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[GoingMyWay]

This is also a bit of a repeat, but this time we used an un-sliced hardwood smoked ham to go with scalloped potatoes, corn, and green beans.  I used my new 3qt saucepan to make the scalloped potatoes and finish them off in the oven.  I couldn't believe how cheap the ham was - only about $9 for a 7.72lb ham!

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I made Rice Krisipie Treats for dessert.

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[Gregor]

I made Rice Krisipie Treats for dessert.

These look interesting. As this topic increases my longing for death by calories... could you please elaborate a bit on how to produce that sweet poison?

Apart from that, I finally managed to make some pictures
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Even if it just was a quick test to see if that thing works...

 

[GoingMyWay]

Sure!  They're really very simple to make.  Kellogg's actually had an old television commercial saying how easy they are to make:

You just need to melt 3 tbsp of butter along with 10oz of marshmallows in a pot.  Then pour in 6 cups of Rice Krispies Cereal and stir until all the cereal is coated with melted marshmallow.  Spread the cereal mix into a well buttered pan (I like to use a silicon pan because you can easily plop the entire contents of the pan out onto a cutting board).  Now the real secret is to rub some more butter on your hands and then kinda press/rub the butter onto the top surface of the Rice Krispie Treats so the entire surface is lightly coated.  This keeps them from getting too hard.

Let the Rice Krispie Treats firm up for a bit before removing the monolithic piece onto a cutting board to slice into individual pieces.  My grandmother used to always make them in a glass baking dish, so in that case we'd just cut the squares directly in the pan.

 

[tomp]

Roasted Vegetables with Smoked Sausage is a very tasty meal, quick and easy to fix and has become a favorite in our house. I use cleaned and sliced red and green peppers, red onions cut into chunks, carrots and broccoli (the carrots and broccoli are blanched prior to roasting) - I toss the vegetables in a pan with olive oil, 1/2 tsp garlic salt and 1/4 tsp each of oregano, thyme and rosemary, kosher salt and black pepper to taste; spread the vegetables on a baking tray lined with aluminum foil, spread smoked sausage diagonally sliced about 3/8" thick and tater tots (the original recipe called for potatoes but I had a lot of trouble getting the right size so they would cook in the same time) over the top and bake in a 400 °F oven for 20 minutes or so - I find that the tater tots being fully cooked is a pretty good indication of the correct time. The original recipe calls for asparagus spears being added at the 10 minute mark, but were getting "shoestring" spears at the moment and they get badly over-cooked so we're leaving them out. I'm planning to try adding sliced yellow squash when they become more readily available.

The photo is of an earlier version using cut-up potatoes, the present version with the tater tots is way better than that as it gives very consistent results.

 

[GoingMyWay]

That looks good.  I like "one pot" recipes.  What kind of smoked sausage do you use?

 

[tomp]

That looks good.  I like "one pot" recipes.  What kind of smoked sausage do you use?

Eckrich Skinless Smoked Pork Sausage

 

[six-point socket II]

Hi!

self made, Belgian, shrimp croquettes (Garnaalkroketten). As starter. And then asparagus from the oven, young potatoes and a steak.

Kind regards,
Oliver

 

[GoingMyWay]

Eckrich Skinless Smoked Pork Sausage

Thanks for sausage brand!  I don't think I've ever tried Eckrich Smoked Sausage.  I'll have to look for that next time at the grocery store.

Hi!

self made, Belgian, shrimp croquettes (Garnaalkroketten). As starter. And then asparagus from the oven, young potatoes and a steak.

Kind regards,
Oliver

I love how your peeled potatoes always look!

We tried making Biang Biang Mian using America's Test Kitchen's recipe:

The hand stretching/pulling part certainly looks easier than it is.  I think part of the problem might have been using too high of a protein flour.  The split noodles sorta rolled up on themselves  on one edge and were thicker than they should have been.  It still tasted good and I actually liked the chew.  We also tried one truly "flat" noodle (we cut the rolled up edge off) and the texture was completely different.  We also made hot and sour soup to accompany the noodles.

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We also made oxtail pho in the Instant Pot.  Cooked for 4 hours on low pressure and then did natural pressure release overnight for like 10 hours.  This was much more streamlined versus needing to buy bones and different cuts of meat.

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Chocolate Mousse for dessert.  The whipped cream on top actually includes melted white chocolate in it.

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[GoingMyWay]

Saturday night we made Jacques Pepin's mustard glazed split chicken (https://www.kqed.org/w/morefastfoodmyway/episode204.html), with instant mashed potatoes, and broccoli.   Splitting the chicken really speeds up the cooking time.  It cooked on the stovetop for 5 minutes and then into a 425 degree oven for 40 minutes.

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Sunday, I cooked some baby back ribs.  I tried rubbing the rack with sriracha before sprinkling the rib seasoning on.  It imparted a nice heat to it. 

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Also made the grilled Vietnamese pork chops again.  Served the ribs with a "loaded" baked potato and salad with Russian dressing (I forgot to take a picture of the dressed salad, but I really like the Wishbone Russian dressing).

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We dressed the potato with this Irish butter that I'm also really liking. 

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[GoingMyWay]

I normally try to avoid posting the same thing twice.  We made pizza again, but this time I left the dough out on the counter for 1 hour to bulk ferment before dividing into 2 balls and refrigerating.

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I also pushed the dough out into a circle on the floured cutting board and let it warm up for 1 hour before stretching.

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I'm not sure if it was the bulk fermentation, the 1 hour warm up period, or the combination of both, but the dough was much easier to work with and easier to stretch out. 

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This time we used hand sliced pepperoni.  I think the really thin pre-sliced pepperoni would have been better as this was very greasy.

I had a bit a of hiccup trying to slide the pizza off onto the pizza stone in the oven.  This pizza's diameter was a little wider than last time so it was harder to slide off perfectly.  Some of the cheese went under the pizza, which more or less glued the back edge of the pizza to the stone.

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Using scissors to cut the pizza seemed even easier than the cheap little pizza cutter that we have.

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[six-point socket II]

Smoked Salmon with honey-lime glazing on Western Red Cedar board.

Got the recipe here, it's so simple, should be easily machine translatable. It's from "Sizzle Brothers" ->https://sizzlebrothers.de/lachs-grillen-mit-limetten-honig-glasur/

Less text, more pictures.

I bought half a Salmon and cut a nice piece from the middle for this.

First time using "Fischgewürz" -> Pre made "Fish spices" from an unquestionable source (https://www.ankerkraut.de )

There are glazings that look more interesting. ...

Watering the board. It will be 2 hrs. in total.

Getting everything ready.

"New potatoes" from the oven, with Oil, Garlic, Rosemary. (Yes, I need to clean the oven, but it's used every day here, so this happens. Grilled chicken, anyone? )

The last steps I completed outside, by the BBQ. Cut the salmon to the skin.

Glazing, glazing, glazing.

Pushing in the lime-halves.

Ready to go on to the Western Red Cedar board.

That's what the pre-roasted board looks like.

Salmon on the board.

And then, onto the BBQ.

Just some shots in between.

Ready to serve. Smoked Salmon on Western Red Cedar board with honey-lime glazing. In this case with a great Italian Rosè Spumante/ sparkling wine -> Aragosta.

Much later, self made Tiramisu.

It was fantastic, only thing I'd change next time, a bit more honey, I felt it was a little underrepresented.

Kind regards,
Oliver

 

[Gregor]

You realize that only showing these tasty looking things without actually inviting us over for dinner is evil, do you?  [big grin]

A little irritated by what the pre-roasted board looks like, is the heat that uneven on that grill?

 

[six-point socket II]

I apologize.  [big grin]

The heat is centralized, it takes a little time for it to spread. Back side, after it was all said and done.

Kind regards,
Oliver

 

[Cheese]

We dressed the potato with this Irish butter that I'm also really liking.

That Kerrygold butter has been a staple in our house for the last several years. It all started with Plugra and we then went down the rabbit hole from there.

Get some nice fresh bread, toast it and then butter it while hot with Kerrygold...so nummy.

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[Gregor]

We dressed the potato with this Irish butter that I'm also really liking.

That Kerrygold butter has been a staple in our house for the last several years.

Same here, simply as you're able to spread it at normal refrigerator temperature.

Same as you I stock up on it (into my deep freezer) whenever it's on sale.

 

[GoingMyWay]

Wow you guys really stock up on Kerrygold butter!  The tub of Kerrygold that I got should last us for a long time as we don't use it that frequently.  We buy our "regular" unsalted cooking butter in bulk from Costco in 4, 1lb boxes.

We used to use a butter crock like this:https://www.amazon.com/Original-Butter-Bell-Tremain-Collection/dp/B01BLXFK7C for super easy spreadability, but we didn't use the butter fast enough and it would either turn moldy or the butter would fall off into the water in the base.

 

[Gregor]

BBQ Sauce, the hot variety (not shown a similar batch of green pepper + whisky variation, but apart from the marking it looks nearly identical).

Production isn't that spectacular: steam some chopped onions in some oil, then add skinned tomatoes and slowly reduce in an open pot for the good part of a day, adding more and more tomatoes whenever the level in the pot fell enough to have room for more. Use an immersion blender to make short work of the parts that refuse to liquefy on their own, but not too fine.

Add nutmeg, cloves, allspice, garlic, salt, pepper, sugar (amount depending on sweetness of the tomatoes), vinegar, lemon juice and a good amount of port wine... finally it'll be canned for one hour at 95°C in Weck® glasses (50 and 160ml variants) so one can pull open a fresh one whenever needed without that much of a leftover (if any).

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Not as fancy looking as the nice things we're used to from Oliver... but people seem to generally like it as a companion for white and red meat on barbecue and the load will last about a year (till the last gets consumed, have not managed to keep them around long enough for them to spoil), depending on weather.

 

[Cheese]

Same as you I stock up on it (into my deep freezer) whenever it's on sale.

An interesting side note, our grocer normally carries Kerrygold in salted block, unsalted block, salted sticks and in the green tub. However, during this Covid-19 time, the supply of Kerrygold has been spotty and sometimes even non-existent. So most of the time, you don't have a choice of what style Kerrygold you want to purchase, it's strictly catch as catch-can.

How's the supply situation in Germany?

 

[GoingMyWay]

Yesterday we made cabbage rolls.  When I was a child, my dad took me to some Hungarian food festival at a church and we got the best cabbage rolls that I had ever had.  They were so good because it had a nice savory sauce.  I've ordered cabbage rolls at various places over the years, but I've never cared for any of them because the sauce is always too sweet for my taste.  I'm very happy with how they came out.  1lb of ground beef, 1lb ground pork, 1 cup of uncooked long grain white rice, 1tbsp salt, 1tbsp  pepper, and 1.5 tbsp sweet hungarian paprika, 1 large can of plain tomato sauce, 1 cup of water used to blanch the cabbage leaves, and 2 bay leaves.

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[Gregor]

Same as you I stock up on it (into my deep freezer) whenever it's on sale.

An interesting side note, our grocer normally carries Kerrygold in salted block, unsalted block, salted sticks and in the green tub. However, during this Covid-19 time, the supply of Kerrygold has been spotty and sometimes even non-existent. So most of the time, you don't have a choice of what style Kerrygold you want to purchase, it's strictly catch as catch-can.

How's the supply situation in Germany?

Except noodles, yeast and toilet paper that had been missing for a while (for no good reason)... boringly normal. Though I guess that will eventually change as my government continues to destroy our economy for no reasonable reason, hence I expect as fallout of that madness that some of the non-brands (not yet owned by The Cartel) to vanish... either permanently, or just temporarily till the owner stamp on the packaging has been changed and production switched to a new and improved formula that removes the reason why I bought it in the past...