milk shake

All One vitamin powder, plus malt.

Plus a great way to get rid of that crystalline
ice cream not much cared for. 

Ask a dozen people and eleven will not know malt is a process and not a thing. I'm exaggerating again. I asked twelve people and twelve did not know. Grains are malted then the substance is made into a powder or a liquid and added to things to make them taste great. It's also important to brewing and baking. It's irrelevant to the urban survivalist but still interesting that the stage of germination where the process is arrested through heat for malting is the point where a live grain is most susceptible to attack by yeast and bacteria. Bakers sometimes add a small amount of malt to dough to enhance yeast activity.


We use it because we like it.

rib eye stew

This goes big when clicked, much bigger,
actually, than the original thing.

I suppose it's a stew. Started out with aspirations of being a meat pie. Then decided didn't want to bother with a crust, just make dumplings instead, then decided dumplings are totally superfluous. See? Now this is how one maintains a boyish figure, decisions like that, but it does leave one oddly wanting to make a pie crust just to fill it with something.

It's sacrilege to cube a rib-eye and dust it with seasoned flour, but that's just the way I roll. You can see up there ↑ the carnal portion out of proportion to vegetable. The cubes of meat were satisfying the whole time the dish was being prepared and long after the dish pictured was finished off. There was a little pile left in the pan I seared everything in, kind of drying out, hours had elapsed with it just sitting on the stove uncovered. It was time to clean up the mess I made and wash the pans. I really should have tossed the unused portion, instead, I turned up the heat, added liquid gold™, brought to a bubbling boil, then ate it, and I must say, if it's possible to be better reheated that way then it was. Better that way. So one single slab of rib-eye had me grooving pretty much all day on dead cow meat, which strikes me as seriously decadent. I'm going to feel all that saturated animal fat coming out of my pores.

Almost forgot; those little white cubes up there are chunks of Fontina. They're sprinkled throughout the pot, added at the end. Without being stirred, they melt into a little cheesy areas. Intriguingly palatable whenever I'd hit a melty cheese area. Now, here's a demonstration of mad skillz that gives a glimpse to a particular peculiar genius. Who would think of hiding chunks of cheese from oneself in a dish like this and then be genuinely surprised at discovering them?

angelhair soup

this is the one that goes huge when clicked
Billed as the sort of thing one tosses together when arriving home late from the clubs, if one could be trusted with a knife that late in the day. Or early. I make this all the time because it can be fixed in the amount of time it takes to bring a pot of water to boil and cook a wad of angel hair pasta, which is fairly fast. Ingredients vary. Can be as simple as broccoli or elaborated into something nearly spectacular.

This is fun. Sear on high. Blacken a side or two. Toss in your favorite things for a quick burn, then right when it seems it might all go black, splash in about 1/2 cup of wine. It sizzles dramatically. Quickly evaporates off but leaves everything infused with a flavorful acid. Add chicken stock. Liquid gold™ if you have it, and you do have it, otherwise, the stuff in a carton is great.

Parmesano Reggiano elevates the dish to a whole 'nuter level.

Here used both Reggiano and Fontina





My chile flakes. I growed 'em, I chopped 'em.

French fries

For crispy outside, tender inside, cook twice.

First cook: cook the prepared potatoes until tender. They can be boiled in water or cooked in the same oil used to deep fry. If in oil, temperature should not exceed 250°F or they'll start to actually fry and you don't want that at this point.

Let them cool. They don't have to cool completely, if you need to get on with it, or they could be frozen for later.

Second cook: Hot oil no less than 350°F, notice that's 100°F higher than before. The temperature drops when you put the potatoes in the oil and you want to prevent it from dropping below 350°F so run up the temperature by a lot, a scary lot, like 50° more, at least, and watch the temperature carefully. Don't hesitate to kick it on high if it drops below 350°F to attempt to get it back quickly. On the other hand, there's no reason once it's stabilized to go above that.

The first cooking gives the potatoes soft insides, deep frying in hotter oil gives them crispy outsides



One last thing, it's important so I'll underline it, use a pot MUCH LARGER than needed to contain the oil. How's that for emphasis? Because the hot oil boils up like crazy! That's at the heart of the drama, wouldn't want to end up in Emergency.

Check out how carefully and thoroughly the cook peels the potatoes.

sourdough bread Volunteer

Can you believe this?

[anecdote] I've been using this bread for a week and enjoying every second of it. I'm nearly out, and that will not do. I currently have some four or so starters that need attention but I'm enjoying this culture that hitch-hiked on the Whole Food's grain so much right now that I want to encourage it instead. The others will just have chill awhile longer, Thanksgiving is a few days off and I can't have a bunch of jars bubbling about demanding feedings. Plus there's already one experiment involving yeast running on the patio. [/anecdote]

This is how it happens:

The starter. Getting started.


A little ball of sourdough comes out of the refrigerator and meets up with ball of fresh dough of about equal size. They join and go into a jar. They wait, or proof, or rise, or ferment, or do whatever it is yeast and bacteria does when left alone for 8 hours. In this case longer, 10 hours, irresponsible as ever 13 hours later it puffed up into that down there ↓.


doubled ↑ united with twin ↑ back into jar ↑

8 hours the ball puffed up into this ↓.

weighs 8oz↓ fed weighs 16oz↓ bigger jar ↓

after 6 hours
fed and new container ↓

10 hours later ↓ fed and chilled. This is a bad hour to form loaves. Will wait until I'm ready to come around to this, will feed slightly more and bring back to room temperature, if not slightly warmer. This aging will also help the bacteria portion of the culture catch up with the yeast portion which is at the height of its activity.

Chilled. Next day appeared not much different. Fed slightly. Reserved golf ball size piece of dough to maintain culture. Added flax seed oil, one egg, salt, kneeded within inches of its life, formed loaves.

↓

pictured twice because it's so beautiful
↓
give to someone
↓

ravioli

Dis a makea you so hungry ifa
you clickade for de bíge.



Then, this ravioli again later ↓.

At about three years old I encountered my first ravioli. Little pasta resemblances in the sweetest, most delicious, red, mildly tangy sludge out of a can. I was in love at first sight with Chef Boiardi. I mean, Boyardee. BOI-RD. It was the first food thing I ever thought was brilliant. Little servings of meat inside, brilliant! The cans were brilliant too and you had to be brilliant to know how to use the utterly incomprehensible thing that opens them. The whole thing was genius. I understood then on the spot that I was born into a world of astonishing creativity. These ravioli, however, are both meatless and canless.

gnocchi nearly

Fried gnocchi. *ducks* Please don't throw anything. That's the closest thing to this colossal mistake I could think of. I have only myself to blame. This is proof that God loves me, for He leadeth me to adjusteth for mistakeths made through utter carelessness and fixeth me up with something incredibly and addictively delicious. eth.

double dog dare you to look at BIG


Let the sturdy protective outside and the moist and delicate inside, through the most regrettable complacency, combine and become as one! Fry this confederation in oil and butter, for everything is improved with butter, then all will be well and all is forgiven.

Leftover potatoes, or progressive state potatoes as we call them for they are forward leaning.
grated onion, so fine, so beautiful it brings tears of joy
ounces of sour cream for tang and for fluff
egg and egg yolk, seems a senseless waste of egg white.
flour
baking soda to mix with the acid in sour cream along with
baking powder which is a doubly reactive mixture of baking soda, which is a salt, and two salt-acids, one that reacts to moisture and another reactive to heat. They induce puffiness puffiness like a grade school volcano science project. But you don't want too much puff and you don't want to over salt, so use but a little. Mustn't overdo it.

Naturally I overdid the whole thing. Didn't know four little potatoes makes enough to feed an army. Well, an army composed of no more than a few units. And if those units weren't all that hungry. And if the soldiers were perhaps all small in stature, say, pygmies. Pygmies observing Ramadan, yes, there would be enough to handle that circumstance.