Lockdown Cuisine Thread

Love this thread!!!

 

Frittata...

 

I had a couple recent misfires, where I heard the machine nearly stalling while kneading, and, not wanting to burn it out, added some extra water, and ended up with dud bread.

Finally watched more closely and figured out when the motor is near stalling, it's not because the dough is too dry ... it's because it's already too wet and pasting itself to the sides of the pan.

 

I think my flour had picked up some humidity ... which would have increased its mass, had I weighed it, and tricked me into adding even more water.

I have mostly been getting good results by having a measuring cup with the recipe amount of water, but not quite dumping it all in until I see what the dough ball is going to do.

 

burritos tonight <urp>

 

Does it mark me as some kind of pathetic sybarite if I am thinking of buying a gadget to put fizz in drinks?

I've never been all that big on fizzy drinks, but the idea of a little lockdown-cuisine change-up is starting to appeal.

 

No it doesn't mark you.

One of the faster growing offerings at our local Krogers is the Seltzer Water aisle. It takes up one whole side of an aisle with Krogers itself even offering 6 different flavored seltzer waters. I am a big fan of Seltzer Water because of the calorie and sodium content = 0.

On the TV if I am not mistaken the are now marketing Seltzer Beer. This is a fast growing appealing side of the drink market right now.

 

The other thing I look out for is the added artificial ingredients. I try to stick with the ones that only contain carbonated water and flavor. If it contains any of the added potassium combinations or artificial sweeteners I had gotten so used to really sweet drinks it took a while to get over them. I'm much happier now that I'm not drinking all that artificial junk.

 

It seems like even the smallest/simplest/cheapest 'siphon' gadgets will do about a liter at a time, using an 8 g cartridge. Those seem to be gettable for around 50¢ a shot, and if I look around online for liter bottles of seltzer I seem to see around a buck a shot, so even at that rate there'd be some cost savings if not a lot to write home about. There would still be something in the waste stream for every liter. But recyclable steel? And a lot less to lug in from the car and find storage space for, compared to a case of seltzer bottles.

The simplest gadgets don't seem to have regulators at all. They just count on you leaving the right headspace, and using the right size CO₂ cartridge. Amazon reviewers who don't do that complain about the bottoms bulging out.

 

We had to drive down to Boston for essential business. On our way back, I stopped at a large Asian supermarket we usually shop every time we go to Boston. It was early morning on a week day, the store was near empty and we had no problem finding everything we wanted. The produces were well stocked, and most of the prices were as low as usual except a few things. I did not see any restriction on number of items a customer can purchase. Only changes since our last visit 4 months ago were required face mask, disinfectant at the entrance, signs and marks for social distancing inside of the store, all of which are now becoming a normal set up at any store.

We scored many fresh fruits and vegetables, frozen foods, hard to find food items, and most importantly rice. Picked up 150 lbs of our favorite brand medium grain rice. Although it was at a regular price almost 1.5 times as much as what they were selling 4 months ago on sale, it is still a very reasonable price than any other place we have looked at. We are now set for another lockdown for the next 3 months.

 

Is that some New England term I never picked up from my grandmother?

 

It's also after 4/20.

 

LOL. Yeah, that term is only for newer generation Bostonians with legalized cannabis. The term corrected to suit the older generation like us.

 

Is the sure sign of the day that all the snack food shelves are bare.

 

We're losing our chef this morning. Our future son-in-law finished his college semester online and has been called back to his job as a chef for Applebee's in California. It's been so nice to have him here for the last two months. He insisted on cooking almost all of the dinners as a thanks for letting him stay out here. He loves to create and fix dishes and he is quite talented.

Most of the dinner preps will now fall back on me. I enjoy cooking but I'm definitely not the wizard in the kitchen he is. We've been really spoiled.

 

Last night I whipped up a garlic butter baked cod. It's basically the same spread used for garlic bread (butter at room temperature, olive oil, multiple cloves of garlic, paprika, salt, finely chopped parsley mixed to make a paste) but spread on the fish. Slices of fresh lemon go on top of the fish before placing in the oven. Very tasty and moist.

Tonight it's Italian sausages prepared in the smoker using hickory wood chips.