Robbie, A Cooker @Alamantus@kitch.win

Whoa, I've been watching these two chefs on YouTube for about a year now, and I'm actually absorbing things from it just listening and watching! I've never really baked anything (especially without a recipe), but today I wanted to try baking something and it turned out shockingly well! At least, shockingly well for me having just ad-libbing it.

Ended up with a little sweet loaf using 1 cup of flour, ~2+ tbsp sugar, 1/2 tsp baking powder, a small handful of chocolate chips, 1 egg, a few punches of salt, a little less that 1 tbsp melted coconut oil, and ~4+ tbsp water! I just combined the dry ingredients, then mixed in the wet ingredients until I had a loose, sticky dough.

Then I let it sit for a little while, maybe 15–20 minutes(? Longer probably would have been better but I was impatient), to let the flour hydrate. I greased a bread pan well with some more coconut oil and poured the dough in, spreading it all the way to the sides and trying to make sure there weren't air pockets in it. (This small amount of dough doesn't fill a bread pan very deep, and the end result only rises a little bit, maybe double the height.)

Then I put it in the oven, which was preheated to 350℉, for an hour, and out came a tasty little treat with a slight crust on the bottom!

My partner found this recipe for a "Mexican street corn pasta salad" for dinner today, and it turned out surprisingly good!

https://midwestfoodieblog.com/mexican-street-corn-pasta-salad/

The sauce is really tart by itself (and that's after I added some extra seasoning to it beyond what the recipe called for), but once it's combined with the pasta, corn, and cheese, it balances out surprisingly well.

Also, the recipe doesn't say what to do with the corn, so I'd recommend mixing it into the cooked and drained pasta so it can warm up (or thaw if you're using frozen charred corn as suggested) before it's cooled again.

Today I learned that you can cook eggs into a satisfying little puck in the microwave in about a minute:
https://eggs.ab.ca/recipes/basic-microwaved-eggs/

I cooked mine in a microwaveable coffee mug with cooking spray and salt as recommended in the article (piercing the yolk and white is pretty important, too), but just covered it with a paper towel instead of plastic wrap, then I sprinkled a little pepper on it.

It came out fully cooked after the 40 seconds on high and a 30 second rest, but I flipped it for another 10 seconds to firm up the yolk a little more. (My microwave is 1000 watt—the higher yours is, the less time you'll need and reverse for lower wattage.)
It's a cooked egg, but in a manageable puck form without any extra kitchen tools for shaping it in a pan! I'm definitely gonna be using this method for breakfast sandwiches and such in the future.

I believe this will also work if you scramble the egg in the container before cooking it, which could lead to some interesting results, but I haven't tested it.

Hell yeah, that's way better. Japanese curry over rice with all the fixins: onions, beef, carrots, and potatoes. It was amazing and I'm a very happy guy.

My partner is out of town so I'm on my own for food, which means I can make stuff for myself that I don't usually eat when I'm with her. I went to the supermarket to get some ingredients for beef stew, but found this beef roast kit instead with a powder for the sauce and decided that was better because I hate putting a lot of effort into my own food! I just plopped the whole thing into my pressure cooker, took a walk with the dogs, and 45 minutes later, it came out pretty nice, if a bit plain. It smelled good though.

I decided to make a night of it and grabbed one of the cheapo cigars I got from this deal I found online and a little bit of my 12 year Glenlivet scotch, sat outside in the nice night weather, and listened to My Brother, My Brother, and Me while I enjoyed.

Gotta say, this sort of spread is really not my thing. The only cigars I've had before the one tonight were ones I brought home from Cuba a couple years ago, and this one was not great by comparison (which is probably not a fair comparison, but still). Plus I didn't want to waste it so I smoked the whole thing over the course of a little more than an hour, even though I should have definitely stopped half an hour earlier than I did. The aftertaste and I guess a nicotine rush(?? I got lightheaded and slightly shaky and a teensy bit nauseous?) kinda soured the whole experience for me. I had to wash to get the smoke off my hands and out of my beard, but the aftertaste is still lingering in my mouth after a thorough brushing and swishing... I think if I stopped earlier I could have spared myself some of the negative experiences and enjoyed a more appropriate amount of tobacco. (I'm no expert, but maybe going from zero tobacco to a full cigar in a relatively short time is not a great idea.)

To make things worse, the scotch did not pair well with the food or the cigar like I thought it would, which is a bummer. But you can't win them all. Live and learn or whatever.

So yeah, I'm gonna be sticking to things I know I for sure like the rest of the time my partner is gone: Japanese curry with white rice, peanut butter and jelly, and Taco Bell. My digestive tract will be in shambles by the end, but I'll be a happy man!

Why have I been repeatedly told that using oil doesn't cause pasta to stop boiling over when it CLEARLY DOES??

Like literally look with your eyes! Watch as the oil immediately stops it from boiling over!!!

As ugly as it got, it was still somewhat pretty and it tasted amazing!

Oh no

What do we do when we're hungry late at night? Random stuff stir-fry!

I had some leftover rice fried in some coconut oil and sesame oil, an egg I accidentally cracked last week, some of the bell peppers I grew that I still haven't eaten, a green onion I got from HelloFresh last month, some full-sodium teriyaki sauce we don't use anymore, and some red chili paste! No precise amounts allowed!!!

Plus bonus pickled plums from a friend that have been in my fridge for too long!

#recipe #leftovers #stirFry