food update
I have been making smashburgers. They are quick and tasty. I do need to get better at not smashing too much or late, or conversely forgetting to smash at all. Tonight's burgers weren't fully cooked despite 2.5 minutes on the skillet.
For bread I toss a couple thin slices of butter into the hot pan, and fry one side of a couple pieces of bread. Tasty.
I solve the smoke detector problem easily, because Renovation Hell does not *have* a smoke detector anywhere near the kitchen. It also doesn't have ventilation apart from open windows; I've been wearing an N95 while cooking, and retreating to a safe room to eat, to avoid the PM 600-999 that I measure.
I've been swinging from chicken drumsticks to chicken thighs. And expanding my repertoire from pan-fried (good) and oven-baked (meh) to tossing a thigh into my stew and letting it simmer until the meat falls off.
I also tried my first wet rub pan-fry the other night. Mixed dry powders, then ketchup and mustard, and pasted that on the thighs. On the one hand I ended up with nicely blackened pieces, without sending my air PM beyond 20. On the other hand, all the expected flavor was missing. Perhaps I simply didn't have enough seasoning; I'm used to simply coating pieces by sight, not apportioning into a container.
It's kind of annoying how good Mary's Gone Crackers are. I discovered them years ago when getting party food and knowing I had a gluten-free guest. Thing is, those crackers are not just wheat-free, they're (a) really really tasty, way more so than other crackers and (b) pretty expensive. I keep getting cheaper crackers, then being disappointed. Like, even herbal Triscuit is pretty meh by comparison.
A minor element of Frieren is Really Big Burgers and Really Big Hamburg Steak for a warrior's birthday. There's even an Anthology chapter with Frieren trying to cook the Hamburg (1 kg of beef! it really is huge.) I haven't gone that big, nor that authentic (you're supposed to mix in breadcrumbs and chopped onion) but I did make something like seasoned Hamburg, with beef or pork, and yeah it's tasty. And my first one did use a whole pound, though I only _ate_ half at once.
dump a pound of 80/20 beef in a large skillet, mix in garlic powder salt and black pepper, and smush it thin for fast cooking.
For fanfic writing I've developed a pipeline of writing Markdown -> using pandoc to generate HTML -> posting HTML to AO3. I only just remember that is an option here, too...
For bread I toss a couple thin slices of butter into the hot pan, and fry one side of a couple pieces of bread. Tasty.
I solve the smoke detector problem easily, because Renovation Hell does not *have* a smoke detector anywhere near the kitchen. It also doesn't have ventilation apart from open windows; I've been wearing an N95 while cooking, and retreating to a safe room to eat, to avoid the PM 600-999 that I measure.
I've been swinging from chicken drumsticks to chicken thighs. And expanding my repertoire from pan-fried (good) and oven-baked (meh) to tossing a thigh into my stew and letting it simmer until the meat falls off.
I also tried my first wet rub pan-fry the other night. Mixed dry powders, then ketchup and mustard, and pasted that on the thighs. On the one hand I ended up with nicely blackened pieces, without sending my air PM beyond 20. On the other hand, all the expected flavor was missing. Perhaps I simply didn't have enough seasoning; I'm used to simply coating pieces by sight, not apportioning into a container.
It's kind of annoying how good Mary's Gone Crackers are. I discovered them years ago when getting party food and knowing I had a gluten-free guest. Thing is, those crackers are not just wheat-free, they're (a) really really tasty, way more so than other crackers and (b) pretty expensive. I keep getting cheaper crackers, then being disappointed. Like, even herbal Triscuit is pretty meh by comparison.
A minor element of Frieren is Really Big Burgers and Really Big Hamburg Steak for a warrior's birthday. There's even an Anthology chapter with Frieren trying to cook the Hamburg (1 kg of beef! it really is huge.) I haven't gone that big, nor that authentic (you're supposed to mix in breadcrumbs and chopped onion) but I did make something like seasoned Hamburg, with beef or pork, and yeah it's tasty. And my first one did use a whole pound, though I only _ate_ half at once.
dump a pound of 80/20 beef in a large skillet, mix in garlic powder salt and black pepper, and smush it thin for fast cooking.
For fanfic writing I've developed a pipeline of writing Markdown -> using pandoc to generate HTML -> posting HTML to AO3. I only just remember that is an option here, too...