potato cubes

Itty-bitty potato cubes. Aren't they the cutest little things? I intended for them to be bigger but I made the initial slices too thin. Everything followed from that redounding to tiny cubes, and that's okay with me. Children would love these. They're like children's French fries taken another step. Sea salt ground to a fine powder. The salt is so fine, in fact, that it apparently loses its crystalline nature and becomes more like a powder. Dusted when the cubes are fresh from the oil and still vulnerable and impressionable. I virtually inhaled these like a giant voracious swine-cow monster, and I'm still not satisfied. 

vegetables heated

Vegetables heated through and barely, just barely cooked, and heated up with capsaicin of two types. This is my favorite thing again courgette, zucchini if you like, and yellow squash, with purple cabbage this time. Included in the oil is crushed garlic, a single crushed chile de arbol, and about 16 tiny fragments of that diced habanero I described earlier down there ↓ in the previous post.  Now 16 tiny fragment of habanero chile pepper does not seem like a lot, but it is. It is enough to put you off chiles permanently if you are not ready for it. For that reason I would  not even consider serving this to my family or any of my friends. To a person they are all Milquetoasts. That's right, I said it. Culinarily-speaking they are all pantywaists, pansies, plain vanillas, white bread, meat and potato types. Hamburger Helper^® eaters. With potato flakes no less. They haven't an adventurous bone in their collective body. Even los quien mas macho de todos, culinario hablando. If you know what I mean. And now I'm getting sad all over again. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it!

But I sweetened up these vegetables, I did, because that is the kind of guy I am.  I included two rounded tablespoons of apricot preserves because ... because ... because it seemed like a good idea at the moment.  I think the idea came from awareness that Pennsylvania Dutch combine cabbage with bacon and cider vinegar and a touch of  brown sugar. Or maybe I read it in a book. Maybe it bubbled up from my subconscious, if there is such a thing. Maybe in a moment of free-form thinking my mind disconnected and took flight across time and space and picked up a memory produced from a previous life. Maybe I'm full of shite.  

I also added two measured tablespoons of cider vinegar, hey, I had the tablespoon right there in my hand from scooping out the apricot preserves so what the heck I used it, and now you can see oil + vinegar + sweetener = a pretty darn good dressing, eh wot? 

Per usual, coarse highly mineralized gray sea salt and freshly cracked pepper. 

Come on now, with all that goodness working together, reaching here, reaching there, but all in moderation it is quite impossible to go hugely wrong.  And innit it purdy? It made my nose run. 

habanero chiles

I have no immediate use for these chiles, but I picked them up with something or other in mind and now they are beginning to turn. I do have habanero sauce but that is mixed with vinegar and lacks the full round habanero flavor I seek, although it is packed with powerful overwhelming heat. The prepared sauce does not come close to the chiles I grew myself on a window sill, dried, and processed to flakes, and then added to nearly anything that could take it. How I do miss those halcyon days of yore that were a year ago.  

Habanero named for the city Havana. Sometimes spelled wrongly with a tilde over the n in a fit of hyperforeignism. The chile pepper is of  the capsicum chinense type, so called for their resemblance to Chinese paper lanterns. Sometimes habaneros are conflated with Scotch bonnets, named for their resemblance to a Scottish tam, and another variety of the same species. Now, isn't that funny? A habanero and  a Scotch bonnet are both capsicum chinense. Hahaha. Make up my mind already, you loons, those places are at divergent spots on the globe. Habaneros come in different colors. I wanted red, but all I could find around here lately is orange so that will have to do. 

Habaneros are not the hottest peppers on Earth, but how would you know that when the top of your head is blown off? I mean, come on, there is a point where the whole thing is ridiculous. I used silicone gloves to handle these things, or some kind of plastic gloves, the same kind I use when mixing plaster for bas reliefs, to make sure the alkaloids or oil or whatever the moist  part in these chiles is, does not get on my fingertips and from there carelessly transferred to more tender areas. Ask me how I know. There is a story there that my friends find quite hilarious but is not funny at all, involving my dangly bits, you can imagine the rest. 

The seeds need heat to germinate and I'm not giving it. Maybe I will. I have an electric blanket but it turns off automatically so I have to keep at it, plus it is huge. Way overkill for one little pot of seeds. Maybe I will and maybe I won't. Depends on how much of a drag it turns out to be. If I only had a proper heating pad. 

(I am getting sick and tired of forcing this stupid spellchecker to accept words.)

I could have planted the arbol chile seeds too, but you know what? They are not as fun and they are not as flavorful, and besides, I can get a package of a million of them any time for a dollar. Plus I think they grow to like five feet or something. I don't need that scraggly mess cluttering up my window. Although come to think of it, that would be a hell of a window shade. Can you imagine, plants emanating from a single pot and trained to cover an entire window?  The stems can be bent when they're tender and the unwanted branches removed. That could be a cool project. 

shrimp hushpuppies

The idea came from having a pot of oil on the stove. How's that for inspiration?


This is all that's going on, alas, no measurements. I used what I had on hand. I have no celery and that's a bummer. I did not think of celery salt, that would have been a nice addition. 


Two types of corn, regular popcorn milled in a coffee grinder, and masa harina which is for tamales and corn tortillas and treated with lye or some kind of alkali  to remove the husk or something. Whatever else it does, it makes the corn more digestible. I could have included frozen corn but I didn't want to open a package and deal with it. You might want to consider that if you're not as lazy as I am. 


I wanted to use a shredded carrot for some reason that I cannot explain. 


One half teaspoon baking powder to lighten the mixture slightly.


Milk was drizzled into the mixture conservatively just enough to bring it together.


The arbol chiles are dried but not roasted. That means you can plant those seeds and they do stand a good chance of growing. If you were to buy chile seeds in a package, say, over the internet, you'd get about ten such seeds per package, and that's a ripoff IMHO. Seeds from chiles can be grown from fresh chiles or from dried chiles, but not from roasted or tinned chiles. Also bell peppers tend to be hybridized so that although their seeds are viable and do grow, they fail to produce peppers, and that's a sick cruel joke against nature. Try planting chile seeds sometime. It's fun. 

mashed potatoes, chicken gravy

This is one of those gigantic Idaho russet potatoes. Diced and boiled. Returned to the burner on low to evaporate residual liquid. Smashed through a ricer using the disc with the smallest holes. Combined with heated milk with butter.

The chicken is the frozen bits picked from the bird roasted here. 

The gravy is started with a roux, seasoned with a single dried crushed arbol chile, sea-salt and pepper with 1/4 teaspoon curry added to enhance but careful not to overwhelm or to stink up the place with 

POW! CURRY!!!!

vegetable sauté with tofu

This is one of my favorite things.

* yellow squash

* zucchini, courgette

* onion

* olive oil

* sea salt / fresh cracked black pepper

* herbes de Provence  (I say that in the flat country accent of Eb Dawson on Green Acres. It happens by itself every time. I have no control. )

* IMPROVED!  Now with firm tofu. 

* tomato, not cooked. 

I like to make irregular cuts because I just hate regular cuts because I like to make irregular cuts because I just hate regular cuts because I like to make irregular cuts because I just hate regular cuts.  

poached eggs, potatoes, ham, red sauce

Dos huevos escalfados, papas, jamón, con salsa roja. 


To get a nice complete shred on those potatoes I dragged out the Cuisinart. Frrrrrap! Done.  They were rinsed to rid them of their surface starch, then boiled briefly. They were removed before they cooked completely. Then fried using the fat removed from these roasted chickens. They were sprinkled with sea salt, pepper, and powdered garlic. 


The eggs are poached in simmering water that contains salt and vinegar to keep the albumen together. In this instance the white did cohere but separately from the yolk. That was weird. Suited me, I like the yolk a lot more anyway. 


The ham is ordinary Black Forest ham from the deli. It was even already pre-cut in their cabinet, thicker than I usually specify, but that's okay with me too.


The red sauce was prepared earlier to moisten holdover enchiladas. It is made from ancho and arbol chiles.