Shrimp Fried Rice

Leftover Rice...  Yup...  We make Nomnoms...

This wound up being creamy like a Risotto, and less like a Chinese Fried Rice, where the Rice grains are more separated, and harder.  I started with some chopped red Cabbage and white Onion in a ripping hot stir fry pan, with a couple tablespoons of Olive Oil..

Fried Rice needs to move really fast because its cooked with the Wok Method, high heat, and quick service.  So, everything needs to be prepped ahead of time, and ready to go when the food hits the pan.

Next to go in is two cups of leftover white Rice, and a few cloves of chopped garlic.  Stir the Rice in thoroughly, and keep it moving so he Garlic doesn't burn.  You want to get the Rice coated with the Olive Oil and thoroughly mixed in.  Keep it moving, go quickly...

Then make some space in the middle, and add an Egg.  Give the egg a little time to start to cook, and then continue moving the mixture around.

Next we add some seasoning.  I used Fish Sauce, Sesame Oil, and Rice Wine vinegar.  Again, keep it moving, you don't want to burn the Garlic.  Stir Fries are Kinetic.  Move it, go fast...

At the very last add some cold boiled Shrimp, and just heat it through.  Don't cook it again.

Right before you serve the Shrimp Fried Rice add some chopped Cilantro, and put it in the serving bowl post haste.  I usually serve this with some Sambal, and Soy Sauce on the table.

Glazed Oak and Grillcakes

Ice Storms are so much fun.  Snow Day!  LOL!  Our power was out when we woke up this morning, so that was a little concerning.  First thing I did was to get Harley in the Truk, and trekked out to find come hot coffee.  He loves zooming (riding in the Truk) and today was especially fun slipping around on the ice.  What I noticed when we were out was all the glazed trees.

This is the Oak Tree in the back corner of the yard, its relatively young, so its really bent over right now.

Glazed birdhouse on the fence.

This is a glazed Rosemary plant, this one is pretty neat.

This is the neighbors Crepe Myrtle, also glazed.  Harley and I went for our normal walk around the block on the ice, and its not as slippery as you might think.  We had maybe three inches of freezing rain, and sleet.  The temperature outside was below freezing, so its like walking on small pebbles, krunchy pebbles.  After the walk we were hungry and I had to do some survival cooking to make breakfast, power was still off.

I built a fire in the fireplace to warm the house, and wound up doing some cooking on it.  The wood we are burning is Oak logs that I saved from when we trimmed the big Oak Tree back in the spring.  I had the Landscape Artist cut the big limbs into smoker sized pieces.  I have finally smelled the burning Live Oak, and I will definitely be using it to smoke meats.  I think I like it better than Hickory...  LOL!

To make the Grillcake batter I needed melted butter, and that is what I was doing at the fireplace.  Once the batter was ready I put a cast Iron Griddle on the Baby Q, then made a mess of Grillcakes.

Once I was at it I thought maybe I need some Sausage and Eggs too.By this time the power was back on, but I figured that I've already taken this route, might as well finish it this way.  It wasn't all fun this morning tho.

The ice had built up on one side of the umbrella, knocked over our newly refinished table, and broke the Christmas lights.  The umbrella was already pretty beat up, and I think this Ice Storm has finished it off.

Hot and Sour Burger

I think this is my most exciting leftover Burger yet.  I had made Burgers for lunch yesterday, and had some leftovers to play with.  I was thinking about making a Mushroom sauce for them last night.  The Mushroom sauce morphed into Hot and Sour soup in process, and the Tex-Asian Fusion has happened again...

Back to the Burger, I added chopped Onions and Jalapenos to the Beef.  Then to help bind the Burger together I added some bread crumbs and an egg.  Then some seasonings like Black Pepper, and Tony Chachere's Season Salt.  There is some Worcestershire sauce in there too.  Lately I've been using the Baby Q to do quick Burgers.  Its a gas grill so I can get a really high temperature and sear the outside of the Burgers correctly.  I have the process optimized at about two and a half minutes per side.

 This results in a medium well done burger.  I'm still tuning this process.  OK, on to the Hot and Sour part.  I saute the sliced Mushrooms and Onions in some Olive Oil.  The Hot part is Red Chile.  Then I'll prepare a slurry of Corn Starch, Caldo de Pollo, and Vitalized Water, around a cup.  This is the soup part.  Then the Sour part is either Lemon juice, or Rice Wine Vinegar.

I guess I could call it Hot and Sour Mushroom sauce because it lacks all the things that Hot and Sour Soup would have like Bamboo Shoots, Slivered Pork, and Tofu.  I did add some Soy Sauce to enhance the Saltiness.

In hindsight I should of had something starchy with it like Egg Noodles, or Rice, and I substituted with some bread and chips.  I think I'll try it again tonight, got some more leftover burgers...

Guacamole Bacon Cheezeburger

Mmmm...  Cheezeburger...

Building stuff make me really hungry.  I just finished building the Rough Cedar Table and needed to get some Monkey Chow.  I've got a ripe Avacado, and a leftover half pound chargrilled burger.

I didn't have any Jalapenos so I substituted these Banana Peppers out of the garden for them.

My Guacamole has Onion, Tomato, some kind of Chile, Lemon juice and Salt.

Then a little leftover Bacon from breakfast.  Yellow mustard seems kinda weird for this combination.

This was a very messy burger, which is a good indication that it was really good...

Fire Roasted Salsa

I've been experimenting with Meso-American flavors again.  Fire, Chile, Onion...  Mediocre ingredients are transformed by the process into something that can be delicious nomnoms.  There is analogy to my Pizza here where modest, almost boring ingredients become really awesome because of the process.

I've whittled the list of ingredients down to where you can make a Pint at a time.  Two slices of a white onion, up to four fresh Jalapenos, up to three dry Cayenne Chile, a 14.5 ounce can of Whole Tomatoes, ground Comino (Cumin), and Sea Salt.  If you want Hot Salsa add all of the ingredients.  If you wand mild Salsa then I have further instructions below.

Here is the Fire Roasting part.  Crank up the gas grill to high, and char the slices of Onion, and Chiles.

While the Chiles are roasting put the Tomatoes, two teaspoons of ground Comino, and two teaspoons of Sea Salt in the food processor.  Use a culinary scissors to chop the Cayenne Chiles into smaller pieces.  To reduce the heat level use one Cayenne Chile instead of three, but there needs to be at least one in there.

In the meantime the Chiles have been getting happy.  I pulled the Onion off already.

When the Chiles come off the fire seal them in a plastic bag for fifteen minutes.

The Tomato mixture in the food processor gets pureed, and these parts will come together.  I'll dice up the grilled Onions, and add them to the puree.  The Chiles will need a little more work...

When the Chiles are roasted they produce steam internally.  The outer skin of the Chile is water proof, and the steam will not go through it, so they puff up and steam from the inside out.  The skin is charred from the fire, and not really appetizing, so we will remove them.  Letting the Chiles steam in the plastic bag loosens the skin, and makes it easier to remove.

OK, here we have removed the Chile skins, and are ready to prepare the Chiles for the Salsa.  This is where you can take the heat out of the Chile.  we have cooked the Chile and it is very pliable right now, and we can filet it easily.  We will remove the Calyx, and then slice the Chile down one side.

Then We'll splay the Chile out so that all its insides are up.  This exposes the seed membranes and seeds,  Now you can use the Knife to remove the seed membranes and seeds easily.  Then dice the remaining Chile flesh, and add it to the Salsa.

There are those who don't like the heat, and you can make very mild Salsas using this method to take the heat out of the Hot Chiles you use to make Salsa.  You can also tune the heat using this method.  For example I am making this batch Hot, so I am leaving the seed membranes and seeds in two of the Jalapenos
 I am adding to this batch.  I got a need for the heat...

Then there are few additional details at then end that are more spontaneous like Cilantro, or some citrus juice.  This time I am adding some chopped Cilantro.  Depending on the occasion there are a number of flavor bias that can be added, like Camerones, dry Cranberries, Garlic, or Bhut Jolokias...

This one has three dry Cayenne Chiles, four Jalapenos, two with seeds, so it is pretty hot.

But with this one you can dial the heat in, and make it your favorite...

Garlic Dill Sour Pickles 2

These are the Garlic Dill Sour pickles a week in, well 8 days.  A couple days ago I made a bottle of Garlic Jalapeno Sour Okra Pickles also.  The bottles are open on top and the the Garlic Dill aroma is strong around the bottles in the corner of the kitchen counter.  The Home Grown bottle seem to be doing better than the store bought bottle.  The home grown bottle brine is clearer than the store bought bottle.  Also the home grown bottle is outgassing while the store bought bottle not so much.  Its making me hungry thinking about them.  I'll try them soon...

Garden Fence 3

I've had the time to work on the fence again.  Both the gates were a bit wonky, and needed to be adjusted.  The North gate hinge post was canted tward the ground, and made the gate, uh funny.  So I adjusted the hinge post about three degrees, and corrected it.  The South gate was just a bit too wide.  So I took it apart and adjusted its width by half an inch to make it fit right,

Then I got busy with the Redwood stain.  I tried a little of this stain here and there, and it started to look good, so I kept going.  We only bought a gallon, but it was more than enough to cover the outside of the fence, part of the greenhouse, and the patio furniture.  It will take another gallon to finish the greenhouse and the other side of the fence.

The garden is looking a lot better, but not where I want it yet.  I'm still pushing around ideas, and getting ready to transition to the winter garden.  The Thai Basil pops up wherever it likes, so I pull them out regularly, like weeds.  The Chiles are not nearly up to standard.  Both them and the Tomatoes like a nice, cool, early planting.  What I planted this year wasn't in the ground until June. or July, so they never got a firm foundation.

The large plants in the background are the Cayenne Chiles, the one thing that got planted early enough to root well before it got hot.  On the left side along the fence are Cucumbers, and I did get enough to make a jar of Pickles.  I've recently planted Turnips, Radishes, Lettuce, and beans, which are all pretty small right now, and suffering in the heat.  Over the next few weeks temperatures should be coming down, and we should get some more precipitation, so things are looking up for the garden.