Steve

Well, I paid for yesterday's indolance by putting on the house-mouse big-time today. A big grocery run, the monthly bills paid (including sacrifice to the Gods of Credit), two loads of laundry done, some long-delayed recycling put out, and now a pot of beef stew bubbling away on the stove, to which I'm going to have to add the diced vegetables in about fifteen minutes.

It's long-past due to make that stew, too, as given my plague-month my freezer reserves have dropped to basically nil. In truth, I should've made the stew yesterday and be making some other large meal today to portion out and freeze... but yesterday it was all I could do to order in some BBQ chicken. Oh well, I'll just have to make up that pork tenderloin in BBQ sauce tomorrow or Wednesday.

-- Steve'll now return to catching up on the LJ (and his Guiness) until the timer beeps again.

I'm staying in today, trying to out-last this silly resurgence (if that's what it is) of last week's cold. Head's packed, so I'm pouring in a lot of hot drinks to loosen things up... and I decided it was time to turn the heat on for the season, as it'd dipped below 10°C in the apartment even with the sunlight. Damn, I wish I felt alright enough to go out... if for no other reason, that Brütal Legend is out now and I'd like to pick up a copy if I have to stay in. Then again, head-banging is probably contra-indicated for sinus symptoms so maybe it's for the best.

Tomorrow, though. And I'll do a grocery run and get the fixings for a big spaghetti dinner that I can use to fume out my head (and freeze for lunches when I return to the office on Saturday.) Maybe I'll pick up some stuff to do sweet-and-sour pork for Friday night too; it's been ages since I had Chinese, and I have an unopened bottle of soy sauce in the cupboard that's been sitting there for weeks. (I wonder if I could do it with lemon juice and plum sauce? I have those both handy.)

For now, though, it's time to put some soup on and maybe a grilled cheese sandwich. Then after lunch I'll take another hot shower to loosen up the attic contents, gasp and splutter for a while, and then I'll settle down to finishing my Legendary medal in ODST.

-- Steve'll just have to make the best he can with what he's got... as usual.

As in, impeccably bad.

Finally went out to do the groceries, only to find that my local store was out of stock of a bunch of stuff on my list... should've gone yesterday, I guess. It took me so long to cast about hopelessly searching for stuff, and then to get through the cash, that it was raining again. Bog home, look at the time, and realise that the only roast that was out and worth buying would take until 8:30 or maybe 9pm to cook... and since they were out of ground beef, couldn't make spaghetti. Go figure.

So I'm thawing out some chicken breasts and I'll whip up a quick chicken teryaki. Then tomorrow I'll have to go grocery shopping again to find ground beef and some more freezer keepers since some of my old stock seem to be getting brittle.

-- Steve'll note that the rain has already stopped. He's starting to understand Marvin's (HHGttG) point of view.

I've been on something of a cooking blitz lately... to the point that my freezer's almost at capacity right now with my left-overs.

• 3 servings of "Bacon Curry" (instant curry mix with bean sprouts and then bacon instead of chicken, as my chicken had skunked and I didn't have anything else to put in)
  
• Rigatoni in a blush sauce
  
• large serving of spaghetti
  
• prime rib with asparagus, carrots, and roast potatoes (done before I left for Montreal... that's on the menu for tomorrow's lunch to get it finished)
  
• 2 servings of rump roast in gravy with roast potatoes, broccoli, and carrots
  
• 3 servings of BBQ roast pork with half a baked potato, french beans, and kernel corn
  
• pork tenderloin with whipped potatoes and... I can't remember the veg, probably french beans

Add to that the beef stew I've got almost done now (there'll be 3-4 portions left from that) and the shrimp teriyaki I'm going to make tomorrow (3 portions to freeze from that) and that's *counting* 17 or 18 meals ready-to-go.

*Whew*

-- Steve'll have to ease off; not only is the freezer just about full, he's running out of containers for frozen food.

It's been a very, very slow day. Made some inroads on the massive sleep debt I accrued over the week but there's a long way to go yet. I had intended to do laundry and pick up some groceries but never made it out the door... the sudden weather change into the high-20s to low-30s made me too sluggish and the feet are hurting. But the last of the unpacking's done, at least.

And I finally saw The Watchmen Director's Cut this afternoon, though I get the feeling I should've waited until more brain cells were firing. It was on the long side, too, at a full 3 hours, and frankly my attention wandered at some points... but that might have been the post-con exhaustion and not the fault of the movie. Maybe I'll do a review later.

I started off-loading photos from the camera and have a few resized for web-work (and cleaned up... I didn't take much time setting up shots, so the colour balances and light levels got a bit whacky in more than a few) but just a few; more tomorrow, I think, after I get the rest suitable for public viewing.

Well, I'm zonking out again so that's it.

Oh, wait, one pic to tease:

I have to box up two of those for mailing to family, and four of them go to my coworkers on Monday. The remaining two (one steak spice, with the black lids, and one french-fry seasoning with the red lids) are mine mine mine. (Thanks to james_nicoll for pointing out that Schwartz's Deli was selling those now. I can't think of a better souvenir from Montreal.)

-- Steve loves the city for its cuisine.

*sigh* People alarmed by the H1N1 outbreak are cutting back on buying pork; pork futures are down; pork-producers are now looking at some serious hurt to their bottom lines in an already bad economic climate. And it's all for no real reason.

Okay, folks, let's make this clear; you can't get swine flu by eating cooked meat. The cooking will denature any of the virus present even if the curing process (in the case of ham and bacon) doesn't kill it off or your own digestive juices don't break down the proteins. If the meat isn't cooked enough for this, you're already running greater risks from food poisoning than from catching swine flu... and you'd be way outside the Canada Food Guide's recommendations on preparing the meat anyway.

So eat up, if pork's your thing.

-- Steve plans on exploiting the ignorant, himself, and getting some bargain pork tenderloin and chops and maybe some back bacon at cut rates.

I'm working my way through a do-it-yourself champagne breakfast right now; bacon, scrambled eggs, pan-fried potatoes with green pepper and onion, and "sham-pagne" and orange juice cocktails. I've got to find a way to finish this booze, after all it'd be a shame to waste it.

Last night was largely uneventful as I stayed in. I watched the countdown event at Niagara Falls, which was fun, and played through the first level in Mirror's Edge, which was fun but frustrating at times. (I blame the booze. It's misapplied blame, as I can be pretty cack-handed at platformers even when stone sober, but y'gotta find your excuses where you can...) I also watched The Dark Knight during dinner.

( Warning, here be some possible bio-TMI )

Dinner was delicious but a lot more effort than I'd planned for thanks to how the bird had been butchered and packed. I'll give them one more try at some point, just in case this was an unusual mispack, but they're on probation. The cavity of the bird retained the liquid fat too well, so I was having to tip the bird to pour out excess grease during the roasting and even then the stuffing turned out to be more of a pudding texture than a traditional bread stuffing. Flavourful as all heck, of course, but far more rich than intended. Also, the inner cavity was packed full so that even though the outer flesh was thoroughly thawed, there was solid ice inside. It took over an hour in a cold-water bath to get that ice out of the bird... nerve-wracking, and I'm just glad I didn't have a bunch of hungry guests waiting.

The hour came and I saw the fireworks on TV; no fireworks downtown here in London, ON, but one intrepid family in the subdivision behind me fired off a nice little display. I stayed up watching some of the post-countdown festivities in Niagara Falls and Toronto (no US coverage for me; couldn't bring in any American channels, so I didn't see Times Square) and then retired at about 12:30 or a bit after.

-- Steve has a rent cheque to drop off, but beyond that no obligations today. Tomorrow, alas, it's back to Koobikal Hel.

The stale bread I put in the freezer is out thawing now. The duck into which said stale bread shall be stuffed is now almost thawed in the fridge. My brand-new microwave steamer is soaking in detergent at the moment, as is my new food processor's 3-cup reservoir, and the cheap "sparkling wine" is chilled nicely.

Now, off to the mall to pick up some sundries at the Mart of Wal and/or HMV; Mirror's Edge for certain, as the demo was really fun, and perhaps a DVD or two.

When I get back:

1. finish cleaning the new food processor
   
2. blend the dry bread and an onion into stuffing, add poultry seasoning, then let sit for at least one hour
   
3. preheat oven to 325°F
   
4. open and clean the duck
   
5. set up roasting pan + trivet + poultry lifter arrangement, as before
   
6. stuff duck and rub skin lightly with salt
   
7. duck in oven NO LATER THAN 4pm; set timer for one hour
   
8. cube and brine 2 potatoes
   
9. 5pm, remove duck from oven, drain off fat, return to oven, start boiling potatoes, set timer for ~30 minutes
   
10. 5:30pm, remove duck from oven, drain fat, remove potatoes and place in roasting pan, return to oven, set timer for ~1 hour
    
11. 6:30pm, remove duck from oven, set aside to rest, replace potatoes in oven to finish if necessary, cut and wash broccoli and carrots, put in steamer
    
12. 6:45pm, open "sham-pagne" and serve meal, perhaps with movie accompaniment.

-- Steve should really get cracking on this now.

I'm a bit more than half-way through supper; half a 1kg prime rib (not a full 16oz cut, though, as the weight on the wrapper includes the bone) rubbed in Montreal steak spice, roasted PEI potatoes, asparagus tips steamed with carrots, and the Rothschild merlot.

I tried copying the steakhouse method of rubbing the seasoning on the outside and then leaving the meat to take up the flavours; however, I think the roast wasn't fully thawed when I did the rub and put it back in the fridge. There's a very definite flavour gradient from the outside to the inside. It's still magnificently delicious though.

-- Steve wishes he could eat like this every night.

PS: Gotta leave room for the mince tarts and espresso-with-Kahlua. Maybe some jumping jacks...?

I decided to do something a bit... different tonight for supper. It's in the oven now, so I'll have to get back to you on how it turns out. I call it... *clap of thunder*

Canadian Ham.

Preheat oven to 425°F/220°C

Take one half-ham, 2lbs/1kg, preferably smoked instead of sugar-cured. Place flat-face down on a trivet in the middle of a small roasting pan. Pour 1 cup of cold water into the pan; do not let the water reach the ham's face.

Take one small saucepan and pour 1 shot glass of pure maple syrup into it. (NOT the thickened stuff; leave the fake stuff for your pancakes.) Bring to a boil at low heat and reduce, stirring frequently, until it looks like it's about to become candy. Remove from heat, stir in 1tsp of ground mustard until it's fully dissolved, then stir in 1/2 shot of Canadian Club rye whiskey. Set aside until it thickens, then brush (or pour) generously over the ham.

Place in the oven on the centre rack and bake uncovered for 1 hour.

-- Steve anticipates a very interesting flavour; it smelled wonderful going in.

This is starting to become a weekly habit.

It was a beautiful fall day here, sunny but with a crisp edge in the air, so I thought I'd make a batch of beef stew for supper. Besides, my refrigerator was starting to accumulate odds and ends and a stew is the perfect way to finish them off. I generally use the recipe as included on the packet of stewing spices from Club House, but I do make some changes.

Take 1kg (2lbs) of cubed stewing beef. Make certain that the cubes are each bite-sized; my local grocery store is a bit sloppy on sizing the cubes. Put them in a large bowl and then sprinkle 1 or 2 tablespoons of flour into the cubes, the less you can get away with the better; then cover with a lid or plate and shake like you're tossing a salad. Make certain the flour is evenly coating the outside of each beef cube, and that there's little if any left as powder.

Put a 5L/1gal saucepan (or pot with a heavy bottom and lid) on a burner set to med-high, and coat the bottom with vegetable oil. When that's ready, brown the beef cubes (in batches is less work intensive, or all at once if you want to treat it as a vigorous stir fry) and then add one bottle (330mL) of beer. If you've had a chance to let it go flat you can go on with the next stage right away... if not, let it come to a boil first and throw off the carbon dioxide bubbles (wait until the foam at the top subsides) or you risk it boiling over.

Add 3 cups (750mL) of water and bring to a rolling boil, add the stewing spice powder mix, then reduce the burner to medium and let boil covered for 1 hour with occasional stirring to prevent anything burning itself to the bottom. (as, alas, happened to me this spring) While that's going on, cut 4 potatoes and a bunch of veggies, enough to fill a bowl to the same volume as the cubed beef. One fist-sized onion is almost mandatory, but after that pretty much anything will do if you like it. Tonight, for instance, I finished off the remnants of a bunch of broccoli, the tag end of a bag of frozen peas, and some "baby-cut" carrots I hadn't gotten to. You don't need to be too militant about the chopping, so long as each piece is bite-sized or less, but the finer you chop the more you can fit into the stew.

After the hour is up, stir in the chopped veggies. If your stock has boiled down to the point you can't cover the added veggies, you can top the pot off with more water but go easy on it; you don't want to thin it much, and you don't want to bring the top of the liquid any closer than 2cm/1" from the top of the saucepan/pot. Bring it back up to a boil and leave it covered, stirring occasionally, for another 40 minutes.

After that, remove from heat and let rest 5 minutes. Serve with strong beer (Guinness, for me tonight) or a robust red wine, and buttered bread. The above should make 4-6 servings.

-- Steve just finished, and once again had a great dinner. Now, for the apple pie...

PS: I'm lazy. I leave the skins on the potatoes when cubing them for stew... besides, a lot of the nutrition in a potato comes from the skin, and it'd be a shame to peel those away anyway. Just be extra careful when washing to make certain there's nothing clinging to those skins.

Tonight I realised my freezer was empty... so I dashed out and ended up spending $50 on groceries when my usual weekly is about $30. Part of that is because they had rolled sirloin roast on sale; I got a 2kg/4lb roast for $12, and that feeds 4-6. It's almost finished resting now.

Somehow I managed to overboil the potatoes before roasting them with the meat. Only 20 minutes and they were almost ready for mashing; I wonder what's up with that. I'm steaming some broccoli now to go with that... should be almost done.

The first of the pumpkin pies were out, so I picked one up and some whipping cream. Me and whipping cream probably should stay apart, either that or get together more often, because every time I end up with some cream spilled or sprayed over the countertop. *sigh* Oh well, at least it's done and in the fridge; I'll pop the pie in after taking the veggies back out of the oven.

Tonight's wine is a regular vin du table of mine, a Rothschild Merlot. Not the greatest wine on the planet, but excellent for one that's $10/bottle with tax.

Oh, veggies are done. Gotta go!

-- Steve'll report back if things went spectacularly well, or wonky.

Steamed broccoli: yummy.

Steamed carrots: yummy.

Steamed green peppers: flavourless and textureless, ew.

-- Steve's culinary experiments march apace.

Given my culinary exploration into the realm of roast duck last week, I thought I'd post the ultimate fate of the poor bird; duck omelette.

I thawed out the remaining few scraps of duck (none thicker than a quarter inch) and fried it in a pan to get the last of the grease out of the meat and grease the pan in the process, then set it aside. Omelette as usual, though I went easy on the flavourings in the eggs and just went with green pepper, onion, and a little fresh-cracked pepper. While that was cooking in the pan, I finely diced (almost minced, really) the refried duck meat. Turned the omelette, added a little cheddar cheese (not much, just enough to close the omelette) and sprinkled the minced duck in with the cheese. Close, let set 5 minutes, serve with orange juice (of course) and whole-wheat toast. You won't need butter on the toast.

Still a little bit on the greasy side but very tasty.

-- Steve's now pondering what to prepare for dinner tonight... but it certainly won't be as exotic.

I got a little adventurous tonight in the culinary department. Shopping on the weekend at my local grocery store showed that they had a new butcher on staff, and the roasts out were of appalling quality and not even wrapped correctly. I was looking to do something a little different this weekend in any case, and upon prowling the meat section I saw a frozen whole (albeit utility) 2kg (4.5lb) duck for $9.00. So, why not?

Well, I prepared it tonight. I'm going to write down what I did for future reference, and if anyone feels inspired well that's cool too.( Read more... )

-- Steve doesn't go big like this too often, but when he does he tries to pull out all the stops.

PS: Alas, dinner went too late for an after-dinner espresso; I'm only a half-hour done now, with the dishes soaking in the sink. I'm also just about ready for a coma. Mmmmm....

PPS: The above would handily serve four, or three with big appetites. Me, I've got a good two days' leftovers to consume during the work week. (Pity I can't take wine to work.)