Robbie, A Cooker @Alamantus@kitch.win

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

I'm attempting a puff pastry-wrapped baked brie with a Kahlua-macadamia-maple sauce right now... wish me luck! I'll post pictures if it goes well and I don't forget.

Well, I didn't take a picture of it because I was hungry, but I was able to use some HelloFresh recipes I got for free in January to make pistachio rice with some paneer tikka masala! I didn't have some of the things in the original recipes because they were special things like "shawarma spice" and "cream sauce" so I used some of my own spices and figured out that the cream sauce was just a béchamel sauce! I remembered that Binging with Babish had a "Basics" episode on different styles of macaroni and cheese that included a béchamel sauce recipe as a base for one of the cheese sauces, so I used that to make the béchamel, and it turned out good!

Anyway, I was worried because at first the masala sauce and the spices in the pistachio rice didn't taste good, but I just needed to add more spices to the masala and some salt and chicken broth to the pistachio rice! After that, it was delicious. 😄

I'm sorry that I'm too lazy to write the whole recipe and process right now, but I wanted to write about it at least a little because I was happy with how it turned out.

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

Is there any actual tangible difference between grated cotija and Parmesan cheeses?

#cheese

@Louisa @Sissas I interacted with the 2 of you most on toomanycooks.social, so I wanted to let you know that kitch.win recently opened as a replacement of sorts in case you hadn't already heard!

I think you should be free to spread the word if there are others you think would want to know, right @guysoft? 😊

Here I am! Coming in hot from the unfortunately-ended toomanycooks.social! I'll probably copy some recipes and pictures from there at some point, but for now I'm just happy to have a new place to continue posting occasional food stuff and recipes!