Outside the dugout: What's cooking?

My wife is making a soup with Oriental veggies, ground pork, and rice noodles. I am going to suggest the addition of fish sauce, Sichuan peppercorns and scallions if we have them. Sichuan peppercorns are not actually peppercorns and have an unusual flavor that cannot be faked with anything else and also has a mouth numbing effect that some find unpleasant. I like it. Maybe it is an acquired taste.
Our local Oriental market has all kinds of interesting greens and my wife bought a lot her last time there and we need to use them up.
I'll soon be getting the KJ prepped ahead of time and am planning on getting up early tomorrow to start that 8 pound pork shoulder and then go back to bed.

 

I just prepped the KJ so it is lighting, getting the heat deflectors on, getting the drip pans on, getting the grills on and the getting up to temp before getting the meat goes on. This takes about one hour. If I get up when our new dog wants me to get up before I want to it will be 4 AM and by 5 AM the pork shoulder will be on. By 7 or 8 PM it will be ready to pull.

Some more sleep will be in there.

 

I did get up at 4:33 AM today. Pork shoulder is really close now at 5:35 PM. It was boneless so maybe that makes it a tiny bit quicker.

Carolina slaw was made around noon.

 

Yum.

Lots of left over meat for pork enchiladas!

 

My wife will be making risotto tonight with a Caesar salad because we have romaine that we have to use as well as asparagus. Asparagus risotto is great.

 

Tomorrow evening we are going to the house of a couple that are good friends and drink wine in their driveway ... a long ways apart. We did this about two weeks ago. It is workable, but sub-optimal. Over the years we would get together once a week and watch something serial on TV. We had been watching Succession, but that is now on hold. The Chernobyl series was really great. Loved it.

My better half is making pork enchiladas with the left over pulled pork tonight. There will be enchiladas in the freezer because there is a lot left over. Good eats for a while.

And my MIL's knee is giving her grief so I am now walking her dog and my dog. Time to take mine out for an evening walk.

 

Chicken tagine tonight with cous-cous.

Last lecture of the semester and my senior design students presented their final design report to the sponsor company.

Tomorrow my thermo kids get Exam 4 to be uploaded by noon on Wednesday (the last day of classes for the Spring semester and during my class period). It is a "take home" exam. I wanted to start it on Wednesday and have it due Thursday, but that ran afoul of the UF reading day policies. No final in the course as that was what the original instructor had. So Exam 4 is not cumulative but you cannot do cycle analysis without knowing the earlier material.

 

Tonight is pizza from Blue Highway in Micanopy. I might pass on that even thought I love to eat it. Still trying to lose weight even though I am paused at losing 25 pounds. The early weight was water weight loss associated with glucose loss. I'd like to lose 10 more pounds, but not muscle mass pounds. It will be slow and require physical activity. Now is the hard part.

 

Add a dash or two of bitters to your drink. It will pep it up a bit.

Getting close to a Wisconsin old fashion.

 

I am making pasta Bolognese tonight.