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Homemade pierogies, fried onion, over a simple salad.

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Testing a new image plugin as well.

Instead of upgrading my site with actual content, I decided to move to the newest version of the blog software. What this means to you, as the sole reader of this blog: nothing.

I haven’t been sleeping well recently, and have pretty much started staying up reading, doing shit on the computer, whatever I can until I pass out. This started about a week ago.

I’m moving next month, but I don’t know if I can last that long. What the hell was that in my house? Who was the woman behind the door and what did she want?

I haven’t updated in a while.  I have a few things I’ll take care of soon.But for now, here’s some Shrimp Pad Thai.

I used a combination of recipes to come up with something that might be authentic. The sauce included tamarind, fish sauce, thai basil, sriracha, red pepper, rice vinegar and palm sugar.

Luckily Whole Foods carries weird stuff like palm sugar, but it really helps make it taste like some weird Thai restaurant where nobody speaks English. Other than the noodles (“rice sticks” ??) everything was made from scratch. Not that that means much. I mean, I didn’t catch the shrimp or anything. And Sriracha could be made from rabbits for all I really know.

I made thanksgiving dinner for Ryan and myself, since both of us stayed in Austin for the holiday while everyone we know went somewhere else.We had:

• Cold Corn Soup with Mint and Chili Oil – Inspired by the lesbian on Top Chef. I don’t know how she made hers, but I blanched some whole corn, sauteed it briefly in butter and smoked paprika, blended, seasoned and strained it. I baked the leftover mash in a thin layer in an attempt to make something out of it, but I didn’t really ever get back to that.
• Cayenne Garlic Breadsticks – Pretty standard breadsticks, with cayenne pepper and powdered milk added. Glazed with egg white and more cayenne, and then brushed with melted butter, salt and garlic.
• Mashed Potatoes – Red, skin-on potatoes boiled, then sauteed with garlic and olive oil, mashed with butter and cream.
• Pork and Beans – Well, not really. Green beans sauteed in rendered bacon fat, with halved grape tomatoes and crispy bacon.
• Balsamic Roasted Game Hen with Gravy – Whole roasted Cornish game hens, brined with sage, thyme, bay leaves, pepper, honey and lemon. Glazed with a balsamic vinegar sauce. Gravy made with pan drippings, shallots, chicken stock and butter.

High sodium, fat and carbs is good, right?

Soup: Click for image
Everything else: Click for image

I retooled my sous vide steak recipe tonight. It was seasoned with kosher salt, smoked pepper and smoked paprika. I still used butter, but left out the shallots and garlic, which were a little too prominent last time. The result was better.

I can imagine that using garlic powder would be better than fresh minced garlic in this case. The heat levels involved seem to make the garlic a little too bitter and pungent. By the same reasoning, the shallots had to go as well. They’re a relative of garlic afterall. The parsley was simply pointless.

Bottom line – in the case of flavor-enhancing sous vide technique, less is more. The smoked pepper and paprika both added a nice (surprise) smokey hint, but weren’t overbearing.

Additional site note: My avatar is not supposed to be Dakota Fanning. That is the placeholder for new users. Something broke and I haven’t been able to fix it. I swear.

Tonight I made sous vide top sirloin with butter, garlic and shallots. I’m going to post the technical details so I remember them.

Cooking Details:
Cut: Top Sirloin Steak (petite)
Weight: 0.45 pounds
Initial water temp: 141°
Temperature drop after submersion: -2°
Hold temp: 139.2° (±0.6°)
Cooking time: 45 minutes

Internal Temp at Removal: 138.5°

I removed the butcher’s twine netting holding the cut in a round, and flattened it with manual force. The steak was seasoned liberally with kosher salt and black pepper, plus a dusting of cayenne pepper. It was packed with 1/2 of a shallot, thinly sliced, 2 cloves of garlic, and about 2 teaspoons of butter, one tsp per side. There was also some parsley because I love how it retains its color.

After packaging:

In bath (after 2 hours in the fridge and a few on the counter to come back to room temp):

@ 20 minutes:

Out of bag:

Seared quickly and plated:

Inside:

It was extremely tender and tasty, and pretty much even in texture from tip to tip and edge to edge – other than the briefly seared edges. Other than those weird seams, it wasn’t too bad looking either, if I do say so myself.

I’ve been interesting in cooking sous vide (under vacuum) for a while, and finally went out and got some cheap equipment to experiment with. If it all works out, I may eventually look for deals on the real stuff.

My first experiment was garlic and olive oil infused shrimp. I mixed up a marinade with olive oil, salt, pepper, smoked paprika, cayenne, garlic and parsley. Then I vacuum packed shrimp in half-pound batches and let them marinade under vacuum for a few hours.

The vacuum caused the marinade to penetrate the shrimp more deeply and the flavors to infuse.

I then began the more difficult step of keeping a water bath as close to my desired temperature as possible (140 degrees Fahrenheit, in this case). By using a kettle of near-boiling water, ice cubes, and moving the pot off and on the heat as needed, I was eventually able to keep it at between 138 and 140 for the required 20 minutes.

After they were sufficiently cooked, I dumped them on a plate. One packet was opened to taste them. The other was cooled in several stages and then frozen. It’s fully cooked, and immune to freezer-burn due to the lack of air. When I want to eat the second packet, all I have to do is thaw it and reheat them however I want. They are a meal in a bag at this point.

Here’s the shrimp fresh out of the bag:

They were very flavorful, and had an amazing texture. They weren’t rubbery in the slightest, cooked all the way through, and packed with all the flavors I used, with absolutely no loss of moisture or flavor from cooking. It was a successful experiment.

Tonight I’m trying the technique with a top sirloin steak, butter, shallots, salt, pepper and cayenne. I’m guessing it will take about 45 minutes at 130 degrees, but I don’t know for sure yet.

Wow, I haven’t updated in a while (who am I talking to?).

Tonight Ryan and I went to a nearby pool hall because we’ve been playing dollar-per-game pool recently and figured it would be cheaper. It turned out that Monday is Free Pool Night, so it was, in fact, cheaper.

We invented a game, and I am basically writing this post so we remember the rules. It’s based on Quidditch, the made up game that all the cool kids play in Harry Potter. I realize how retarded that sounds, really, I do.

Quidditch Pool

The balls are racked with stripes along the front, and in the back two corners, and the 8 ball goes in the center.

The game ends when the 8 ball is pocketed.

Solids are worth 10 points. When a solid is pocketed in a turn, the player continues their turn.

Stripes are worth 15 points.  A striped ball does not continue the turn (although if a solid is also sunk, then play continues).

Any ball that is pocketed during the break is worth 5 points, regardless of color.

The 8 ball is worth 50 points, but is not active until one player has reached 45 points.

A scratch of any kind results in a loss of 5 points. The deduction is calculated after the points gained on the turn. If a player reaches or surpasses 45 points prior to the deduction, the 8 ball is still active.

The player with the most points when the 8 ball is pocketed wins, including the 50 points to the player who sunk that ball. The 8 ball is cannot be struck first until it is active. If the cue ball strikes the inactive 8 ball first, it is a scratch and the turn ends.

In the event of a tie, play continues until a score is made, but the act of sinking the 8 ball ends that player’s turn.

The game plays surprisingly well, providing plenty of chances for strategy. While all but one ball is technically legal to play, the choice to sink a 10 point solid and continue, or score 15 points and end the turn is always important. No player is ever “safe” until they are more than 50 points ahead, so it is generally wise to continue play only if the next shot will likely result in a score. Receiving 15 points but ending the turn can be beneficial. Once the 8 ball is active, the choice of scoring points or ‘hiding’ the cue ball is also an option, as preventing the other player from sinking the 8 ball is important when a shot on it can’t be safely made.

At least one player has to sink a minimum of  3 balls before the game can end, and if they only pocket stripes to reach the required 45 points, then they have taken 3 turns and can still lose in one shot (since the 8 ball is worth 5 points more). If one player pockets at least one ball on the break, and pockets at least one solid until the 8 ball is active, it is possible to win the game in a single turn, much like standard 8 ball or 9 ball.

I decided I wanted to learn to make a cake. I picked up my King Arthur Baker’s Companion this morning and decided to start with a Boston Cream Pie, which is a cake. I figured I’d learn how to make custard, which is good, and if it all went to hell I’d probably still have something edible left over.

It kicked ass. It was a huge amount of work, and required pretty exact measurements, but the results were worth it. And from what I understand, it even looked correct.

Check it.

Luckily, Ryan and I played a few rounds of disc golf in the 100 degree sun so it was easy enough to justify eating a huge slice of cream, sugar and butter. High five.