Meatball Subs w/ Homemade Rolls

 

The photos looked good in this hoagie roll recipe so going with this one.

Ground meat from Thompson's Meat Market

Super simple recipe for meatballs here

Jar of marinara - We got Tallarico's from the meat market! Didn't know it was a bethlehem PA company. 

It was super good. Just like you'd expect and want them. Rolls turned out great. 

Hot Chicken w/ what we have on hand

Sunday 2/19/23 - Hot Chicken with what we happened to have in the house

This came out basically perfect, got a little bit lucky for sure. 

Deep fried chicken in a little pot at medium high heat (6-7). Did the throw a popcorn kernel in the oil trick to see when the oil was ready. 3.5 minutes in the frier. Crazy krispy, crazy good. goddamn. 

The buns were bomb. 

• Chicken loosely this
• Marinade/brine - salt, vinegar, little chili pep
• Skillet fry in 1/2in oil
• Breading
• bowl 1
• 1.5 cup flour
• 0.2 cup cornstarch
• 0.5 tsp baking powder
• bowl 2
• 1 cup milk (didnt have buttermilk)
• 2 teaspoon hot sauce hanks?
• 1 egg
• 1 tbsp brwn sugar
• chili powder
• garlic powder
• paprika
• black pepper
• Brioche
• This recipe, but used 2 cup bread flour, 1.5 cup all purpose (thats what we had)
• Toppings
• Quick pickled cucs and red onions
• Arugula greens we had
• little honey
• little mayo on the buns

Oven BBQ Brisket and Fixins for Xmas 2021!

MenU

BBQ Brisket:

• Night before:
• Rub with olive oil
• Spice rub mix:
• Salt 
• Pepper
• Brown sugar
• chili powder
• paprika
• mustard powder?
• garlic powder
• onion power
• thyme
• Day of:
• water pan in oven
• 250deg oven (no need to preheat)
• unwrapped on pam spray baking sheet (lay down wax paper)
• In @ 8:30am
• ~1.5hrs /lb - 6lbs so 7.5hrs or so?
• Check after 4 hrs...foil or paper wrap?
• meat thermo @175
• Once at temp, wrap and let rest ~30 mins

Coleslaw: (from seriously good eats website)

• 1 medium cabbage (about 2 pounds), outer leaves removed
• 3 medium carrots, peeled and shredded
• 1/2 cup loosely packed fresh parsley leaves, coarsely chopped
• 1 cup (170 grams) mayonnaise
• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar or more to taste
• 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard or coarse ground mustard
• 1 teaspoon celery seeds
• 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt or more to taste
• 1/4 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper or more to taste

Dinner rolls:

• recipe from Tasty

Mac and cheese:

• recipe from Half Baked Harvest

Salad:

• Greens from the garden
• pomegranate
• walnut 

Cornbread:

• Got that good ol Jiffy jawn

Chinese Egg Noodles - Lo-mein

 Homemade egg noodles with this recipe- the fold and cut is genius.

Lo mein roughly this recipe but we did a bunch of veggie in stead of chicken...so damn good. 

Of course we used the chili crunch we had just made on this dish, the main reason for making it really. 

BBQ Ribs - Oven Slow Roast Style

 Picked up some baby back ribs at Berkeley Bowl. Continuing on the slow cooked BBQ trend I've been on lately. 

I mostly followed the methods used in this Franklin BBQ Ribs 2 part youtube series. This guy was on Chef Show a little while back and is super detail oriented. 

Slow cooked at 265 for 2 hrs unwrapped and then 1.5 hrs wrapped in foil after basting in sauce. Sauce was a mix of a mustard bbq, standard bbq, and hot sauce. Wanted to make my own but was in a time crunch. 

These came out really fantastic. I think just 1000% better than any crock pot type version, and certainly easier to maintain temp in the oven than a grill.

whipped up some slaw, corn on the cob and some pickles Anna made from her garden cucumbers. 

Chili Crunch Condiment

Been wanting to try this for awhile. First attempt was good but two notable things I'd change:

-Not use ancho chiles, they are kind of chewy even when dried, not the best texture. 

-Cook the shallots slightly less, I overdid them ever so slightly but it gives them a hint of burn flavor. not bad but definitely would do them less. The garlic was the right amount - see pics. 

Roughly followed this recipe from Serious Eats

Used ingredients list more or less from the back of the momofuku chili crunch label, but only had chile de arbol and ancho chiles in the dried chili section of Berkeley Bowl - will try some others next time. 

It took a solid 2 hours to make it all...lots of peeling and deseeding and slicing involved. 

Definitely will do another batch with tweaks. Great stuff. 

What I had:

-grapeseed oil

-chile de arbol

-chile ancho

-garlic

-shallot

-salt, pepper, little bit of red chili flake, cumin, paprika, sugar

Have been putting it on everything...avocado toast was pretty epic

Korean Egg Bread

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8KbQv5CX5Q
These were great. So simple. 

Oven slow roasted pork butt...pulled pork

Loosely followed this recipe. Our thermometer is crap, I don't know that I trust it, but we cooked 1 2.5 lb pork but slab (bone in)  for something like 7 hours at 255 deg F.
It came out really excellent. I think it's the best pulled pork I've made yet. So much better than the crock pot.
I followed the direction on applying dry rub, wrapping it and setting in the fridge for 4 hours, then wrapping in tin foil for an hour to rest after the cooking. I don't know if those steps helped but it came out great.
Whipped up a quick slaw with red cabbage, carrot, red onion, jalapeno, dijon, applecidervinegar, lemon juice, salt pep.

Burrata Cheese

Burrata...it's basically ricotta and heavy cream wrapped in mozzarella.. who knew?

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/how-to-make-burrata_n_6331216

https://www.brit.co/diy-burrata-kit/

Herbed Table Butter

Seems similar to cheese making with the rinse step.
Going to follow this one. about as easy as it gets. worked great.

Hawaiian Rolls

King Arthur Flour Recipe
These came out pretty damn good tasting but were not as stretchy/fluffy...a bit more crumbly

Dutch Crunch Rolls

I followed this recipe pretty much exactly.

The result was certainly tasty bread but not quite the thing you get at SF delis. The top cracked in much larger islands. We slightly undercooked it.
Possibly the batter added on top was too thick? Possibly adding more oil to that mixture?

Homemade Tortillas! 50/50 flour corn mix - Also DIY tortilla press

Flour/corn 50/50 mix tortillas
Here's the recipe I used this time

Also hacked together an 8" tortilla press out of plywood and shit that was laying around in the basement.

Tortillas a bit thicker than your store bought version out of this press but really good! The 50/50 mix is really nice. Miley Cyrus best of both worlds.

Cheeseboard's Green Sauce: Papi Chulo

Cheeseboard is a Berkeley landmark we go back to over and over.
Different pizza every day but same green sauce dispensed into little paper cups
I think I probably eat equal parts green sauce to pizza.
Someone online even posted a recipe! Made it and it was close but spicier than the real deal. Will back off the peppers next time.

Forgot to take a pic....next time too!

• 3 bunches cilantro with stems (washed)
• 1 bunch flat leaf parsley
• 5-6 serrano peppers ( with seeds)
• 1-2 jalapeño peppers (with seeds)
• 3-4 cloves garlic
• 2 teaspoons rice vinegar
• 3 tablespoons dijon mustard
• juice of 2 limes
• juice of half lemon
• juice of 1 orange
• 1 1/2 cups olive oil
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1/2 tablespoon salt
• 1/2 tablespoon pepper

Lattes at home

Was never one for fancy coffee drinks but hell if you can do them at home and have a slow Sunday morning, why not!?

-Used a Moka pot to make the coffee/espresso.
-Warmed milk in a sauce pan
-Used a french press to froth the milk - seems rule of thumb is to double the volume of the milk, I went ever so slightly too far and some of the frothy milk was damn near whipped cream (not the worst thing)

Add coffee, add frothy milk, add a tiny pinch of sugar. Damn nice coffee drink at home.
Maybe go full fancy and try that latte art next time.

Habanero and things HOT SAUCE

Habanero Hot Sauce
Cooked all the peppers and things in a pan for ~15 minutes before blending, mixing in vinegar, lemon, cilantro, salt and jarring.
Hot as hell. Will try this with the diy tortillas and bean and cheese burritos tomorrow!

• habanero 5x
• shishito 3x
• jalapeno 1x
• serano 1x
• thai chili 2x
• celery 2x
• garlic 3x
• red and white onion 3/4x?
• lemon juice
• vinegar
• salt

 

Pot Pies! Pancetta, White Bean, Swiss Chard

From the Smitten Kitchen cookbook and found here 

So dang good. We used pastry dough from the store to save time this Thursday night. Anna got her nails done.

NY Everything Bagels

Followed this guys simple recipe, but added a splash of molasses to the water yeast sugar mixture. Had seen that added in some other recipes instead of sugar.

DIY Olive Oil....sorta

Harvested a barrel of olives from the neighbors tree across from us on Aileen.
We worked long and hard and the result was about a half cup of precious olive oil!
It tasted fine, honestly nothing special and we kept it so sacred that it ended up going bad before we finished it. oy! A real learning experience! I'll gladly pay to have this one made for me!

Muscles! Harvested on the Big Sur Coast.

Camping with Jeff Coogan and Anna. Harvested some muscles after trying a few spots. Cooked up with butter, onions, garlic, lemons

Zuchini Bread (just like the way my mom made it, and her mom before her!)

Zuchini Bread (just like the way my mom made it!):

Ingredients:

2 Cups grated zuchini

3 eggs

1 tsp. of vanilla

3/4 Cup of oil (Vegie or Canola)

2 Cups of sugar

3 Cups of flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. cinnamon (you could also add a little nutmeg if you want)

1 small can of pineapple juice (you can add crushed pineapple to it to if you want)

Grease loaf pans (this should be enough for two) and bake in 325 degree preheated oven for approximately 1 hour.

Hot Chicken Katsu

Spicy Chicken Katsu recipe that inspired this

Flour spice mix

• flour
• cayenne
• garlic powder
• paprika
• tiny bit of brown sugar
• salt and pep

Dredge

• 2 eggs
• sriracha
• vinegar
• garlic chilli sauce

Breading

• panko
• garlic super finely diced

Topping salad:

• iceberg lettuce
• garden greens
• lemon juice

Spicy Mayo: 

• mayo
• chopped fine pickled onions and peppers
• salt and pepper
• garlic chilli oil? or something similar? hot sauce?

Papusas!

• Papusas
• pork shoulder?
• beans - refried or black
• cheese
• peppers
• onions
• 
  
• Curtido (cabbage slaw)
• cabbage
• carrots
• Boiling water
• white vinegar
• Red salsa
• tomato
• onion
• serano chili
• cilantro
• salt pep
• blend, simmer down, cool
• Green salsa
• tomatillo
• garlic
• jalapeno
• onion
• garlic
• olive oil
• Guacamole
• avocado
• tortilla chips
• Meyer Lemon Margaritas
• tequila
• lemons from the tree
• salt the glass rim

Lemon Ricotta Pancake

Bisquick mix
-substituted ricotta for milk (1 cup)
-added veggie oil and vanilla per bisquick recipe
-3 generous splashes of milk

Ended up very dense, don't add vanilla next time, less ricotta - maybe half ricotta half milk

Baklava and Filo Dough!

Inspired by a binge session of Great British Baking Show

2 part video series
Filo dough recipe
Baklava recipe

Baba Ghanoush

It is hummus, but with one substitution, baked eggplant instead of chick peas. Who woulda thunk? That easy.
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/236310/traditional-baba-ghanoush/

Potstickers

On the brand new stove installed at Aileen street this morning.
Anna picked up potsticker shells at Berkeley Bowl over the weekend so we're giving it a try today.


Research:
Quick rundown from Alton Brown on the cooking method

Mac n Cheeses

corn avocado mac

Anna's bacon..cant remember what else, mac

Simple Homemade Ice Cream

Made while back home in CH with Mom. Turned out well, Though I think I need to cover it. It had a tiny tad of that freezer burn taste. 

Pork Belly Bao (Steamed Buns)

Another steamed bun attempt
Here's the recipe were loosely following.

We did pork loin steamed buns two nights ago and have left over dough, now to try the more time intensive pork belly version. Also that interesting cooking of the pickled veggies by pouring hot oil on them.

Small bit of salt, pepper, sugar, and a bay leaf in the bag.
Sous vide loosely maintained at ~160 deg F for ~7 hrs.

Took it out, dumped the juices in a pot and reduced them with some brown sugar and hoisin in a pot. brushed on and threw it in the broiler. I think the broiler is not the way to go. all the glaze fell off and it seemed to not crisp quick enough. Took it out and used the pocket rocket stove to "blow torch" the outside, it cracked and popped like crazy. Much better.

Cut into it and it was great. The fat was broken down and soft and delicious. I took a few pieces and on high tossed them with some vinegar, and hoisin to give them a bit of a glaze. I think I'd do that to them all for this application next time. Note, the meat itself before this was already really great. We made bfast sammys with it the next day.

Steamed buns in the bamboo steamer. They came out a bit better. Next time I think don't roll the dough out as thin to get fatter puffier buns. Dont roll after folding, just push shut.

Dumping hot oil on the pickles wasn't necessary or that cool and made them a bit oily, so we went back to regular pickles for the sammys.


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