Category Archives: cooking

Nude Sleeping. Clothed Cooking

13 Tuesday Aug 2019

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After getting J’s lunch together, I was feeling sleepy and went back to bed. But I did something different. I took everything off, my clothes, boxer shorts, tee shirt, even my brown scapular. And it felt totally different from sleeping in pyjamas. It felt more comfortable, more sensual, more satisfying in a tactile sense. Big change is coming. I used to sleep nude all the time. I guess I stopped when the boys were little. Time to go back. J will notice. Let’s see what ensues.

I woke up after a two hour nap. I prepared our lunch/dinner J should be home soon. She has a medical coding continuing education class tonight from Five to Eight PM.

The other day, we bought some of those tiny potatoes, a little bigger than marbles at a local farm stand. I needed to use them. I decided to fix Mom’s Potato Salad.

I washed and cut the little potatoes in half, leaving the peel on. I cooked them for about 10 minutes til they were soft, but not mushy. I have Mother’s old recipe in my head, not written down. She used mayonnaise, “wet” yellow mustard (French’s), dry mustard (Colman’s), dill seed, celery seed, and chopped celery, adding them to the boiled potatoes. I “guesstimated” the measurements. I added some fresh dill weed that I needed to use in something.

I coated two chicken breasts with herb-infused olive oil and roasted them at 375°F (191°C). Let them cook for 45 minutes. Dinner is ready. No wife is home. No word from her. 3:40 PM she is headed home.

Time for some trainspotting and a cup of coffee. Swimming later.

Details at a later post. More satisfying activity..

Life. And Then There’s Life.

08 Thursday Aug 2019

Posted by in cooking, Love and stuff

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There is the way we would like things to be and there is how life is. We plan, daydream, fantasize or simply dream in our sleep. Then we wake up in the morning or afternoon or even in the evening. We remember those dreams. Sometimes the dreams aren’t nightmares, but when they feature firearms in a display of rebellion, they aren’t exactly the kind of dreams where I wake up with an erection (assuming you are male, females, insert the appropriate physiological response).

I have hit something of a barrier. It is probably no taller or more substantial that that little boundary fence on a cricket pitch, but for me, right now, it’s like the Great Wall of China.

It comes down to this, the difference in how I spend my time doing what I do versus what I want to do. And, of course, hitting the “Reset” button for the change of direction has to be a massive, all at once shift, complete in its totality. This attitude is a prescription for failure.

So I interrupted writing this post to fix J’s lunch. I made more Waldorf chicken salad, sliced some more strawberries, and staged the other components for packing in her lunch kit.

I accomplished something.

I do like writing. I actually like writing erotica. It isn’t quite the same as making love, having sex or fucking. Among those three I think there are distinctions. I’m not up for discussing the differences tonight.

J is upstairs watching those twin brothers, Drew Scott and Jonathon? Scott on HGTV. They are OK, as far as house people go. I am watching the dusk creep in on the railcam scene in Ashland. A train eventually will arrive or pass through.

Hmm, J and I are different. She has to be at work tomorrow at 0430, (0 dark 30). So she’s winding down to go to sleep. I get it.

She plays a mental chess game with herself, around me, wondering what I’m going to do or say and hoping what she does or says won’t upset me. That isn’t exactly setting the stage for spontaneity. I will bring that up. Then again, I have to work on the phrasing, because she doesn’t take criticism well.

“Never go to bed with someone whose problems are worse than your own.”- Nelson Algren.

Later! Later! Later! On Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!

08 Monday Jul 2019

Posted by in British Empire, Civilization, cooking, Uncategorized

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As our story left off, I was jonesing for a real meal. I fixed huevos rancheros from my existing inventory, using some Cuban-style black beans from a canner named Teasdale.

They are very nicely seasoned. Unfortunately, Publix had them on clearance, so finding them again is gonna be sketchy. I’ll just fix my own frijoles negros in the pressure cooker, which is what I usually do.

I took another nap, then J and I had an antipasto salad at a locally owned Italian restaurant. When I came home, I emptied then loaded the dishwasher. I threw out some plastic I could have recycled. It was dirty, and washing it to recycle would have wasted water and energy.

Now I’m watching my favorite Manchester You Tuber, Martin Zero tour around the surrounding counties looking for abandoned industrial sites. Half of the fun is trying to comprehend his Midlands accent, so thick, you must cut it with a Sheffield steel knife.

These urban explorers do valuable work, often recording sites facing demolition. Sadly, not all buildings can be repurposed. Manchester was one of the premier industrial cities of England. The British Labour Movement had its origin there. The Manchester Guardian was Labour’s flagship paper.

Now we know Manchester for the football team Manchester United, the Old Trafford Cricket Stadium. Its industrial heritage is disappearing. The industrial fortunes made in this part of England were instrumental in giving us the modern world. Friedrich Engels’ documentation of urban poverty is critical to Marxist thought.

Martin emphasizes the architectural and engineering artifacts, buildings, bridges, canals, culverts and viaducts. These inspired amateurs are so enriching our world.

Teasdale Simply Especial

Today

11 Tuesday Jun 2019

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Today, I made the vegan veggie burgers and had them for lunch.

I used the rest of the pinto beans in chili. I thought it was too tomato-y so I cooked some pasta real quick and served the chili over pasta, Cincinnati style. J liked it. I did too. My brother-in-law, an Ohio native can give me a refresher on the full Cincinnati Chili protocol, all the way up to “5 Way“.

I got a swim in. My weight is down over 2 lbs from Thursday. I swam 2050 meters in the same time as I did Thursday. J and I attribute the weight loss to running out of high fat, high carb foods in the house. Could be. It is almost a relief to go through the frozen food.

I watched some more D-Day related documentaries on YouTube. In many ways, it is the classic Anglo-American Epic Myth, in the positive sense of the term.

Now Popeye has my attention, timeless Popeye. He is, more than any other cartoon character, an urban character. The action takes place in cities. The Fleischer Studios were in New York, not Hollywood. One way or the other, he continues to delight me, as he has for almost 60 years.

Getting my erotic groove back. More later.

Veggie “Burgers”

10 Monday Jun 2019

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I was thinking about making my own veggie burgers, vegan and gluten free too. So I took:

  1. 1/2 cup cooked pinto beans
  2. 1/2 cup cooked quinoa
  3. 1/4 cup (roughly) tahini (sesame butter)
  4. 1/4 cup tapioca flour
  5. Spices, cumin, garlic, turmeric.(anything else your little heart and taste buds desire)
  6. Mush it together real good and form patties.
  7. Cook over medium heat till brown or you lose patience and want to try then out..

I fixed them , fried them in a non stick skillet. They might brown better using some oil.

Anyway, they were pretty good. I might switch up the legume, using black beans. If I used garbanzo beans, it would pretty much be a falafel.

But the idea of spending money for frozen veggie burgers is over. I can make my own.

Power To The People!

Post Script.

I use a pressure cooker, Fagor Lux Multicooker, to be exact. It greatly expedites the cooking of dried beans, (all types) and grains like quinoa. You don’t need one, but it sure helps.

Waffles. Homemade. Yummy

21 Thursday Mar 2019

Posted by in cooking, Relationships

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I have a waffle recipe from a 13 year old Weight Watchers© Cookbook. It uses beaten egg whites to make them nice and fluffy. It takes a little planning and organizing to make it work. One must

  1. Mix the dry ingredients
  2. Mix the sugar, egg yolks, and buttermilk or yogurt together.
  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the combined wet & dry ingredients listed in 1 & 2.
  4. Cook in your hot waffle maker.

Notice I didn’t put in quantities of ingredients or any other useful information. Not smart on my part. Here is the cookbook:

Weight Watchers© New Complete Cookbook. Wiley Publishing (Hoboken, NJ) 2006

Buttermilk Pancakes pg.91. Use the waffle modification,

It helps to be in a relationship so you don’t eat all of the waffles yourself in one sitting.

I suggest you either a) get into a relationship , if not in one already, or b) store cooked waffles in refrigerator or freezer.

There is no reason why you can’t both be in a relationship and store the uneaten waffles.

You need any other tips for successful living? Make comments below. I will try to help as best I can.

Dinner. A Victory.

27 Wednesday Feb 2019

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You don’t have to be Wolfgang Puck or Julia Child to stick a roast in the oven and have it turn out well. But when it does, I feel like I have scored some huge victory, like I’ve won the World Series, the Stanley Cup, or the Ashes Urn for all you Brits and Aussies out there.

It was a simple lean, pork loin. I rubbed it with sage, smoked paprika, and placed it in the oven at 400° for 30 minutes per pound. I use a rack so it browns evenly on both sides.

I cooked some apples. Peeled 3 Granny Smith apples,sliced them, and cooked them over medium heat with 2 tablespoons turbinado sugar and a few shakes of cinnamon. They kind of just turn into applesauce, but they taste good.

What I am most proud of tonight are the asparagus. I cook them with a steamer insert in a sauce pan. I did not overcook them. They were still crisp and hot.

I consider that a victory.

Now I am drinking my coffee while it is still hot.

Life is good.

Southern For Polenta

15 Tuesday Jan 2019

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I was sitting around thinking about cooking ideas. I had mushrooms that needed to be used and chicken breasts from Perdue that were Italian Style, meaning what? I dunno. But they had some Eye-talian flavoring to them. Into the slow cooker they went with the sliced mushrooms, the big (28 oz) can of crushed tomatoes, an onion, garlic, oregano, rosemary, and basil. They’ve been slow cooking for about 4 hours.

Rather than serving the stuff over pasta I decided to have an adventure. There is a really nice yellow grits product by Lake Side, called Lakeside Yellow Grits. So I cooked up some by the recipe, added a beaten egg, and some Pecorino Romano cheese by Locatelli, put it in a cast iron skillet and baked it for 30 minutes or so until firm.

So what is Southern for polenta. Grits. Yeah I know, not really but close enough. The reality is that all grits are not created equal. This Lake Side product is a nice yellow colour and has some flavor, not like you’re having wallpaper paste as a side dish.

I am excited to see how it turns out. The proof of the faux polenta is in the eating, to riff on an old saying,

Cast Iron Pleasure

16 Saturday Jun 2018

Posted by in cooking, Exercise/ Fitness, food

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I received a cast iron pan for Father’s Day from MrsCorC?. Cast. Iron. I took the tags off, got out the lard, worked it into the cooking surface, popped it into the oven at 350° F (177° C) for an hour. It came out seasoned, good to go.

Today I made a frittata. It has been my third preparation of a frittata since I discovered a recipe for this simple, tasty, and well nigh idiot-proof dish. The prior efforts came out well, but the cast iron pan made a marked difference. The ingredients just cooked better.

Tonight, I fried a plantain and made salmon cakes. Everything was sublimely crispy. I am in the trial and error stage of plantain cooking. I think I am supposed to do more with the plantain than peel, slice and fry, but it tastes pretty good this way. The salmon cakes cooked very evenly. This was a solitary pleasures supper. MrsCorC? is not a fish cakes person, viewing them as “low rent”. At $7 a can for red sockeye salmon, I consider them a luxury. She was at work, so my “bachelor” meal encountered no reproach.

This evening meal followed my evening workout. I swam another 2500 meters. The longer swim is already giving a boost to my weight loss efforts. Yes, Fans, I gained back some of the weight I lost. Now it is going away.

Things come and go.

“The thing that has been, it is that which shall be. And that which is done,is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.– Ecclesiastes 1:9.

Cooking With Tapioca Flour

17 Thursday May 2018

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Now that I have your attention with that enticing title, I shall tell you about the chocolate pudding I made with milk, Greek yogurt, Ghirardelli’s 100% cacao unsweetened chocolate, cinnamon, demerrara sugar, and vanilla extract.

Here’s the thing though, I only have a ball park figure of how much Greek yogurt I used. Maybe 24oz (by weight). It was Stoneyfield Nonfat Plain Organic. It had been in the fridge almost too long and I wanted to do something with it before it went bad on me. I was too lazy to pull a cookbook off the shelf. So I made up a recipe.

First I melted 4 squares (1/2 a bar) of Ghirardelli’s semi-sweet 4 squares of Ghirardelli’s Dark Unsweetened Chocolate in 8 oz. whole milk. I used Fair Life. It is a brand I am impressed with because it uses an ultra-filtration process. It has a longer life in the refrigerator and has less lactose than regular milk. After the chocolate is melted, I added 1 cup demerrara sugar, the yogurt and about 6 tablespoons tapioca flour to thicken. Tapioca flour is also known as tapioca starch. It has the thickening qualities of corn starch but dissolves more completely without lumps (or less lumps.) Bob’s Red Mill has tapioca flour. You can find it with the gluten free flours.

I brought the mixture to a boil, stirring constantly, just as I would with cook and serve store-bought pudding. I added 2 tsp vanilla extract and 2 tsp cinnamon (may be 3, I forgot). I poured the cooked mixture in 6 oz Pyrex custard cups and let chill for about 6 hours, maybe longer. It was nicely thickened with a smooth consistency.

Mrs CorC? is a fairly discriminating (picky) eater. She has her likes and dislikes. Little things like an “off” texture don’t meet her standards. She liked it! It did not taste too “yogurt-y”. She liked the cinnamon tones with the chocolate.

My goal was to use up the yogurt. Goal met! The secondary goal was to see if I could make my own version of cook and serve pudding. Goal met! The tertiary objective was to increase my uses for tapioca flour. Goal met! The stuff is really nice to work with. Buy some and see for yourself.