No man is meant to eat that much meat in one setting.
So I wonder if that makes me superhuman.
Tag Archive: meat
Making space in the freezer
Going into this weekend I made a mental note to use some of the meat I had in my freezer. I have a couple of packs of meat in there that have sat around for a long while. I’ve just been waiting for a moment where I feel inspired. It finally came when I visited the grocery store earlier today. I got a fair number of fresh items and that kind of prompted me to cook just so that my fridge and freezer wouldn’t be so cramped. I decided to cook pork chops. I didn’t really decide on what to do to spice them, so I started out with salt and pepper. I then followed with onion and garlic powder. Smoked paprika was next. I think I would have left it at that, but I wanted to add more. In the end I went for brown sugar and coarse mustard. I figured the sweetness and sharpness would work well together and brown the meat nicely upon pan-frying. I was going off instinct. In the end, I was right. The meat turned out really well.
Very tasty. I cooked the whole pack so there were three pieces. Saving one for later. If I’m being honest, it’s probably not likely that I’ll get into a nightly habit and cook so that I’ll bring in food for the next day, but if I do it’ll be worth it. Just need to keep rocking it.
Reputation as the eater
At what point do I decide that I want a reputation as a heavy eater? Yes, I eat lots. Good food is something that should be enjoyed. It’s not like I’m particularly out of control, otherwise my weight would have ballooned out of control, right? And given that I’ve put a lot of effort lately into actually losing weight, the reputation seems to be a bit of a mismatch. Except…it’s not a mismatch at all. Part of what’s helped my weight loss is certainly the fact that I run. One reason I burn calories is that I want to be able to eat more. It’s been good.
At team lunches, I don’t feel too shy going for it. Today we went to Korean BBQ to welcome the new team member. We had enough people to take two grills. As a result, there was a bit of a competition between grills. Who could order more? Who could eat more meat? In the end, we won. We were an efficient eating machine. For dessert, we were given a choice between green tea ice cream and mango ice cream. I was one of two people that opted for a scoop of both. Heh. And when all was said and done I feel like I still got the bigger rep as the guy that can down more. I haven’t decided whether I’m comfortable with this reputation.
After the heavy meal I didn’t really plan on eating dinner. In fact, when I got home I felt a big urge to burn some calories so I did an 8K run around my place. I can deal with the eating as long as I work hard to allow it. Why? Eating less or eating less-than-tasty food is just no damn fun.
Roast pork loin
I really need to get back into putting a lot of effort into cooking. Back when I first moved into this place I really cooked every night using fresh stuff. Just as a matter of necessity, lately I’ve been relying on boxed meats and bagged veggies. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. It’s just that it’s not as satisfying as making something from scratch. So, last time I went grocery shopping I purchased a sizable boneless pork loin roast. It’s a lot for one person, but of course I was planning on saving it after cooking and eating it over multiple meals. It was just a matter of time before I got to it. Today, two weeks later, I was in a bit of a funk so I decided to bring it out to make myself something awesome for dinner.
So, a while back I saw someone on Food Network preparing pulled pork. I decided to use that as the basis for tonight’s meal. I always wanted to try out making pulled pork, but after having a look at the recipe I knew that I didn’t have 6 hrs to spend cooking the thing. Instead, I decided to just use the dry rub as a basis. I started following the recipe, but soon that fell apart. I started adding and modifying things to make it my own. I didn’t have dry mustard, so I just used the horseradish mustard I had in the fridge. It wasn’t in the list, but I added a lot of honey, chili flakes for heat, and a little thyme. Using the paste, I just covered the meat, and then set it all aside in the fridge while I went out for my run. When I got back, I heated the oven up and just put it in. The results were just plain awesome.
I now have no reason to not brown bag it to work tomorrow. The taste of the spice rub is there, but it doesn’t hit you over the head to announce its presence. I’m very pleased with how it turned out. I know that it’s a recipe I can do easily. What do you think?
Learning from culinary failure
Maybe, due to all of the food posts I have on this blog, or on my Twitter account, it might seem like I have this whole thing down pat. Well, it should be obvious that this all takes hard work. I’m still very prone to making some big mistakes when baking or cooking. Each time I kind of get down on myself about it, telling myself things like “I should have known better!” Then it settles in that I have to end up eating the darn lot, which sometimes just compounds the whole thing. No matter the case, each time this happens it’s a learning experience and I end up becoming a stronger cook.
I often tell myself that I need to learn how to make more Filipino style home cooking. Sure, I can visit my parents whenever I’m in the mood for it, but I still want to learn it for myself. Years from now it’ll be up to me to carry these things forward, right? A little while ago I wanted to make some chicken and pork adobo. I cut up all of my meat, added all of the ingredients and stuck it all in a plastic container to marinate overnight. Knowing this, I added some extra liquid thinking that it would help soften things. It was going to be awesome! The next evening I dumped it all into a pot and started simmering the heck out of it. The liquid was taking forever to reduce. Thirty minutes became ninety. As time passed, I noticed that the chicken was starting to fall apart. At first I kind of laughed, but over time it got worse. By the time all of the liquid ran dry all of the chicken was pretty much shredded and the pork was starting to go too. Well, that was a failure. I was really disappointed at it all. I called my mom about it and told her that I was letting it simmer for almost two hours. She told me that it really should have been cooked for only 30 minutes. Next time I should use less liquid. Well, duh, right? If it all fell apart, of course it meant that I boiled it way too long. Maybe I should have used bigger cuts of chicken too. Oh well. Next time I know what to do, and it’ll be awesome.
A week or two ago I made some cranberry pecan orange shortbread cookies. They turned out extremely well. I feel kind of bad that I didn’t take pictures of them. They were truly awesome, and everyone that I gave them too seemed to enjoy them. I even had one person tell me that it was simply the best cookie she had ever tasted. I was floored and told her “those are some pretty big words.” She insisted though, so who am I to argue? Those shortbread cookies require me to chill the dough for a while, roll it out and use a cookie cutter. Anyway, tonight, I’m not sure what came over me but I had an urge to bake cookies. I didn’t want to do the shortbread cookies again, but I had the right things for that chocolate chip cookie recipe I posted on this blog. I also had left over pecans from the last cookie recipe, so I settled on making chocolate chip pecan cookies. Since the shortbread method worked so well, I decided to do the same for this recipe. I made the dough and chilled it. Hours later I rolled it out, cut out circles and put them in the oven. The first batch surprised me. After 8 or 9 minutes I was about to take them out but I noticed that they were still shiny. As such I left them in the oven for another minute or two. After 10 or 11 minutes they were still shiny. At 13 minutes I just took them out. The resulting cookies were flat, crispy, and brown. I wasn’t happy with them. With the second batch, I cut the time down to 11 minutes. I figured that the warmth of the oven might be better now after having done one batch. Well, the results were also flat and crispy, just not as brown. For the third batch, I cut it down to 9 minutes. The results were flat and crispy, but pale. What the hell was going on?
Last time I made these cookies, the results were awesome; these were just embarrassing. I knew that the big difference was cooking method. So, while the third batch was in, I took all of the cookies I had precut and balled them back up. I put them on the pan and flattened them a little bit. The resulting cookies looked better, but still not exactly what I wanted. I was planning on taking pictures of these cookies, but I’m passing this time around. When I balled up the dough, it worked out a little bit better, but I think the act of rolling out the dough changed the character. I don’t think chilling made too much of a difference. It looks like chocolate chip cookie dough is more suited to a drop style of baking. Shortbread uses more butter and flour and seems to need chilling and rolling. Next time I do these cookies I’m just going to ball the dough right away and bake them without chilling. Now I’ve got 30 or so cookies that I need to get through over the next while. I’m going to have to figure out ways to fit these into the diet. Hah.
So yeah, I’m still learning. Cooking and baking are great skills to have, and I think I’m lucky to have the mind and patience for both. I’m only going to get better with time. Hopefully that will mean less spectacular failures and more successes to share with everyone.
Return to beef stew
Lately, just due to my schedule and my change in eating habits I haven’t really had much of a chance to cook or bake some good comfort food. Often, by the time I get home I’m lacking the caloric buffer or just the time to put in the effort. Anyway, last time I went to the grocery store, I decided to buy some stewing beef. I was determined to make a stew of some sort sooner rather than later. I just needed the time. Well, after having the meat sitting in the fridge, mocking me for not getting around to using it, I finally decided to make today the day.
Just like I did in September I made a batch of caldereta from a sauce mix. I didn’t have any of the traditional veggies for it, so I just used what I had in my fridge and freezer. I even did the whole sauteed garlic and onion thing even though it wasn’t required. Anyway, after a great deal of tweaking this is what I ended up with.
It looks great, doesn’t it? It tasted awesome. I added a good deal of pepper so it had a nice kick to it. Yes, even though the sauce was packet based, I adjusted it enough to make it my own. The plus side is that I now have a couple of meals on reserve for the next few days whenever I feel too lazy to cook. Awesome!
Examining the grocery bill
I honestly need to be a little bit more careful when I go grocery shopping. The past few times I’ve gone I’ve ended up buying so much food. You’d think I was preparing for some big approaching natural disaster. OK, so maybe that’s an exaggeration. If I think about it, the last time I went grocery shopping was right after Thanksgiving. Still, was there really any reason me to fill up two of those black PC bags and a green bin? Really.
Perhaps it’s because I’m still in that phase where I’m stocking up on basics. For example, there would be no reason for me to buy olive oil every time I go out, right? That was $5.99. Meat is pretty expensive, too. Luckily one tray of meat tends to last for a few days. I bought bacon and separated it into 3-strip packages prior to freezing it. I don’t eat that daily, so it’ll last for around 3 weeks. Have you tried to buy boxed fish lately? I got a box of High Liner fish fillets, and that cost me $11.49. That’s ridiculous! I think I recall that being cheaper in previous years. Or perhaps I’m thinking of the really oily fish cuts–those tend to be cheaper. Even if they’re cheaper, it doesn’t mean I want them. A few weeks ago I bought a box of English-style haddock fillets. I’m sure that was cheaper than this box. Thing is, holy crap, that fish was ridiculously oily. I had to blot the pieces prior to eating them. Even after that, I just didn’t feel great eating them. In that case, the extra cost is worth it.
I wonder how much this new healthy streak is affecting what I’m getting. Remember how I was talking about buying a lot of fresh fruit before? I got carried away this time as well. Maybe it’s for the best. Some of the fruit I bought last week went bad and I had to bin it. I told myself that next time I get fruit I better work hard to eat it all before it goes to waste. Well, with that much in the fridge, I better make sure to get in the recommended servings of fruits and veggies or else it’ll be like I’m just tossing cash to the wind. Part of the solution is knowing what spoils quickly, and to plan to eat all that as soon as possible.
So, OK. All things considered, I guess I don’t have that much useless stuff on the list. Everything is stashed properly and should hold long enough for me to get to it. It’s part of the price of independence, isn’t it?
Meatloaf and peaches
Nothing too deep or introspective tonight. Instead I’ll end the month of blogging with some pictures of what I ended up cooking this evening. As I was trying to figure out what to make, I was really aiming for something simple. My mind was taking stock of the meats I had in the freezer, and somehow my mind settled on the ground beef. Immediately I knew that I wanted to do a better job on making meatloaf, in comparison to one that I’d put together maybe a week ago. This time I had the recipe off of the onion soup mix box. I had done that recipe in the past so I knew that it worked. Hell, I was sure that anything was better than the mishmash recipe I tried cobbling together before. So, all right, I had one item. I knew that I needed some sort of vegetable or fruit item. Again, my mind was scanning what I had in the fridge. I don’t know why, but my mind settled on the peaches I decided to buy last Tuesday. Instead of just cutting them up I kind of wanted to bake them. I wasn’t sure how, but after a quick Twitter consultation I decided to bake them with an oatmeal and brown sugar topping. I took a quarter cup each of brown sugar and oatmeal and mixed them with 3-4 tablespoons of margarine. I smeared that on quartered peaches.
I put the meatloaf in the oven first since its cooking time was about 70 minutes. The peaches were only supposed to take a half hour or so, so I just put them in with the meat with 30 minutes left on the timer. The result was that both turned out be absolutely awesome. The meatloaf was just right, although, I think it might be even better if I added something a little bit sweet to the mix like relish. The peaches were perfect. I knew that they’d do well with something creamy. All I had in the freezer was coffee toffee ice cream from Greg’s Ice Cream. I knew that’d be a perfect match, and I was absolutely correct. Holy crap, that was an awesome dessert.
So, I’ve got leftovers to last for a few meals. In the case of what I had made, I really don’t mind having leftovers at all. It’s all that good.
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