Hi, friends!
It’s early afternoon as I write this post and my house smells AMAZING. I finally got my hands on some fresh crowder peas, and then after I shelled them yesterday morning I thought: what the fuck am I going to add to the pot of beans to make it tasty. You got various options with crowder peas, but this is probably the only time this summer I’ll get them so I wanted it to be good. Enter the butcher shop near me that only slaughters Missouri-raised animals and makes all sorts of stuff in house. Specifically, their andouille sausage.
Yes, I was that person that asked for about a 3 inch chunk of it, but hey you don’t need much when the flavor is that strong. Currently it’s chopped and added to the beans along with some peppers and tomatoes from the garden as well as onion, kale, and garlic. Smells so damn good. Depending on how juicy it is, I might just add rice in there to soak up all that delicousness.
So, what are folks eating this week? My other meals are probably things like the very inspired “cheese and crackers” etc, because I’m good at planning lunches to take to the office but so lazy about dinners.
Cooking? Nothing special on the horizon right now. I’m meeting a buddy at our favorite Indian restaurant tomorrow and will probably have chicken kada masala, though. But I shall let the experts prepare it.
Ooh I am not familiar with chicken kada masala and after some googling it sounds amazing!
In curious, what you’re making, is it like a stew? It sounds pretty damn good
Well I wasn’t quite sure whether it was going to be a stew or something I was going to serve over rice.
And then I was like woooooooooowwww the pot liquor from the cooked beans and kale is amazing, time to toss in dry rice.
Which made it into a glorious pot of rice and beans, kinda dirty rice thanks to the seasonings, but in the way that people who aren’t from Louisiana say that anything with andouille sausage is Cajun. This dish is not, I did not put any celery in the mirepoix. In fact, I don’t think I can even call it a mirepoix because I just dumped chopped onion and bell pepper in the beans while they slow boiled, there was no sauteing before adding the rest of the ingredients. In retrospect, maybe that would have been a better order of operations (mirepoix, add liquids, add beans and andouille, simmer, add rest of veggies, simmer, add rice, simmer).
Oh well, still turned out delicious. Cooking tends to be more forgiving of order of operations compared to baking. 🙂
I’m making German spaghetti tonight, no idea the rest of the week. Had a German girlfriend and her mom made this amazing sauce with bacon, onions, lots of spices and heavy cream and that is what she called it. I have never made it as good as hers but keep trying! The meatballs are awesome simmered in the sauce.
You’re making Königsberger Klopse! Or at least that’s what the meatballs in a white sauce like yours is called, and they’re often served over spaghetti.
Poor Königsberg, one of the most cursed cities on earth, endlessly fought over. It’s now Kaliningrad, that tiny little section of Russia cut off from the mother country and accessed by a sort of DMZ. That DMZ might well be the next flashpoint if Putin hangs on long enough and there’s some kind of even remotely (to his mind) favorable resolution in Ukraine. When the Baltic countries were part of the Soviet Union it was attached but when Lithuania declared its independence it became a Russian outpost. Like Crimea, Putin would love to have direct overland access to it because it makes for a handy port.
And that doesn’t have much to do with food, does it?
This one is in a red tomato cream sauce, they were from Hamburg, not sure if it was a thing there or just in her family. Â Lots of basil too. Â Really good & pretty easy,
Pork picnic shoulder was on sale again, so I cut off the skin, boned it, froze the scraps, cut the main part of the meat in half. I fired up the smoker and while it was starting marinated half of the pork in soy sauce, rice vinegar and sugar. I rubbed the other half with garlic, salt, pepper, oregano and ground fennel.
When the smoker was hot I loaded up both halves plus the bone.
Hours later they’re done and the fridge is full of smoked meat plus a bone for beans. I think I may freeze the skin and fry it at some point for chicharron.
I got beets and okra and tomatoes from the farmer’s market. The beets are pickled, the okra is probably getting fried for Indian food, and the tomatoes are almost already eaten. And donut peaches for my wife.
Fried okra is the best way to make it!
Watermelon. That is all.
I ran a bunch through the blender and I’ve been drinking it with seltzer. It’s pretty much perfect for this time of year.
I sadly have no watermelon right now. I was going to get one Wednesday at the one farmer’s market, but they got stormed out.
Then when I went to the big market yesterday, the watermelons were $10-11 a pop. Which is ridiculous because the organic ones at the Wednesday market have been like $6.
Anyways, I could buy one at the grocery store, but at this point I’m just waiting until Wednesday when I can get one.
I cooked my weekly ration of salmon and trout. I’ll have tomatoes and peppers for veg, and watermelon for dessert.
Yum!!! Is that your go-to protein most of the time?
That sounds delicious Brighter!
Oh it turned out fucking amazing. Using fresh beans makes a helluva difference!
not going to be cooking or eating a lot here…today being the last of the relatively cool days we’ll be having lasagna and the rest of the week and probably next week i’ll be switching to large breakfasts as it will probably be the only meal i eat
ive got cucumbers and tomatos to snack on but will be mostly solar powered until the weather remembers where we are and gets cold and wet again….one day