Justin made a delicious, restaurant-quality chocolate lava cake from scratch last night. I am sure the weight I lost last week shot right back on after this. It was unbelievably rich.
Having a vegetarian Indian lentil and coriander soup tonight to make up for it. 
My healthy meal the other night was a lentil soup with tomatoes, coriander, and garlic. A splash of chili oil on top and some pepper flakes throughout added good spice.
My very not healthy breakfast today, cooked up for my mom’s birthday.
Justin made this carrot cake breakfast bake. The recipe described it as “carrot cake French toast”. Well, it is nothing like French toast but delicious anyway! Served with home fries, Canadian bacon (her preference), and “egg clouds”. Look them up. They are trending right now and very easy to make.
So I’m trying to make kimchi for the first time. I don’t have much fermentation experience so I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on ingredients. I didn’t go with fresh ginger, scallion, and garlic. I’m trying to use things I have. My goal is to try and learn about fermentation. If it comes out edible, I will be happy lol. I got this Napa cabbage at 3.23 lbs for 1.69 a pound at foodtown. Wish me luck! I will report back in a few days once it is done. My pound of Korean chili came in today from amazon
You need to check out the Route 9 Farmer’s Market. There’s one in Freehold & 1 in Sayreville. Home of cheap produce & eggs. But - looks good so far. I’m watching to learn here.
Hey John. I just jarred it up. I have three fermenting now. You’re the veteran lol. I’m just fooling around.
Nice!!! And once your kimchi is done you can make all kinds of fun dishes like kimchi fried rice!
I didn’t even think about that. Do you have any recipes? I’m hoping this comes out well. I didn’t measure anything except for the fish sauce. I put 1 tb spoon of fish sauce in each jar. The rest I just used judgement when I mixed up the batch. It was fun making this. I’m sure I will try it again even if this batch isn’t good. Oh and I put some of the lower stalk parts into pickle brine. I polished off a jar of pickles last night and decided to throw some of the bigger parts of the cabbage into the juice. We will see how that experiment works lol
That looks pretty much exactly like kimchi to me. I’ve got my popcorn & I’m in the front row for this. How much liquid is in the jars - kinda hard to ell from the pics.
The two mason jars pictured probably have half an inch. The third jar is different and probably has 3/4 inch or maybe 1.
I was surprised at how much the cabbage shrinks once salted. Contrary to some Internet recipes I read, I didn’t wash the cabbage after salted. I like salty food so hopefully this isn’t too salty. This is why I didn’t want to buy a bunch of fresh ingredients. I let it soak for about 5 hours and turned it a few times. Kosher salt.
I have no clue what I’m doing but I have some experience with pickles and jalapeños. The pickle jar above is just a thought I had to save some cabbage. Maybe it will be good but who knows.
I didn’t add any liquid to the jars. The cabbage puts out a lot of water when salted. It is tightly packed in there, very tight. Tomorrow I morning I’m going to check it and see how the liquid level is, but at this point it is pretty good in my newbie eyes 
I purchase from the Italian Dei as well as from HT.
I have had D’artagnan’s semibonelss quail once, but never found them again at Giant.
They were pricey.
I live in Md 20639 and have started to buy duck from Maple leaf
I found them reasonable, buy around $100 worth , with just over 20 for shipping
Am interest in the quail mind sharing more info how to get them?
thanks
HI ccj. I get my Spanish boneless quail breasts at Marx Foods. They ship free overnight. The only thing is that you have to buy a case which is 12 packs of 10 boneless breasts (120 pieces) for $157 all inclusive. Each pack is vacuum sealed and freezes well. They are small packages, so they don’t take up much space. It comes out to just over $13 a package or $1.30 per quail breast. Lately my wife has been making them in a salad (pan fried with delicata squash, arugula, and reduced balsamic vinaigrette. I love them because there are no bones to fuss with, and they are perfect little bites. If you don’t want a whole case maybe you can split one with a friend or two.
I did find them last nigh tfrom Max Interesting
When I cook quail, even 2 whole quail does not seem to be enough Just cooked some recently ( HO)
There was also too much bones. D’artagnan has the semi boneless ones that are much easier to tackle with .
I will definitely give that and the quail lollipop.
Oct. 2018, have been found to have alpha gal syndrome so, all kinds of 4 legged animal with hoof’s red meat is taboo. I have since just been eating seafood chicken and duck. I buy D’artagnan’s product from Giant, usually buy has cooked maple leaf duck for Costco but found that maple leaf has a lot of duck meat , very reasonably priced. We had ground duck meat ( in place of ground pork yesterday for lunch) cooking shrimp in lobster sauce, and last night’s dinner was duck breast ( 1.5 lb) stir fry with vegetable( HO )
I do have 2 fridge and one huge freezer but because I am a hoarder, I wil have to wait a bit as I used to smoke a lot and there are 5 racks of ribs, Boston butts, beef and still lots of D’artagnan’s duck confit and duck breast in the freezer aside from venison which is almost consumed ( had 2 whole deer2017) but my dogs ate most of them except for the straps.
Thanks. Give maple leaf farm a try but do not buy the half duck which s great as it is still cheaper from Costco. I am never without them although I do not like the orange sauce s we use our own homemade dip of garlic , soy, apple cider vinegar and hot pepper. I cook them longer than suggested and the skin comes out super crunchy that way, I am going to make use of their 20% promotion for their duck appetizer before Jan 25 and if you go to Facebook or call them for the first time, there is a 10% promotion so, 30% is great!!!
Sidebar: I seriously thought alpha-gal syndrome was a moniker for someone like me 
, so I hit Google and guess what? It’s NOT…it’s a real thing. Thought I’d share what the Mayo Clinic says for others who might be curious:
Alpha-gal syndrome is a recently identified type of food allergy to red meat. In the United States, the condition most often begins when a Lone Star tick bite transmits a sugar molecule called alpha-gal into the body. In some people, this triggers an immune system reaction that later produces mild to severe allergic reactions when they eat red meat.
The Lone Star tick is found predominantly in the southeastern United States, and most cases of alpha-gal syndrome occur in this region. The condition appears to be spreading farther north and west, however, as deer carry the Lone Star tick to new parts of the United States. Alpha-gal syndrome also has been diagnosed in Europe, Australia, and Asia, where other types of ticks carry alpha-gal molecules.
Mrs. P made a very refreshing mango sorbet mixed with fresh basil and balsamic. The fresh basil really put it over the top.
If you have interest there is a thread about her cooking with Alpha-Gal:
Ummm… you didn’t wash off the salt??? You may end up with some crazy salty kimchi! Make sure it’s fully submerged in the brine, you don’t want any poking out. Be careful if it is very salty use less of it in any recipes and/or resuce added salt in the recipe
With the kimchi of course there’s sundubu jjigae, with soft tofu and usually pork- if you can’t get the tube of tofu at H mart just buy “soft” tofu
https://www.maangchi.com/recipe/sundubu-jjigae
Kimchi pancakes are really popular too and stupid easy
And of course my favorite salad of all time, I don’t cook the daikon (just chop it or slice instead) and often would add in edamame or some cubed firm tofu to make it more of a meal salad
So it’s been fermenting for 2 days now. We have liftoff! I burped all three jars today and they are bubbling. I tried one small piece literally. I am actually really impressed so far. I can’t believe this is actually working. I need to let it get more dank for a day or two then let it meld in the fridge for a day or two I think.
Some things I got right and wrong so far, but keep in mind this is from a single bite and it isn’t ready…
So far I love the Korean chili…it has a great heat in the front and that’s the predominant flavor so far, the chili. I think I may have nailed the heat aspect spot on. I had lingering heat in my mouth for a minute or two but nothing painful. I wanted to keep it kind of mellower to try with some people. Don’t get me wrong, it is spicy!
I didn’t taste any ginger really so I might have gone too light on that or my powdered stuff is too weak. Next time, which I am confident there will be, I am going for fresh ginger. So failure on that one.
Garlic taste was there but very light, same with onion. The sugar was a great call. You can notice a bit of sweetness. This may be gone once the sourness level goes up in the next day or two.
So far this is really cool that it seems to be heading in the right direction. Without something catastrophic happening, I think this will be a half decent batch.
I never knew cabbage has shrinkage.
I WAS IN THE POOL!
Looks great! Pungent garlic and ginger are really nice in kimchi so I would definitely go fresh next time.
You don’t have to ferment it outside the fridge, and I would recommend trying some every day to see how it changes. I put mine straight into the fridge because I like the unfermented stuff (and you only have a couple day window to have it).
Did you do the whole rice porridge thing?
This is fun stuff. Definitely fresh ginger next time.
I didn’t use the porridge. By the time I put a heavy handed pour of chili, sugar, powered ginger, dehydrated onion, and chopped garlic, it made a nice paste. I went with it. It didn’t rinse the salt off as mentioned. I pulled all the cabbage out and put it into another big bowl. There was probably a good inch or more of water on the bottom so I think the salt kind of sweats out the water and washes the cabbage as it drops down. I grabbed a handful each time and squeezed it before adding all the spice. As I packed it up I put 1 TB spoon fish sauce in each jar. That might be light too. Tomorrow I’ll give a day three report but for my first time I’m going for some dank stuff. I might try some fresher ones soon too. What’s your opinion on fish sauce verse shrimp?
