Full of Empty Calories

Last night, I decided on a roast chicken dinner. I usually go for the regular 5-6 lb ones that I pick up at Loblaws for around $ 8 or so, but yesterday I thought I'd upscale a bit. Quite a bit, actually. I went with the $ 17 Ontario air chilled $ 17 job that must have been around 10 lbs. Of course, it was delicious, as you can see below, but if you are like me and my linear way of looking at things, you want to know was it twice as delicious? If you are paying $ 25 for a steak, is it three times as good as the one you get for $ 8? It better be. Once, I was at Wal-mart and bought three chickens for $ 5, which makes it 10 times cheaper than this one ... 

I don't buy roasting chickens that often - maybe once every couple of weeks or so - so the $ 17 hit is not that serious and I would think of doing it again. Add in some potatoes, carrots and greens and you have a good meal for four for less than $ $ 25. So is it worth it? Well, yes. It is always worth buying better ingredients. But you can get by fine with the 3 for $ 5 guys.

It did seem to make tastier gravy though. I make standard flour + pan drippings + stock. Not having the time to make my own stock, what I do is take a regular can of chicken stock (Swansons which is always on sale at the Chinese places) and add some browned chicken bits, onions, carrots and celery and water to improve on it. It is not a perfect solution, but better than using it straight out of the can.

For dessert, I made something I wanted to do for a while: rice pudding. There are two ways: one to make your sweet milk, then add cooked rice to it, and the other is to cook the rice in the sweet milk. I went for the second method and it was well worth the effort. The pudding was thick and creamy, though a little too sweet for my liking. To that, you add one egg and a teaspoon of vanilla, cooking it for a few minutes more. I thought I had put too much vanilla, but on cooling and setting up it was just right. Over the objections of the girls, I stirred in some plumped raisins. 

I looked on the allrecipes site for the rice pudding recipe, mainly for the ratio of milk to rice to sugar. My strategy when I see a new dish is to follow the instructions religiously, then if I want to do it again, make some adjustments. The thing about the allrecipes' recipes is you should always read the comments as these are from people who actually tried the dish in question, and they usually have very helpful suggestions.

* * *

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and Despair!

Nothing today except this:

OZYMANDIAS

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.

And on the pedestal these words appear:

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away

* * *

Moron Chicken

Watched the Everton game this morning (2-0 - good result boys!), all the while making lunch. To go with the chicken and the rice, I made a good amount of ginger/green onions sauce.

First, chop a bunch of green onions. Myself, I like to get them fairly small, but not so small as one high-end Chinese restaurant I went to once: their green onions were like microdots. I used to hand chop the ginger into tiny cubes, but now I prefer my porcelain ginger grater. You want to end up with roughly the proportions you see below. This is going to make a lot of sauce, about 2 1/2 cups I think.

Next, it all goes into a pan with hot oil, hot enough to wilt it but not hot enough to brown it, along with - for this amount - about 1 tbsp of salt. You let it steep for a few minutes ...

Then set aside. It will now look like this.

 

For the chicken, I made a basic poaching liquid of water, chicken stock powder, rice wine, soy sauce, sesame oil and ginger slices. I let the chicken marinade for 30 minutes or so in rice wine and ginger, then poached the chicken gently for around 20 minutes. Because I have an electric hob that stays hot when you turn it off, all I do is bring it all to the boil, cover and turn it off. The vegetables, I blanched in the same liquid then quickly pan fried.

I still had a lot of ginger left over, so I set about making pickled ginger or gari, a typical accompaniment for sushi, but one that I like to eat just on its own. I used my Japanese mandolin that I got in Tokyo to slice the ginger, though I do think I could have got it thinner by hand. Next, I rubbed salt into it until the salt all dissolved. This you set aside for at least a couple of hours.

You make a simple pickling sauce with Japanese rice wine vinegar and sugar (approximate ratio 3:2), boiling it for a few minutes. Next step is to cover over the ginger slices that you have taken out of the fridge and drained, then let the whole thing cool and keep in the fridge. The ginger I used is from Foody Mart and was in a big bag for a few bucks. Consequently it is much older than you would normally use - if you do try this, get a nice stem of young fresh ginger root. The ginger is in the fridge now - pics tomorrow!

I still had some ginger left over, so I made this out of the rest of it: candied ginger slices.

While I was in the "making stuff" mood, I used up the rest of the Thai bird chilis I bought the other day and made some more chili sauce. Serena tried a dot and drank about a gallon of juice afterwards. I tasted about half a dot. I think I have seriously damaged my throat. I accidentally touched the side of my head with a finger that came into contact with the sauce, and now I have what seems to be a blister.

I ended up making a small jar, but it seems inconceivable that I could finish it in my lifetime.

* * *

Unknown?

Today was movie day after school. We went to FMP and grabbed a bite then went to watch this:

The movie is not bad, but I wouldn't want to watch it again. I'd give it a 3 out of 5. If you have seen and liked Taken, then you will enjoy this.

We saw the previews for Green Lantern which does look kind of cool. The trailer does make me want to go and see it, unlike the trailer for some lame romcom I can't even remember the name of, but I will wait a bit once it comes out to see how the reviews are. Same goes for X-Men First Class.

* * *

J-Town.

Two days' food here. Yesterday, Wednesday, we went with some friends to the South Street Burger place. It has something to do with New York Fries, as all the fries are NYF. I never cared to find out the exact relationship between the two. It seems odd though. What kind of a burger place needs help from a french fry company? Did they think that the NYF logo gives them a certain cachet?

The burgers themselves were OK, but the service was pitiful. The two people cooking and assembling could not get the timing right, so that three of the burgers and most of the fries were pretty cool by the time they reached us. We only had seven people, and there was no one else in the place, so it would not have been too hard to get everything done at the same time. 

One of our party had the grilled chicken burger. Now, somewhere in my pages is a description of a chicken burger I made. It had ground chicken, a variety of spices, tofu, onion, parsley and ... it was delicious. This one was just a piece of chicken that looked like it had been run over. It is listed under burgers as 'grilled chicken' so I think it is reasonable to assume it will be a burger. Perhaps it is just me.

It may have been an aberration, and I might have to give it another try when there are more people there. But just because you have no customers doesn't mean you put less effort into the food preparation does it?

* * *

I was pleased with the lunch I made for school today. I woke up at 7 am and made for them steamed chicken with ginger and green onion sauce (?), with broccoli rice. For the chicken, I used four thighs I had bought the previous day at Foody Mart. I poached them in a chicken broth with xiaoxing rice wine, a little sesame oil and black pepper. Then I pan fried them for a few minutes each side and sliced the meat off the bone. All done by 7:30.

After school, we went to one of my favourite places: J-Town. You can easily get carried away and spend hundreds of dollars there on pastries, sushi, all kinds of gourmet food items and other Japanese delicacies. At least, I could.

Unusually disciplined, we escaped with less than $ 100 worth of damage, but it was worth it. A spicy tuna roll, a spicy salmon roll, two california rolls, a sashimi platter, a marinated seaweed salad, one onigiri, a small tub of tobiko, half a loaf of their delicious bread, some tofu, and a bag of Tamanashiki short grain rice (from California) which I am very interested in trying. It says that :

"Tamanishiki uses two kinds of super premium quality short grain rice; Koshihikari and Yume Gokochi. They are carefully grown and harvested in the Montna Farms, located in the fertile agricultural land of the Sacramento Valley, California. Hence, it has a unique combination of great flavor and wonderful texture that no other rice can imitate. Tamanishiki is carefully polished so washing is not necessary."

I was tempted to buy the Japanese rice but it was being sold for $ 30+ for a teeny bag.

For dinner we ate the sushi. I made a cucumber and tobiko salad. We had the tofu chilled with a dressing of soy, lemon, ginger and green onion. And a bowl of miso soup with the rest of the tofu and green onion to rinse it all down with.

No pics, as we were all hungry and ate it as it came to the table.

* * *

Spicy Minced Beef Stew

Yesterday was Family Day, a new-ish holiday in Ontario. Many places were closed, so I didn't get to go out and buy any food. We did go to Eggsmart though, and later went round to Sunny's house for a family dinner.

Today, I managed to scrape round the kitchen and found a frozen sirloin burger, some carrots, onions and pasta which I used to make this for the girls' lunch:

After school, we went to the always-popular Foody Mart to stock up on supplies. The girls bought a huge bag of instant noodles, and as for me ...  well, watercress was on sale, so I bought some lean pork, some pork bones, a little chicken, ginger and carrots to make a watercress pork bone soup. When I used to ask Chinese friends how to make this soup or that soup, they'd always say "Oh, it's easy. Just put everything in the pot and boil it for a few hours." I'd always get frustrated because I thought there was more they weren't telling me, but it turns out most soups are that easy. The only thing you really ned to know is to blanch the bones/meat in boiling water for a couple of minutes to get rid of most of the fat and scum, and then you really do put it all in a pot and boil it for a few hours.

For dinner we made our standard minced beef, potatoes and carrots in a spicy broth. We have now completely given up using the rice cooker, which I could never get to work satisfactorily anyway, instead making it on the stove. Stovetop rice is almost completely foolproof, assuming you can measure in increments of 1.5, and you can turn the stove on and off.

* * *

Norm MacDonald. Genius or Genius?

Today, I made a huge bowl of fruit salad, using items I had lying around that would go bad if I didn't eat them. That was most of what we ate during the day, as well as polishing off the snacks from the previous night.

I watched the two hour SNL: Backstage programme on TV, mostly to see how much Norm MacDonald would make it on. Lorne Michaels did admit he caved like a badly made souffle under pressure of having Norm removed, and Dan Ohlmeyer (who it is commonly believed had Norm canned because Norm was constantly ripping his good buddy O.J. Yes, that O.J.) lied through his teeth as expected.

They did air this clip though. Classic Norm. 

It was also recently announced that his first stand-up comedy special Just Me Doing Standup would be aired March 12 this year.

* * *

Sardines

[Update with better clips]

Great victory today guys. I never lost faith in you.





Indoor picnic tonight. I got some (from the top and continuing clockwise), sardines with vinegar and mayo, tuna with celery and mayo, olives, egg salad, black beans with onion, parsley, olive oil and lemon, cucumber, tomatoes, feta cheese, turkey and salami from Bedford Cheese in Brooklyn, and Greek Pita bread. On the side (not shown) some olive oil and balsamic.

This is a relatively simple meal that takes a surprising length of time to make, but it is a format that lends itself to an equally lengthy time of nibbling, so it evens out in the end.

* * *

FOOD COSTS:

Tomatoes (one): $ 0.50

Black beans: $ 0.79

Parsley: $ 1.29

Cucumber: $ 1.29

Tuna: $ 2.29

Sardines: $ 2.49

Feta: $ 6.49

Turkey: $ 3.41

Total: $ 18.55

Pesto

A semi-experimental day in the kitchen, which as most of you probably know, means clearing out stuff from the fridge. First to go was half a bag of baby spinach. I decided on a spinach pesto. Pesto is just anther word for paste, and you can make pesto out of pretty much anything green, some nuts, parmesan and olive oil. I had some walnuts in the cupboard so I put all the spinach, the walnuts, parmesan and olive oil in the food processor and whizzed it round till it looked like this:

The plan was to cook some pasta, and then add the pesto to some cream I had left over to make a simple cream sauce, which I did and it then looked like this:

On top of that, we have lamb meatballs with the minced lamb I bought the other day but didn't have a chance to use till now. I combined the lamb with very finely minced onions and chopped parsley, salt and pepper, and a dash of cumin, to make the meatballs. I would have normally have used breadcrumbs and an egg, but didn't have any breadcrumbs. They turned out fine regardless. A squeeze of lemon - and they are just right!

On the side we have a simple cucumber and tomato salad.

Time to fill up the fridge again!

FOOD COSTS:

Minced lamb (1 lb) : $ 8.87
Tomatoes : $ 1.77
Onions : $ 0.50
Lettuce : $ 0.99

Total: $ 12.13

Spider-man and King Crimson

Lasgana day today. Something I planned ahead from my trip to the Garden Basket yesterday. Every time I make it is a little different and today was no exception. I make meat sauce using the rest of the marinara sauce from the pizza, and the rest of the ground beef. I gave it all a more Mediterranean flavour by including cinnamon, nutmeg and a dash of cumin. For the cheese part of the bechamel, I used the rest of the ricotta, then poured about a cup into the meat sauce. The ricotta gives the whole thing a much lighter feel than the more traditional lasagna. I also bought fresh lasagna sheets, whereas I usually buy the dried, so I was keen to see how different it is. Apart from that, it was just a simple layering: bechamel, meat sauce, pasta and so on.

Here it is, perched expectantly on the runway.

And here it is in roughly the same position, 45 minutes later.

* * *

FOOD COSTS

Ricotta: $ 4.79 ($ 3.59)

Mozzarella: $ 5.49 ($ 0.49)

Beef: $ 6.41 ($ 4.21)

The costs were shared from last night's pizza, which the girls had for lunch today. The lasagna will be their lunch tomorrow, so I basically got four meals for less than $ 25. The two lunches are complemented with a small salad using ingredients I bought a while ago.

* * *

Apart from being all busy with Spider-man, the lovely and talented TV Carpio also graciously made time for a small part in the movie Limitless, starring Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro. It comes out on March 18, and it looks like a movie I want to see, and not just because TV is in it! You can watch it here. I would embed it but it sticks out, covering the labels to the right,  and won't automatically resize to fit the space ... anyone know why?

I can't let it go without mentioning King Crimson's 21st Century Schizoid Man of which you can hear one line near the end of the trailer. The movie uses (I think) Kanye West's Power, which samples the line I heard. And in an interesting connection, Kanye West came backstage the other day and had pictures taken with TV! Also at the show, though he didn't take photos with anyone, was David Bowie. Bowie, you may remember did  Heroes. But who played on the original track? King Crimson's Robert Fripp! Spooky! If only I could work Kevin Bacon into this ...

* * *

Homemade Pizza

Today I got to go to one of my favourite supermarkets, the Garden Basket on Markham and 16th. I like it mainly for the produce section which is always beautifully laid out and varied. In summer, it is just outrageously good but off-season they do pretty well too.

I had it in mind to make pizza for tonight. No way was I going to make my own dough. I did that once and that is enough for me. Besides, the store-bought dough (Nino D'Aversa) looked really tempting. I planned on two pizzas a basic tomato and mozzarella, and a minced beef and onion.

Here is the tomato and mozzarella, before and after baking:

And here is the minced beef and onion, again before and after:

Both were tasty. For the tomato I used as a base my own homemade tomato sauce that I had to cook down to get the moisture out of.  For the other one, I made a basic white sauce with ricotta. I added come cubed cooked potatoes to the minced beef which I think was a mistake. It would have been better without them, but I had some left over so this seemed a good way to use them up. 

Having watched pizza makers at work, I can attest to the fact that it is a lot harder than it looks. I rolled and tugged my dough as thin as I could and not have it break, and it was still twice as thick as I like it.

Two medium pizzas from my local Pizzaville cost $ 25. As you can see below, it cost me a total of $ 23.44 in ingredients, of which an estimated $ 11.88 went on the pizzas. The amount I used in the pizzas in brackets. So it is cost effective and, if you are more organized than I am, probably takes about the same time as ordering out. But, more than that, you can control what goes in. For sure, mine weren't as "tasty" but I like to think that is because they weren't loaded with fat and sugar. Maybe I am just biased.

FOOD COSTS

Basil: $ 1.99 ($ 0.20)

Tomatoes: $ 2.37 ( $ 0.60)

Pizza Dough: $ 2.39 ($ 2.39)

Ricotta: $ 4.79 ($ 1.20)

Mozzarella: $ 5.49 ($ 5.49)

Beef: $ 6.41 ($ 2.00)

* * *

Korean Sushi

Ate the rest of the quiche for lunch/breakfast. Made a mental note to go buy some more tomatoes to make another one, but ended up forgetting.

After school, we went across the road to get a bite. We dropped in at the Serissa Cafe. The place was pretty empty - only four tables of people. The waitress bustled by and dropped menus on our table so quickly that I later couldn't remember how they got there. After almost ten minutes, during which the waitress never showed up at all, I said "Look, I am setting my egg timer on my phone. If it goes off before anyone comes over, we're leaving."

As we left, we stopped to say goodbye to someone we knew. She said she had the same problem, and had to go up to the counter to get served. No one noticed we were leaving.

Nearby is a Korean-Japanese restaurant called Gal's Sushi. They had a waitress, and she actually brought us stuff, so we decided to stay. The girls each ordered a Tempura Udon and Spicy Tuna and Spicy Salmon roll. I went with a Korean dish, as I thought it was more a Korean than Japanese place, so I ordered the Sul Nong Tang, sliced beef in beef bone broth with rice. The Tempura Udon was good, but quite expensive. The sushi was not bad too, but for the price I would rather go to J-Town.

All in all, the meal was good, especially after the basket case that was Serissa. The place is clean and bright, and the staff friendly and helpful (again, it couldn't be worse than Serissa). I am interested in going back for the lunch specials where they have Soon Tofu, tofu with seafood in a spicy sauce. The place was a little on the pricy side in my opinion, and I feel the lunch specials will provide the same quality at a better value.

And finally, because I got so many request from my one fan legions of fans, the price list!

FOOD COSTS:

Sul Nong Tang:   $ 8.99

Tempura Udon x2: $ 25.98 

Spicy Tuna: $ 4.50

Spicy Salmon: $ 4.50

Quiche and Custard.

Alexias had planned a Valentine's day dinner with her friend, so me and Serena were left to our own devices. I defrosted a couple of steaks - ribeye for me and filet mignon for her, and we had them with a small side salad and boiled baby potatoes.

We also made a quiche for the girls' lunch tomorrow, but it was so tempting that somehow 1/4 of it got eaten almost right out of the oven. We went with a spinach, feta and tomato quiche. The trick is to get everything as dry as possible. So I diced the tomatoes and squeezed the liquid from them. I used fresh spinach so I chopped it up small and wilted it in a hot pan with oil, then drained and squeezed that too. I then grated feta into the spinach combined with the tomatoes and some freshly ground black pepper.

Sprinkled feta on the bottom of the pre-made quiche shell (does anyone make their own pastry any more, except chefs on the Food Network?), then spread the filling on top, and then another light layer of feta.

On to that - the liquid. Three eggs, 1 1/2 cups of milk/cream (your own proportions), a little nutmeg and black pepper. Then in a hot oven, 425 F for ten minutes and 350 F for about 30 minutes.

Sorry, no pics of the quiche.

Dessert was cherry pie (store bought) and custard. One day I will get around to making my own custard from scratch, instead of using the Bird's Custard Powder. One day.

Avgolemono

A disappointing start to the day. There were two big lottery jackpots over the weekend and I didn't win either of them. I'm not greedy - I would have been happy with just one. The good news is that no one else did either. If the next picture you see of me is cliff-diving in Acapulco, you'll know what has happened.

Here is a tip: you should always be deeply suspicious of people who don't like soup.

With that in mind, I made avgolemono tonight. Avgolemono is Greek for eggs and lemons and you can use it as a delicious sauce, or in this case, soup.

I have adapted the recipe over the years to suit my tastes so I suspect it is in no way authentic.

First, I got a whole chicken and cut out the back, separated the breast and thighs and skinned them, while at the same time removing as much fat as I could. I browned all the bits in a large saucepan for about five minutes, then poured off all the fat. Don't get it too brown as it will end up the wrong tasting broth. You want something fairly light. I got out almost a whole cup of fat that doesn't belong in this kind of soup. Keep the fat though.

There is still some left in the bottom though, and to that I added two chopped carrots, two chopped celery stalks and two large shallots as I had forgotten to buy onions. Onions is something I either have a month's supply of, or none at all.

Once that is all nicely softened, I added hot water, scraping up the brown bits, and then the uncooked chicken. On top of that, add enough water to cover, then a couple of bay leaves, two or three whole cloves and then simmer for about 30 minutes.

At that point, takeout the chicken and set aside. Now is a good time to turn on the rice cooker. You can cook it in the broth, but I prefer it separate. I like to add about a tablespoon of the chicken fat to the rice just for a bit of extra flavour.

About fifteen minutes later your broth is done, so strain it into another pot to get all the bits out.

Now ... in a large metal bowl, add three egg yolks to the juice of one whole lemon. Then dribble the hot stock in whisking all the time. You will do this for at least four or five cups or until the egg/lemon is almost as hot as the soup. Then you can slowly stir this mixture back into the soup and you are almost done. You'll want to taste it now and add salt at this point if necessary. Don't boil it again as it will all separate and look just weird.

Keep it on a low heat while you shred the chicken and put into a serving bowl.

To eat, ladle the soup into a bowl, add rice and chicken. I always have some extra lemon on the side, black pepper and chopped parsley.

If all goes well, it should look something like this.

* * *

Julie vs Julia vs Grapefruit

Hmmmm .... Let's see. Juiced a grapefruit this morning, except it wasn't a grapefruit, it was a blood orange. The girls then went off to hot yoga with Flora while I worked a bit, took a shower and got ready. We all went to Eggsmart for lunch with Flora and Keefe. I was going to try something different from my usual - bacon and eggs - but couldn't see anything I really liked or that didn't look too heavy so I went with the usual. Oh, and a glass of fresh OJ. The girls had chicken noodle soup and waffles.

I decided to eat fruit for the rest of the day so bought an array: cantaloupe, oranges, grapefruit, strawberries and apples. Alexias made fettucine alfredo for her and Serena while I just ate fruit. 

Almost made it through the whole of the rest of the day but cracked in the end and had a piece of toast and marmalade. Perhaps tomorrow.

At night, I watched Julie and Julia, the movie about the needy little harridan who cooks her way through Julia Child's Mastering The Art Of French Cooking. As you might have guessed, I didn't like it. I didn't really care much about Julie and there wasn't enough about Julia in it. I hated the way Meryl Streep chopped onions, even after she had supposedly gone through a mountain of them to get good at it. And the movie didn't really end, just kind of ran out of steam. I did check out her (Julie's) original blog after I watched the movie. Meh. I also see why Julia Child didn't want to meet her or even associate with her in any way. I mean, if I was Julia Child and I saw my name written as  Julia F___ing Child, I'd stay far away too. Julia Child had this to say about Julie:

"I worked very hard on that book. I tested and retested those recipes for eight years so that everybody could cook them. And many, many people have. I don’t understand how she could have problems with them. She just must not be much of a cook."

From what I have seen of her blog, she is not much of a writer either.

* * *

Briny Wings

Breakfast for the girls was HK-style: eggs and rice and soy sauce. While they were eating that I made them chicken wings with rice and spinach for lunch. Chicken wings were part of my brined wings from last night, and I went with a deep fry today which made them look a lot more attractive but hopefully no less tasty.

This was the first batch - they ended up with five apiece. After they set off for school, I sat down with a cup of decaf that I had bought by accident when we were staying in Weehawken, NJ last month. It's called Cafe Buen Dia by Juan Valdez. I suppose the green lid should have tipped me off to the fact it is decaf ... In spite of that, it is a mighty tasty brew, if you don't mind instant (and I don't)

* * *

After school we went to Foodland, not to be confused with Foodymart. Foodland is a sort of upscale-but-not-really place. They do have half of an isle that is devoted to organic and gluten-free products, and they also have a pretty nice selection of fresh pasta. Tucked away in the corner almost out of sight was a couple of tureens that contained a creamy-looking broccoli soup, and a bean and beef chili that smelled so tempting we had to get some. We ate the chili with thick pita bread and the rest of the chicken wings and then everyone kind of dozed off. I did stay up long enough to have my green tea with honey and lemon, and half a tub of my favourite yoghurt. I am eating a tub every two-three days. Is it possible to overdose on yoghurt?

* * *

Catherine de'Medici

After one day of leftovers, it was back to new stuff again today. Lunch for the girls was 'Kraft dinner Florentine'. Except I made the pasta and cheese sauce myself using a weird pasta I found that looks an awful lot like beads on children's do-it-yourself bracelet. Hey, maybe it was a 'craft' dinner! Then I tossed in some chopped up spinach - hence the Florentine. Incidentally, for that terminology we have Catherine de'Medici, Queen of France to thank. She liked spinach so much she had it served with every meal, so dishes made with spinach are called as "Florentine," reflecting Catherine's birthplace of Florence. I suppose we should be grateful she was born in Florence, and not in the Italian town of Arsoli. 

I made oatmeal for breakfast, finishing what the girls could not. Lunch for me was a fried egg on a piece of toast with a bed of spinach.

Later on I got to do something I have been wanting to for a long time. No, not skydiving. Brining. Which is just immersing something in salt water for a while. I did it with chicken wings, then shallow fried them ...

... till they looked like this

The brining did help. The wings were very juicy inside, and nice and crispy on the outside. Definitely something to do again.

* * *

I had been giving the dogs their own specially cooked (by me) meat and veg mixed with kibble. But I recently stopped that, instead just giving them dry kibble. No reason really. Making extra food for them wasn't a huge chore and I did think it was healthier for them. They were a bit put out for a day or so, but, being dogs, soon appreciated the value of regular food more than they missed the tasty meaty bits. A side effect is they are drinking a lot of water now - about 3-4 bowls a day.

* * *

Beef Stew

We went to Costco today and among other things, I saw a family pack of cubed stewing steak that I decided to buy and make a stew. I only used half the meat; the rest I froze for a later date and purpose. Perhaps chopped smaller and made into a pie?

I went with a very simple recipe. I dusted the steak with flour, salt and pepper and browned the pieces in a large pot. 

 Then I added some sliced shallots and onions, cooked till they were softened and then poured in about two glasses of red wine. I say about because it was what was leftover from an open bottle. I used the wine to scrape the brown bits from the bottom of the pan, added the meat back, then a jar of my own homemade tomato sauce ...

and some chunkily sliced carrots.

Some bay leaves, oregano, more black pepper and after a quick taste, I put the lid back the pot and then transferred the whole thing to a hot oven for about two hours, at which point it looked like this:

* * *