for an hour and a half @ 350. Had it along with spicy mustard, horseradish, and half a mini loaf of good, dense, whole wheat I baked today. Nothing could be finer!

Here's hoping all of you are safe and sound and well fed on this Valentine's Day. Make sure and hug you S.O. if you have one. You'll never know how much you'll miss them until they're gone.

Cheers!

 

[jacqueg]

With how my luck goes the one time I don't turn off the tank the hose will suffer failure from micro abrasions I hadn't previously noticed.

I'm with you. I KNOW about the built-in fail-safes, but - I still manually turn off the connection. Classic magical thinking.

 

[JDub]

Evening all. Despite what the Groundhog may or may not have seen (or whether he/she actually died or not _ I'll leave THAT to N.L.) Spring has sprung in my area of the Deep South and that means one thing. Spring Cleanup. Cutting, hedging, raking, scrubbing, sweeping, weeping, and all that fun stuff. Which I started today. Joy. Anyway, when it came to dinner I had plenty of leftover options so after a careful and thoughtful consideration...

OK. I just reached into the storage fridge and started yanking the nearest things out.(not really sure what that one thing with the waving tentacles and bulging eyes was). Anyway, my meal choice for tonight eventually coalesced into: Taco Salad! A little chopping, a little heating, a quick zonk in the micro and it was done. Elapsed time: ~ 10 min. Good to go!

It really does look like a large chunk of the country will be getting bad weather over the next several days. So stock up, batten down the hatch, and make sure your equipment and energy sources are in good order. Stay safe, have a bite to eat, and enjoy the ride ( Also, please keep an eye out for that tentacle thingy - last seen leaving a trail of slime down Main Street)!

Cheers!

 

[Ravella and X]

So I’m usually quite happy with wal-mart’s grocery order and pick-up thing. But this time there were 3 irritating things: the eggs were supposed to be cage free and weren’t, I was supposed to have a box of kosher salt and didn’t, and one of my bananas and one of my apples were 1/2 bruise each. Grr. I called for a refund for the salt. I am hoping my order filler was new and just not familiar with how to choose good produce and will learn quick or get another job.

I’m having oatmeal for dinner tonight. Cooked the good parts of the bad apple in some water with raisins and cinnamon and fresh ground nutmeg, added old fashioned oats. Will top with a teeny pat of butter (cause all comfort foods require a little butter) and an artful drizzle of molasses.

 

[abnorm]

Everything's better with BUTTER !

 

[JDub]

So I’m usually quite happy with wal-mart’s grocery order and pick-up thing. But this time there were 3 irritating things: the eggs were supposed to be cage free and weren’t, I was supposed to have a box of kosher salt and didn’t, and one of my bananas and one of my apples were 1/2 bruise each. Grr. I called for a refund for the salt. I am hoping my order filler was new and just not familiar with how to choose good produce and will learn quick or get another job.

I’m having oatmeal for dinner tonight. Cooked the good parts of the bad apple in some water with raisins and cinnamon and fresh ground nutmeg, added old fashioned oats. Will top with a teeny pat of butter (cause all comfort foods require a little butter) and an artful drizzle of molasses.

It doesn't surprise me that the pickers mess up orders. The ones I see barreling around Wallyworld here often seem to be paying more attention to their personal phones than to the task at hand. I like to do my own picking because of things like your bruised fruit. I always have Kosher salt on hand. I use it for everything from curing corned beef to scrubbing my cast iron. LOVE the stuff.! A hot bowl of steaming porridge NEEDS BUTTA! Don't skimp girl! I keep molasses on hand but down here in the Canebrake we use sorghum cane syrup a lot more. Still a couple of high quality small batch producers in our region. Lovely stuff on hot biscuits and corncakes (w LOTS of BUTTA)...

By the way, it's WED!

https://www.timessupermarkets.com/ads

 

[JDub]

Evening all. Another day of battling brush. I've got some big Holly and Bracken hedges and they are a pain (literally with all the Holly thorns) to cut back after a winter's of growth. Anyway, Dinner tonight was kind of a Bi Polar affair. I was planning another leftover night using up the curried chicken from the other evening, but after looking, there didn't seem to be enough so I did some digging and came up with the idea of using potatoes from my Eastern Euro sausage bake to stretch the chicken. The spices on the taters seemed to be a good fit too.

So I sliced, diced, and mixed. Poured in a can of coconut milk to add some more flavor and amped up the spices - Cardamom, Coriander, Cinnamon, Ground Cloves, and Fenugeek (sort of an ad hoc Garam Masala). Simmered for 20 min, heated up leftover Pida and ya know what? Not bad at all! Actually, it really reminded me of that mild, creamy chicken "curry" (mine has a lot more heat) that was always found on those buffet tables with the Sterno heat at fancy hostess parties back in the 60's and early 70's along with the ubiquitous Swedish Meatballs and Rumaki (For you guys who were around then... - NOTICE I didn't say you REMEMBERED the era!!! ) I remember those days but I was always a geek and a dweeb anyway...

Here it is: Retro 60's Chicken "Curry"... (Tomorrow: "Bubble and Squeak")


We're supposed to have a really good chance at severe storms tomorrow and according to the weather service, across a lot of country. If you're affected, please stay off the roads, find a safe spot to hunker down, and breakout the Netflix and popcorn!

Stay safe all.

 

[JDub]

Evening all. Hope you're all safe and snug out there. Pretty wild winds today in my area. Not so much rain, just serious wind gusts ripping along at a good clip. Great day to stay inside and catch up on laundry, dusting, and a nap. Dinner tonight is dedicated to my favorite Cockney - Keith. Keith was an authentic East End Cockney. Born within the sound of the Bow Bells in East London which is the prerequisite for claiming such.

He was loud, irascible, highly opinionated, and at times highly irritating! However, he was always lovable. He ended up in this neck of the woods after meeting a local gal who was on an exchange program with Britain's NHS (health service). We met (where else?) in the local pub (when we had one - we don't even have a bar here anymore) and since we were the two odd birds out here, we got along very well.

It helped I had actually spent quite a bit of time in Britain during my career and could relate to British life and ways, we were both Arsenal Football Club fans, and I could (sometimes) actually decipher most of his guttural East Enderneese jargon! Keith was always a little evasive about what he had done for a living - He said he was in the auto repair industry and I got the feeling he did a lot of wheeling, dealing, and whatnot - mostly whatnot!

Regardless, we were good friends and had some good times together. One of the things we liked to do was have family get togethers on football (soccer) season weekends and cook that ultimate of gut bombs, the Full English (ENGLISH he insisted NOT British) Fryup Breakfast. Complete with imported back bacon, black pudding, and my home made Bangers (Sausages - so named because in WW2 Britain, due to meat shortages, sawdust was added to the sausages to bulk them up, so when they were fried, they often exploded).

Along with eggs, grilled tomatoes and mushrooms, fried bread, and this delicacy - "Bubble and Squeak" Leftover veggies (usually including potatoes, cabbage, onions, and meat) fried together and so named because of the sound it makes in the pan. It's a classic, cheap, British 2-days-before-payday-clean-out-the fridge-for-dinner meal (Hash here in the states) and Keith said his family ate it often he was growing up hard and poor in 1960's London.

There's not much you can do after something like that but settle down on the couch and turn on Sky Sports to watch Arsenal play in the Premiers! Keith sadly passed away several years ago from COPD - smoked like an industrial plant like so many Brits do... I really miss him and every time I make this, I think of the good times we had. So in honor of my friend, I fried up a big batch tonite, complete with a couple of over easy eggs, and some odds and ends of toast (I have to bake tomorrow. I even broke out the Marmite and HP Sauce!

So here's to you Keith! I know you're up there with a pint in your fist, a fag in your mouth, yelling something unintelligible (thankfully) at the refs in that big Arsenal game in the sky!

 

[JDub]

A good site about English Breakfasts and Food.

https://fryupsgoodornot.blogspot.com/
Cheers!

 

[JDub]

So I've been neglecting my thread for a couple days, but it was for a good cause. That windstorm in Thursday didn't do much to my place, but friends didn't do as well. They had a huge chunk of a very big and old pecan tree come down in their back yard and crunched their porch, took down their electrical connection, and luckily missed (but trapping) their truck.

Been there helping out, dragged my big 75K gennie over to get some power to their fridges, freezers, and furnace and did some cooking to bring over to feed the troops. We finished up today and I got busy doing some tidying up around my place and frankly I'm pooped! Tonight it's going to be leftover chicken curry on rice with a couple of beers! Anyone had anything good?

Cheers!

 

[JDub]

Evening all, it was a crystal blue and clear day here. Highs in the high 70's - low 80's if you're weren't in the breeze. The clouds are starting to move in though and we're expecting a lot of rain and T storms for the next 48 hours. I understand at least three different weather systems are going to affect us nationally this week, so batten down the hatches (again)!

Tried to get as much yardwork done as possible to take advantage of the nice weather. More hedging, pruning, sweeping, bagging, all the usual fun stuff that comes with a S&B. Finally got done after 1 so took my neglected pooch (his words), for a walkie down by the marina. There's a boat launch area and parking lot called "the Barge Mooring" left over from the old days when it was the primary commercial mooring and transfer point for riverboats and barges prior to the port being built.

It's a great place to take a walk along the river and I've always thought it would make a fantastic day parking area since so few people ever use it anymore - mostly fishermen. We've got a lot of really great parking spots in some very scenic locations around here, but they all lock up tight at sunset. Too bad. We would become a Nomad destination if there was overnight parking outside of the campgrounds.

Dinner tonight was odds and ends pizza. Sun is the day I clean out the fridge of all leftovers to keep it neat. So tinights haul was 3 inches pf pepperoni, a couple chunks of onions and peppers, some tomato sauce, a bit of frozen chimichurri - you get the idea. Whipped up a quick dough which I only rose once to save time.

Heated up the oven and plancha and Eureka (that's GREEK you know)! It came out pretty good. Little thicker crust than I normally make but had to use the last of this bag of 00 flour so I had more dough than really needed but not enough to save. I drizzled it with chimichurri before baking and that garlicky, herb oil was perfect with it and and baked right in.

There you have it. JDub's Wild and Exciting Day and Crazy, Out of Control Evening. Do not try this yourself at home. I'm a TRAINED Perfessional!

Stay dry, warm, and safe all. Spring is coming. I'll leave you tonight with a quote attributed to one of my favorite people - Anthony Bourdain - He left us far too soon and permanently bewildered as to "Why"? Life is short. Enjoy your allotted days!

"Eat at a local restaurant tonight. Get the cream sauce. Have a cold pint at 4 o’clock in a mostly empty bar. Go somewhere you’ve never been. Listen to someone you think may have nothing in common with you. Order the steak rare. Eat an oyster. Have a negroni. Have two. Be open to a world where you may not understand or agree with the person next to you, but have a drink with them anyways. Eat slowly. Tip your server. Check in on your friends. Check in on yourself. Enjoy the ride."