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It's been a while since I have eaten correctly. No energy to cook, or... do anything else. It isn't just work that doesn't get done, it is also eating... or proper eating. Stored foods aren't the best, healthwise. But, if it's between opening a can and eating, or going hungry, when you are trying to push through... even if you are only actually staying awake... then you open the damn can and eat.
Roast beef. It was delicious. I didn't have quite the energy for veggies, so I ate two servings. Freshly cooked food is an absolute delight. If I had a woman who could keep the rest of the house, I could keep the food coming... and have learned a fair bit on nutrition... plus with a smart phone could keep the calorie count and else in balance. Heck, I would even keep up on the dishes. Mayhap not to the thinking of a woman, but compared to now? Yea. If she could keep the rest of the place clean. Two meals a day, only, and fresh meals only three to five days a week per meal time. If I want to cook three meals in a row, and coast? That's how it will go. Or space them. Depends on my capacity.
Now, it was technically, for me, overcooked. My mother would have thought it was slightly undercooked. It would have been tolerable to both of us though. And, it really was good. Closer to how she used to cook a chuck roast. Often to then be shredded and added to homemade egg noodles. The woman could cook... for a family, or an army, and on no notice with almost nothing. She is amazing that way. Truly. I'll never have that, but I can do things she can't... or wouldn't... I have impressed her, with a meal she would never have considered possible. But... that was one versus innumerable.
I do like to cook. Not just for eating, as when I started. I enjoy merging this, with that. Learning the chemistry behind it. Learning how foods cook best, or quickest, and in various ways. I even like learning to love foods I thought I hated. No, actually, learning to enjoy, even love, foods I definitely hated. Cabbage is still one of my greatest gains, as I see things.
Hmmm! Roast beef, cabbage, fresh mushroom, and... something, something soup! Perhaps stew! Oh, yes. Yes my dear friends. Enough for a bowl or two a day! Might have to cook all separately, then mix them as I warm the meal. Yes, not sure they would hold well otherwise. Thickened, with egg? Gelatin... a bit. Not thick as jello, just... dense, for fluid. With carolina reaper pepper flecks this meal, salt and pepper the next meal, maybe ginger, cinnamon, and turmeric on another... Yes, yes! Who needs noodles?!?
Anyway... Good night.
When you say you use Carolina Reaper pepper flecks, how much are you applying (thereabouts)? Season "to taste"? Or is there a specific amount you tend to employ? And pardon my culinary nosiness.
ReplyDeletePersonally glad to find you currently possessing the wherewithal to cook.
Well. It depends on volume, of course. But say a standard pot of these or those? Say... a quarter teaspoon at most... for say a pot of chili. Now, I make my pots of chili in an 8 quart, if I only use half to two thirds of that are filled, as an example. For a small pot, say three quarts, 70% full, as in a day or two of the soup, I'd use about half that.
ReplyDeleteSnoop away. However, understand, my limit to the fleck isn't the heat or biological issues, it is that beyond a certain point, the heat just becomes bland and chemical tasting. As well, if I have it, I often add at least another ground pepper of lower heat, such as cayenne, or the smoked jalapeno... can't remember what it is called, and maybe a milder chili ground pepper mix. It adds depth, flavor, and balance. I never add sugar, as a cutter, obviously with diabetes... but I will add cinnamon, all spice, clove, and a group of various others, singularly or as a group (do not think pumpkin pie!). It adds a sweetness without actually sweetening.
In this case, I might add a blend of other peppers, but probably not... poblano is it?... As I don't, I think, want the smokey element. Then again, I might try that in a bowl. Who knows!?! Lord knows, I have spiced something by accident, and grumbled all the way to what had to be a disastrous dinner, only to be so delightfully edified. Live and learn, and experiment.
The only thing I have learned about experimenting? Don't share your experiments UNTIL you have worked through the bugs, tried them in several moods and with various sides. It... never seems to work with a fresh recent but singular good experience, on another person. I may simply have been very hungry when I ate. Hunger can be the absolute best spice. Salut!
Actually, double those numbers. I never make chili, or that much, anymore. More like have a teaspoon in that much chili, a quarter in the three to four quart pots at 70%.
ReplyDeleteOh, and it was chipotlaes, not poblanos.
ReplyDelete