Outside the dugout: What's cooking?

Last night I made pasta bolognese at my wife's request. We had a friend over for dinner.

Tonight I made Vietnamese egg noodles with sesame oil, chili oil, balsamic vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, ginger, sugar, Thai basil and peanuts.

 

Tonight I am smoking some thick pork chops, green beans with almonds and lemon, and mashed potatoes.

Tomorrow I have to come up with something that we can eat quickly before going to the game. Carnitas tacos is an idea, but the clean up is intense. I had thought about getting up super early to smoke a pork shoulder for pulled pork sandwiches, but I missed the sale at Publix by one day. They had nice looking five pound pork shoulders for $1.99 a pound yesterday, but not today. I should have pulled the trigger yesterday.

I have bought $1.99 per pound pork shoulders at Winn Dixie but they were from Swift, very fatty, and over eight pounds so it was always an overnight cook.

 

Is there a sad emoji?

I wish that I could remember the last name of the student I had a LONG time ago (before Ulee's Gold was a movie and tupelo honey became a mainstream thing) that hooked me up with the most amazing tupelo honey. I think he liked me as a prof. In fact he must have because he gave me this amazing honey for free. I have never had anything like it before or since.

IIRC he was doing well in my class so it wasn't that. He just was amazed that I knew what it was.

It was a long time ago. Now every foodie in the world knows what it is.

I was in Chicago visiting not that long ago during a covid lull at a place that made honey based beverages from local hives on the far Southside of Chicago. They were very into bee keeping and the different kinds of honey. I told them my grandfather was a bee keeper not far from there and most of his honey was clover based as was theirs. When I told them about getting tupelo honey they paused.

Not much better.

 

When I make tomato based Italian sauces I use San Marzano tomatoes. I tried growing them in Gainesville but all I got was a lot of vine a just a few fruits. They are what is called an indeterminate tomato so they grow on long vines instead of a bush in a tomato cage. They are to plum tomatoes what tupelo honey is to honey.

Tonight my wife wanted tacos before heading to the game. Since I had an openned can of chipotle I suggested chicken tinga with pickled red onion and diced avocado on flour tortillas. Tinga is done, red onion is pickled and I had to buy the organic avocados because the regular ones at Publix were green rocks.

And of course we have lots of limes for post game margaritas and one for squeezing over the diced avocado. I hope it is the "victory" kind and not the "drowning our sorrows" kind of margarita.

 

The victory margaritas were great. Even the second round was good.

Bought some more limes for another round tonight.

Tonight I am making Thai red curry with chicken. I do have two kaffir lime trees for leaves. And I have eleven Thai eggplant seedings growing, but dont have them fruiting as of yet. Using bamboo shoots instead.

 

Tonight is clean out the fridge and freezer night.

 

A highball. A favorite drink of my dad and his family back in the late 50's and early sixties. Best served in a Collins glass. Actually named from railroad jargon.

Getting warmer and soon will be time for a Tom Collins. Read that later this week it will hit 90 F in Gainesville. Tom Collins weather, indeed.

 

Orecchiette pasta with arugula and hot Italian sausage tonight at ny wife's request.

Tomorrow night I will be grilled brats as a quick dinner before the game. It is nice to have an old Ducane gas grill for quick grilling. It is in need of a rebuild (one ignitor shot and several gas tubes are cracked), but I use it so infrequently. I have had it a LONG time and has gone through many rebuilds.

Got me thinking about how a long time ago I used to host a cookout at my house for all of the grad students, their families, the faculty and staff and their families in the Fall. Most was reimbursed from the department, but none for the alcohol. I had a pickup (actually my wife's) with a trailer hitch and I rented a big grill from United Rent-All or however you spell it. It was near what is now the Habitat for Humanity thrift store. It used to be a great lumber yard.

Many bags of charcoal and enough chicken to feed 200. Two kegs of beer and then beer runs. Several cases of wine as well. Also making veggie dishes for many of the Indian students that wouldn't eat any animal meat.

Several times I ended up with nothing to eat because it was all gone after hours and hours at the grill.

Good times.

 

Thanks.

Now that my old department merged with Mechanical Engineering and the graduate program has grown a lot doing somthing like this again would be insane. It would be a lot more people.

It was fun back then, though.

 

I wear the same size pants that I wore in high school. Too bad some of the weight shifted from my chest to just over the belt.