That looks really good. Sometime you have to make do with what you have. We’re very short on groceries in our house right now (only 2 of us). We thawed some chili and boiled the short end of a box of elbow macaroni - scraped off some blue fuzzy stuff from a piece of cheddar cheese and shredded it over chili Mac. It will keep us alive until tomorrow…
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There are a lot of grocery delivery services, if you don’t feel like going out.
I’ve been researching them for my mother, as I expect she is going to quit driving in about a year or so. I can click on the stuff she wants/needs and have a weekly order delivered.
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Thank you and @mts!
It’s nice for her to have something happy to celebrate after the train wreck that was last year (and nice for us too).
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That’s kind of you. I’m not feeling very well - and my DH isn’t a plan ahead kind of guy. We’ll get out this week. Our 2 dogs are better supplied than their humans, because Chewy delivers for free lol.
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Red lentil soup with curry powder, cumin and cinnamon. Topped with diced apples, scallions, jalapeno and olive oil
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I like the challenge of a good pantry invention. In this case, my sweet old neighbor randomly brought me a pound of mushrooms, and I had a bunch of gai lan left over from the weekend. Then I just happened to finda recipe that included both!
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I had a slice of pepperoni pizza from “2 Bro’s Pizza” under the el tracks of the Hankyu Railway in Sannomiya. Pizza by the slice isn’t at all common in Japan. In fact, this is only the third or fourth place I’ve ever found it at. But I do know that such places are becoming more common…especially in Tokyo.
They make 5 kinds of pizza and a slice ranges from ¥198 (USD $1.31) for cheese pizza, pepperoni or jalapeño pizza for ¥300 (USD $1.99j and ¥418 (USD $2.77) for buffalo pizza, garlic shrimp pizza or triple cheese & honey pizza (they couldn’t pay me to eat a slice of that!)
Just like in NYC, they had oregano, red chili flakes and garlic powder in shakers on the counter. That’s also uncommon in Japan where the common additional seasoning offered is nearly always Tabasco sauce. They also had coarse black pepper, which I’ve never seen anywhere else before, inside or outside of Japan.
After you order your choice, they throw a slice into the pizza oven to be reheated…just as many places do in NYC.
I did notice that each slice seems to come into the store vacuum packed…a bit disconcerting to me. But my pizza was fine for what it is…a reproduction of the NY “dollar slice”.
It seems they sells whole pizzas, too for ¥2850 (USD $18.92) Which is interesting because they don’t seem to charge extra for the pizzas which aren’t plain cheese if you buy a whole one.
Oh, they also had a tip jar! Most of you likely know that tipping is almost never done in Japan, so seeing a tip jar was a shock! I certainly didn’t leave a tip and hope that most people wouldn’t either. I personally only tip bell staff in hotels, taxi drivers and hairdressers/barbers in Japan. IMHO, Japan doesn’t need to import that aspect of North American culture!
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Love your reports. Never have had the opportunity to travel to Japan so they’re super interesting to me. For what it’s worth, hot honey on pizza is now a thing here in the US. Not so long ago I did try a pizza dressed with it. The pizza had an interesting hot, sweet, spicy zing but the sweetness just wasn’t my thing.
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Hi, sorry for the late reply, but when you smoke in your Dutch oven, what is the heat source? Do you do it on stovetop and run a vent hood? Out on the grill? I’ve never tried smoking in a DO but it sounds (and looks!) like it works well for smaller dishes.
You can smoke in a wok, too, if you have one. I occasionally do tea smoked fish or chicken in it. Same concept can be applied without the tea and those particular flavors.
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That turned out perfect! The recipe is very similar to a loaf-pan gyro type meat, except those usually call for the addition of ground rosemary and marjoram, and minus the coriander.
I’m going to try it your way (Matheson/Kramer) next time to see how the flavor profile changes.
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Nice, Dan. If you can do that, you can do these:
I keep saying that I’m going to make them but never get around to it…
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Hence the bespoke taco racks?
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I have now officially made my wife “tired, very tired” of pork tenderloin. It’d been half price in last week’s sale flyer and I kind of overdid it (3 nights in a row).
Sunday (no photo, sorry, I forget too often) was broiled tenderloin chunks that had been marinated in a yogurt/dill/cumin/coriander/curry/garlic sauce, with various roasted veggies (sheetpan, just tossed them in the oven while preheating and getting the broiler hot).
Monday night - got a wild hair up my… whatever, because we’d had surf & turf (filet mignon, lobster tail [1]) Saturday night when my 2nd daughter was here for the weekend. So, maybe I can make pork tenderloin like beef filet? I cut 5 inch logs out of the center, most cylindrical portion of the tenderloin, stood them on end and pressed them vertically for 30 minutes with a 25 pound plate from my weight set until 5 inches turned into 2.5. Then pre-salt and reverse sear just like a beef filets. Leftover pic, again I’m bad about remembering. Served with a different set of sheetpan veggies - I’m lazy and it’s just such an easy way to make a variety, and also with a sesame-topped loaf of bread.
For the bread I was shooting for a baguette style crust with a softer, more closed crumb. I started with a basic baguette recipe, but added some olive oil and tried the tangzhong method with a portion of the called-for water and flour being cooked together in a sauce pan. I got the crumb and texture I was looking for but while the crust was crispy (steam pan in oven) it wasn’t quite as heavy as it should have been if I was really shooting for “baguette crust”. Also I wonder if I could have done the wash-and-sesame about half way through, given the sesame are mostly over toasted (but at least they didn’t get bitter).
[1] My wife’s Aunt had sent us a surf/turf kit frozen from an online place. Did I remember to get a pic? Of course not.
Last night: I had made Italian seasoning, balsamic and oil marinated and roasted chicken breasts last week, and thought, why can’t I do that with pork tenderloin? So I cut off the ragged ends, leaving me with 2 sections right at 1 pound each, scored, marinated for about 6 hours total (5 hours salt and all herbs etc., 1 additional hour with vinegar/oil) and roasted. (Again, leftovers photo!)
By last night even I was getting a bit tired of the sheetpan veggie bake so I just did some steamed tater chunks and broccoli.
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So you’re where I saw that recipe! 
All I remembered was, that it’s on my ever expanding email-to-self list of things to try.
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Hi,
In my 6qt. Dutch oven, I line the interior with foil. This smoke took about 15 minutes, so I used 2-3 T. of pecan dust (they sell this very fine grade of chips for indoor smokers, like Cameron) on top of the foil. I prep the salmon by placing each piece on a piece of parchment paper cut to its size and laying them on top of a rack that will allow circulation (I used one of those collapsible steaming racks). Running the vent on high (and with open windows), I heated the pecan over medium high heat to get it smoking, placed the rack with the fish over it, and then put the lid on to cover. Sometimes I use extra foil on top if I think it might leak. This didn’t. I turned the heat down to medium for the first 10 minutes and then to medium low/low for the last 5.
I’ve done this a few times and it works fine for fish and chicken wings (those I usually then broil or bake at high heat to crisp after). I haven’t tried it on anything larger form yet. Clean up is pretty easy, although having Barkeeper’s Friend or something isn’t the worst idea if you get some dark spots on the enamel after (or care about that). I am thinking about getting a stainless DO (or similar) for future endeavors.
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Great, much appreciate the details - thanks!
Sure. Also - the heat source that gets the dust smoking is induction, fwiw. When I used to do this on my gas range, I started on medium. This Samsung one seems to do better starting at medium high and then turning it down. Everyone’s range or cooktop has its quirks!
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