posts/2017/06

I made a pretty simple breakfast of soy chorizo hash. I used two medium-sized russet potatoes and got them (somewhat) crispy in the cast iron pan. I then added a package of store-bough soy chorizo (pictured below). We usually prefer the Trader Joes one but this was fine. I decided not to use ketchup and/or Sriracha like I do for corned beef hash since the chorizo was so wet (though we topped it with Sriracha).

It wasn't bad though also wasn't super interesting. I prefer corned beef has to this any day!

There is nothing really special about this meal at all, but it is the first time we've ever grilled hotdogs on our grill. These are ones made locally from local beef (or turkey...we got both).

They were more dry than normal store-bought ones but I still liked them a lot. And it could have been from me over-cooking it.

We were going to have this during the week but decided to do it tonight instead. We made simple grilled sandwiches.

Mine (not pictured) was almost a reuben except that I replaced sauerkraut with green chile. I also used fat free thousand island.

Meredith made something with some pesto-turkey deli meat and some of her leftover romesco sauce.

I also made roasted potatoes as we first did here with just olive oil, salt, and smoked paprika. They were delicious as always though I wish I did a better job turning them!

I made grilled chicken as I did before. I followed the same principle but it was a much smaller chicken. I spatchcocked and sprinkled it with salt, pepper, and adobo powder.

I grilled it the same way as I had the last two times, though I did a better job with the thermometer probe. I decided to go to about 120°F before flipping and going to 155-160°F on the other side (higher than the recipe calls for).

This chicken was smaller than I used in the past and it was from the local farm store. I do not know if it was the freshness, size, cooking method, or what, but it was probably the juiciest chicken I've ever had. The only thing is the skin could have been a bit crispier. Maybe next time I will sear it on the grill again if it needs it.

I also took a picture of how I had to the grill set since I was happy with the temps.

Pretty simple and straight forward meal. I made us Huevos Rancheros. I did it using that normal recipe with green chile and some red chile sauce. I topped it with black beans and some shredded cheddar. We decided not to use any meat since we didn't really need it.

I made falafel from extra frozen dough from 2017-04-18. It didn't seem to make very much but we had more than enough food since Meredith made Fattoush (and I put some chopped up rotisserie chicken in mine).

I made sous vide brisket. I started it last week and did it for about 100 hours¹. At point, I put it in an ice bath to cool and then cooked it in the oven for about 2 hours the next day. We ate some of it (not pictured) but then had it again for dinner and made two more lunches. I used about 1/2 of a tsp of liquid smoke per bag (3 bags total). I think it make it extra smokey (in a good way) but also gave it a bit of a dog-food smell. Past the smell, the flavor was all there!

As I noted in the footnote, I went too long, but I think it was fine. This meat was really flavorful (from Kellers), it was also a lot fattier. I am not sure if that is why it was so flavorful or if it was just better meat, or if the extra liquid smoked helped.

(Update: 2017-06-12: Some of the other pieces that were in a different bag had an overpowering liquid smoke smell that gave it a bit of a dog-food smell. It still tasted good, but the smell was a bit off-putting. Next time, I will be more careful about the amount of liquid smoke. Certainly more than the recipe directly calls for but not much more than that)

Meredith helped make the same as last time. She followed that same recipe again using cheddar cheese and jalapeños but this time doubling the salt and adding maldon salt on top

Oops! If you read the recipe, it says up to 72 hours. Oh well, it seemed to work ↩

Not too much for this meal. We sliced and marinated super-firm tofu in soy sauce with some sesame oil, sriracha, and yuzu hot sauce. We baked for at 350°F for about 20 minutes.

The sandwiches were from a baguette, with some mayo (on mine), the tofu, quickly pickled carrots (recipe -- roughly followed and much less), cilantro, green onion, sriracha, jalapeño, and cucumber.

We made a Thai zucchini noodle salad from Inspiralized (local¹). We basically followed the general recipe except used shredded carrots and kind of did a lot of the other stuff to flavor.

We ended up adding a bit more sesame oil since the vinegar was a bit overpowering.

It was a really easy meal that was pretty healthy. We will keep this kind of thing in mind.

U: guest, P: Name of my boston terrier. Lower case ↩

Ok, this wasn't really much "cooking" as much as it was heating and arranging, but is was our first Camper meal. We had some cheddarwrust which we heated on the grill pan and then a smokey salad mix (I forget exactly what it was). Finally, we had a small thing of loaded potato salad (mediocre) and some rosemary potato salad (bland. I tried to improve it the next day).

Whereas yesterday was our first meal in the camper but wasn't really cooking, for breakfast we actually cooked a meal.

First, I took the leftover potatoes from yesterday and tried to sauté them in a pan to crisp them and hopefully bring out some flavor. It was not super successful but it was ever-so-slightly better than last night.

We made an egg scramble by sautéing some finely-diced onions with adobo powder, then adding tomatoes and finally, the eggs. It was actually pretty flavorful; especially since it was pretty easy.

Since our camper has a real oven that can run on propane¹ (we were dry camping), we were able to bake the bacon. We did it at 350°F for about 20 minutes.

The hardest thing was juggling having just one pan, very little spaces (especially that can handle a hot pan), and not having brought oven mitts. (Plus we only had a few spatulas). It was kind of a fun challenge!

Most newer campers/RVs have a convection oven/microwave. Saves space but requires electricity to run. Our oven runs entirely on propane. ↩

I made the enchilada casserole / lasagna kind of like I did before (A,B,C). The only difference was that this time I used zucchini and yellow squash instead of peppers. I sautéed 1.5 onions and then added the squash. I added two packets of frozen green chile and seasoned with salt, pepper, onion powder, and garlic powder.

Meanwhile I steamed the chicken until it was cooked enough then shredded it and mixed it with the veggies. I used a lot of red sauce until it was well combined.

I made the layers as corn tortilla, veggie+chicken mixture, some green chile, then cheese. I also discovered that I should cut the tortillas in half since it makes it fit better.

I used some of our leftovers from camping. I made glazed mushrooms with BBQ sauce with the leftover bacon and then simply grilled the rest of the cheddarwrust. Also had some lite caesar salad.

We made a nice, big, meal for Meredith's family. We made Grilled Spatchcocked chicken. We started with a rather large chicken since there were a lot of us. We seasoned it with salt, Mural of Flavor, and Fox Point.

The chicken came out pretty good. Really juicy as usual and not too hard. I will say, some of the breast meat wasn't super flavorful; probably because the chicken was so big that it didn't permeate a ton. I do want to try brining it sometime.

Meredith made Elote Salad. She was inspired by Inspiralized (local) to (a) add zucchini and (b) make it as a salad rather than on the cob. But, she really followed Serious Eats (local¹)

This came out really good. A bit spicy but it was a fun way to make it. And by using some zucchini (we used two) it bulked it up and made it healthier.

U: guest, P: name of my Boston Terrier, all lower case ↩

Nothing really special here. We bought some chicken sausages at Costco that were smoked mozzarella, artichoke and garlic. I sautéed them on the cast iron pan (they are already cooked).

Meredith made her typical Broccolini with Tahini Sauce and crushed red pepper. Delicious (and easy) as always.

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