What's cooking?

Here are a couple meals from this week. First was a lamb stew with red wine base. It was cooked for 2.5 hours, and the lamb fell apart when touched with a spoon.

The last photo was jalapeño chicken sausages (Trader Joe's), grilled portobello (with garlic/worcestershire sauce), and spinach with homemade spicy guacamole. I was halfway through eating by the time I realized I should take a photo. I have a great guac recipe I need to share.

 

Well, it's for tomorrow, but I made 8 pounds of sausage, tonight. Half Thai pork sausage and half Ruhlman's chicken sausage. I'd never done it before. Let's just say that the second batch was a lot quicker than the first. I do another 8 pounds tomorrow, or a Hungarian pork sausage that I found a recipe for. I'm going to smoke the Hungarians and then finish them in sous-vide, before grilling. The other sausages are in the water bath right now. A lot of work, so I hope they are good!

 

Andrew, I can just about smell that lamb stew looking at the photos. Looks great!

Erilyn, the roast was a top loin.

 

HAH! Great action shot.

I'll never forget the time we went out for a few minutes and left an uncovered cake my mom had baked on the dining table. We had daschunds, and when we got back, one had frosting all over his whiskers and half the cake was gone. Never did figure out how he managed to get on the table.

 

Slow cooked short ribs with mashed taters and veggies. Slow cooked the ribs in a crock pot with pineapple, ginger and BBQ sauce. Wasn't as good as what I had in the restaurant. The BBQ sauce was to overpowering. But...it was still tender and tasty

 

Here are some of the smoked sausages before sous vide:



Here are some after grilling:



Only one broke, I think that's pretty good for a first time! Served with an eggplant and tomato gratin, that is one of my standards, and some roast cauliflower gratin. Pretty good dinner.

 

I'll take 3!

 

Is your fax machine on?

 

:cool1 That would be great.

 

Home made Russian dumplings

 

Tried out a new chili recipe. It was good but needs a little tweaking

 

I'm going to need a recipe for those.

 

Hi EdipisR

Can you tell me the particulars on the sous vide? I am wondering if it is something I can do with a vacuum sealer and a stove, or does it require more sophisticated set up.

 

You can do it stove top, with a big pot of water and ice to drop in when the temp rises. Basically you'd want to heat the water up higher than the temp you're looking for, turn the element off until the water temp is slightly less than you want, then put it on the absolute lowest setting and put your food items in. if it rises a bit above your temp, drop ice in. That's a time intensive way to do it. Before I had the circulator, I used to use a cooler for steaks, etc, by heating water about 10 degrees higher than I wanted, pouring it into the cooler, and then adding food. That method did a decent job for a couple hours worth of cook time. A circulator makes this way, way easier, and allows for lots of other things, like prolonged low-temp cooking on things like short ribs. The Anova and Sansaire units are $200. I got a good deal on a Polyscience Creative, and I love it. I use it at least two or three times a week.

 

thanks ER

 

Started up dinner for later. Elk roast and elk steaks dry rubbed then tied together to make one big roast. Tucked in with a 1lb blanket of bacon then placed in the Traeger commerical grill with Washington Apple pellets. Going to cook it until it shreds. Serving with grilled asparagus and mushrooms. I'll post more pictures later. Should be yummy

 

Gunner.... I officially hate you

 

home made smoked sausage, awesome! curious, why sous vide though?

 

Made herb crusted lamb and polenta

 

Started around 9 this morning..... A nice Sunday gravy... not of the caliber of youse guys but....