Saturday: BC Burrito and crazy people

I've had a craving for Mexican food ever since getting back from Austin.  Since today was also grocery day, I figured I'd try BC Burrito again, as it's on the way to WF.

I splurged a bit and got a regular size burrito and the chips and queso.  I think next time, I'll just get a bigger burrito and ask to get the queso inside.  My original hope was to be able to dip my burrito into the queso.

It's hard to see, but this burrito would have completely fallen apart if I'd tried that.  I went with the chicken mole filling, which has actual flavor, unlike Qdoba chicken.  The salsa is actual hot, not fake hot, and I think next time I'll see about getting just a half scoop to tone that down a bit.  Queso isn't spicy at all, and separates a bit as it sits, but that's pretty much what happens when you use real cheese instead of processed stuff.

End result is that this doesn't really fill the burrito niche, but I think that I can get something close if I just iterate the fillings a bit.

I also saw what I assume was an airsoft marine across the street:

Toys & Joys sells airsoft stuff, that's why .

Storytime: I'm at WF, waiting for Deli Girl to finish slicing pastrami.  While I'm standing there, Guy Who Looks Like A Dad From An 80's Movie comes over with a chunk of cheese that he wants a taste of (it looked like a hunk of cheddar, so I'm not sure what he was unclear on).
Guy: "Getting some good stuff, huh?"
Me: "Um...yeah? Pastrami?"
Guy: "I think this place has the best deli on the island."
Me (in my head): "I miss Zingerman's"
Me (outloud): "Yeah."
Guy: "I'm going to ramble on about other places that used to sell cheese, but are now closed."
Me: "Sure, whatever."
Guy: "Now I'm going to take a ride on the crazy train."
Me: "What?"
Guy: "Is that psoriasis?"
Me: "Yeah, so?"
Guy: "Have you heard of Edgar Cayce?"
Me: "No?"
My brain: "Wait, yes you have. He's that guy who claimed he was a psychic like 70 years ago, and talked about Atlantis and bullshit like that."
Me: "Really? And this random douchebag who doesn't know what cheese tastes like is trying to convince me that a dead charlatan has good medical advice?"
My brain: "Apparently. Wait, what was that?"
Guy: "You need to get your acids and alkalines balanced in your diet because that's the only way to get better."
Me & My brain: "WTF?"
Guy: "Maybe you need to have like a five day apple diet, or orange diet."
My brain: "Wait, I'm going to balance the acids by munching on oranges for five days? Are you even listening to yourself, Crazy Dude?"
Me: "I'm tempted to say that outloud."
My brain: "Probably best not to. I'm sure Deli Girl would help if this guy went crazy, but it's best not to provoke someone who wears his shorts pulled that high up."
Deli Girl: "Here's your pastrami!"
Me: "Thanks!"

Anyway, here's the menu plan for this week:

• Saturday: Just a sandwich or something, since I'm still full from the burrito.
• Sunday: I'm going to steal Julie's salad idea, and tweak it a bit, as I picked up bay scallops.  I'm also swapping out arugula with regular lettuce (I couldn't find local arugula).  And now, looking over the recipe, I realize I don't have half of the ingredients. I guess I'll be doing another grocery run tomorrow. Avacado? Crap, those are never ripe here.  This is looking less like stealing Julie's idea, and more like taking the dressing from that idea and replacing everything else.
• Monday: Fish guy gave me twice the amount of bay scallops that I wanted. So, rerun day.
• Tuesday: I have mahi mahi, macadamia nuts, a pineapple, and sriracha. I'm sure these things can be used together.
• Wednesday/Thursday: I got two buffalo hot dogs, because I had a hot dog craving.  Throw a salad together, and this kind of counts as healthy.
• Friday: No plan. Maybe an eat out day.

I keep forgetting about this video

Hoodies make you feel like a kangaroo

I forgot that fact.  When I first went out to walk to the sushi place, I noticed that it was windy and sprinkle-y.  I didn't want to have to carry an umbrella in my hand the whole way, so I grabbed the hoodie I didn't pack to Austin, and tucked the umbrella in that.

I really miss not having anything but summer all year long.

Sushi Man

My leftover discontent struck again today, and I decided that I didn't want to eat leftovers anymore.  That led to a only slightly less annoying state: indecision as to what I did want to eat for dinner.  I eventually decided that sushi sounded good, and that I should probably take advantage of my Walkability 82/100 apartment.

Yes, google, I was planning on walking. You don't have to be a jerk about it.

The yelp reviews seemed pretty good, although with the usual "OMG I was treated badly, so I'm giving it one star."  In any case, I just wanted some quick sushi that I could walk to.  I was a bit concerned they were closing when I got there, as there were no other customers.  Then I remembered that it was 8, and most people had probably already eaten by then.  Still, it feels a bit weird to be the only person there.

Three piece ahi nigiri, spicy tuna and unagi temaki (well, they called them hand rolls on the menu, even if they aren't cone shaped).  This is probably the best ahi I've had for three dollars.  It's possible the conveyor belt place has better a fish/price ratio, but this is still pretty good.  Nice firm flesh with a fresh taste, and no nasty connective bits.  Unagi was warm and rich, and the spicy tuna is still spicy on my tongue right now.

Definitely a good place for a "I don't want to make food but want food" dinner.  It's also nice to know that I have sushi within walking distance.

Friday: Veteran's Day

Plan for today: solve science problem on relaxing day off. Actual results of the day: wake up, read internet, watch part of MSU basketball game, wake up again, remember that I don't actually like basketball because it's incredibly boring, try to figure out dinner that doesn't involve me eating leftovers or cooking anything.

I'm still working on the last one.  This is the time that I miss Fazoli's and Noodles.

• Then again, I could make Italian Mac & Cheese. It's unfortunate that Food TV can't be bothered to actually teach people how to cook, or show them how to combine food to make their own recipes.  It seems that would be more helpful than telling them to buy processed foods, and then dump other shit into it to dress it up like it's fancy. This leads to another FNH post today. I don't think I've watched Food network in months at this point.  I don't want to watch "cake challenge" or "fat douchebag eats junk food." I would watch old school style cooking shows, but I guess those aren't popular anymore.
• More places need bunny inspektors.
• Seals? Also jerks.
• Have I called a nun a stupid fucktard before? Oh, well, I guess I have now.
• Oh, objectivists, you're so easy to laugh at.
• WAMPUG!

Thursday: Not Friday

Even though it's felt like it is all day, since tomorrow is a holiday.  Food:

"Whatever, that's the same..."

"Whoa!"

I did remember to defrost some lamb stew last night, so I was able to turn the colcannon leftovers into the roof of a personal shepherd's pie.  The most important thing about doing this is that you have to make the mashed potatoes extra loose so that they spread smoothly.  I've had problems with having too chunky thick potatoes before.

I noticed when I went to google reader today that they've added an actual sharing thing now that goes to google plus.  I didn't try it out, but at least they're slowly trying to make it not suck.  However, this revamp added unnecessary side margins that eat up even more screen space with white nothingness, even in "full screen" mode.  I wish they'd get their act together.

• Holy shit, somebody else remembered Elastica.  Admittedly, they didn't choose one of the songs I would have gone with, but the fact that they mentioned them at all counts for something.
• These are kind of impressive.
• Phil has interesting statistics, even if he did have to do a followup clarification.  However, I think he ignores a reasonably important aspect of things: barring funding issues or unusual external pressure, most grad schools try hard to place their students before they graduate.  This helps suppress the unemployment rate somewhat (while also allowing that grad school to claim high placement numbers during recruitment).  It also helps that astronomy has the job register that provides a centralized way for  hiring to procede.
• I thought this was a cool story on homeschooling.  The hippy kind, not the crazy religious kind.

Wednesday: Holy shit, I still have a cookie!

I totally forgot about it.  I know what I'm eating once I finish this post. Thanks, yesterday's post I just saw.

No food fun today. I was lazy and tired and hungry when I left work, and didn't want to wait an hour to bake leftover colcannon.  Also, I'd intended to pull a bag of lamb stew from the freezer to use as a shepherd's pie base, but totally forgot about it.  Instead, I just stopped and did the drive through fast food thing. Woo.

On that subject: this isn't shepherd's pie. Stop ruining things, vegetarians. This isn't shepherd's pie either. It'd be cottage pie, since it uses beef, but it's mostly just a mistake. Stop making terrible fusion recipes, television.

One piece of good news: Rick Perry will never ever be president (the video is worth watching):

• Why would anyone make this? See also: above comment about fusion recipes.
• You shouldn't eat "squril" either.
• Some pandas are jerks.
• I guess if you need to sous vide an entire animal...
• Dogs shouldn't wear sweatbands. Or dresses. Yeah, this is pretty much all wrong.
• Sad T-Rex is sad.
• No, bunny! It's a trap! They'll make you eat celery flavored jello!
• I wish I lived somewhere where it would occasionally be hoodie weather.

Tuesday: Cookies!

Dinner was the same as yesterday. The important thing is that I spent most of the afternoon wanting cookies. I solved this problem with the chocolate macadamia nut cookie from the bakery. Om nom nom cookies!

Other than that, not much exciting to talk about today. Art deco, maybe?

• Spring
• Summer
• Autumn
• Winter

I wish google reader would bring back sharing

• As do these people.
• Fucking ice machines.
• Where would we be without Monsanto? Maybe buying meat from an actual person?
• SQUIRREL!
• And no, you stupid stoners, you didn't "almost get rabies from it."
• This is pretty cool. I like the Europe map best (because it's colorful).

Monday: Leftovers and Lunch

First, the leftovers:

Oven reheating worked well, and I did use the cider and cream to make sure the colcannon was smooth before putting it in, and I covered it with foil to ensure it didn't dry out.  Om nom nom.

For lunch, I tried Island Manapua Factory again, after being disappointed in them previously.  This time, however, I skipped their plate lunch/panda-style Chinese, and went for the manapua, in the hope that they'd fill the kolache niche for me.  I got four, as I wasn't sure how filling they'd be.  I think in the future, three is probably a more reasonable lunch portion:

They're all about four inches in diameter, with a pretty decent amount of filling inside.  They have both steamed and baked manapua, although the baked ones aren't warm (which is kind of disappointing).  The steamed ones have regular bao dough, and the baked ones a sweet Hawaiian bread. 

Steamed pizza manapua. Not as good as a proper pizza, but pretty decent.  A pile of these would make a good movie watching/Superbowl snack.  Kind of like a big fluffy pizza roll.

Steamed chicken curry.  Yummy Japanese style curry with lots of meat.  Mine had a bone in it, which wasn't too surprising, since almost everytime I get boneless skinless thighs at the store, they're only 97% bone free.  Still, probably good to watch out for.

Baked char siu. This one got a bit cloying towards the end, as the sweet bread and overly sweet pork kind of got too much.  Still, the meat was moist, and a quick trip through an oven or microwave wouldn't have hurt it any.

Baked kalua pork.  This was more BBQ-y than I was expecting, but that wasn't a bad thing.  As you can see, this one kind of had structural issues, which was disappointing.  A lot of the others had thin bottom crusts, this one just took it to extremes.

All in all, this was a good idea.  Four big yummy buns for $7 make this about the best lunch deal around.  I'll have to try some of the other flavors next time.  It's a bit of a shame they don't have a sweet bun to eat for dessert, but I guess lunch isn't supposed to be multi-course.

Did I mention the ChocoHigos?

"Can you tell me how much the figs are?"
"Yeah, they're $10. Wait, let me open a package so you can try one."
"Um...ok?"
"Besides, then I can eat the rest of them and it's ok."

And that's how the WF deli guy convinced me to buy the chocolate covered figs that I had (and will have this week) for dessert.  Without trying them, I probably wouldn't have splurged on them.  Unfortunately, they're kind of insanely delicious, so I didn't have much choice.

Did you click on that amazon link?  Did you see how one of the features is "Cheese, Foie Gras, Truffles, Wagyu Steaks, Baking Products, Spices, Oils, Balsamic Vinegars and more"? LOL.

Sunday: Colcannon

First, how delicious does this sandwich I made for lunch look? Toast, BBQ sauce, turkey, cheddar, bacon, lettuce, tomato, toast. It was yummy.

Ok, dinner. While on vacation, I saw an episode of "Tyler Florence Cooks Food While You Debate His Douche Factor." It was fairly old, so I think his factor was still "not that bad." In any case, he went to Ireland, and made colcannon.  It looked like one of those dishes that's super simple, and uses simple ingredients to come up with something filling and delicious.  I briefly looked at his recipe, and then threw it away and decided to do my own take on it.

Step one: scoop probably two tablespoons of bacon grease into your dutch oven.

Step two: salt and pepper a poundish pork loin, and brown the sides.  You'll notice I cut my loin in two so it would fit better in the pan.  If I had any access to Irish bacon (back bacon, etc.), I would have used that instead.  This version is obviously going to be less salty, so you may need to correct that (I didn't that much, but for other reasons).

Step three: Dump in a bottle of cider, and cover, and let the pork loin braise for ~two hours.

This was the cider I used.  I'm not a big fan of it, but it's basically the only cider that's available here.  It's very dry, but has a good cider-y flavor that I was hoping would be imparted into the pork.

Step four: This is where you just have to stick with me. I poked at the pork at this point, and it was fully cooked, and reasonably tender.  Next I had to deal with the potatoes, and wanted to steam them instead of boiling. To do so, I dropped a ramekin into the pot, and then put my steamer on top of that.  This allowed the pork to continue to braise while the potatoes steamed.

I used this many potatoes.  Um...5 it looks like? They were big chunky Yukon gold ones, too. This is probably the important thing.  I wouldn't really do this with russets, but I'm picky like that.  I also dumped most of a second bottle of cider into the bottom, as I wasn't sure if I had enough liquid to steam the potatoes.  I turned up the heat a bit, and covered them, and let them cook for an hour.

Blammo. Steamed potatoes, all ready for mashing.  I think this is my new favorite way to make mashed potatoes, as steaming didn't soak the potatoes like boiling does.  This means that the final mash was sweet, like a nicely baked Yukon gold is.  This was a surprise, but was a large part of what made this dish work so well.  It also explains why I didn't add lots of salt, as I didn't want to cancel the sweetness.

Step five: Forget to take a useful picture, while you mash the potatoes, and remove the pork to the cutting board.  While doing this, add a salad spinner (mine is the smaller one) full of shredded cabbage to the cider left in the pan, and try to keep an eye on it to pull it when it turns bright green (or, ignore that sign because you're too busy mashing).  I used almost a cup of cream on the potatoes, along with a chunk of butter, and a few ladlefuls of cider from the pan.

You should also chop the pork at this point.  Mine shredded perfectly as I cut it, with the grain separating into smallish chunks as I sliced.

Step six: Realize your mixing bowl isn't going to be big enough, so drain the pan, dump the pork and potatoes back in, and strain out the cabbage from the cider.  Mix and mix, and fix the moisture with the cream and cider.  Add a bit of salt after tasting.

Step seven: Plate in a bowl.  Make a hole in the middle for a tablespoon or so of butter, and then top with green onions and add a slice of cheese (Red Leicester, I believe. As an afterthough, Cotswold would have been delicious with this).

This works out to be basically a big bowl of comfort food.  It'd really be better if it wasn't 80 degrees here, but if we had "cold autumn evenings," this would be a good thing to make.  I also have plenty of leftovers for the rest of the week, although reheating mashed potatoes is always a bit touchy.  I reserved some of the cider, and I have a bit of cream left.  I think the plan is to rehydrate it a bit, and then put it in my big ramekin and bake it in the oven with a foil cover.  We'll see how that goes.

Vacation blog posts done

They should all be visible under the "vacation" tag.

I had WF spicy tuna roll for dinner, because I've been cooking all week, and plan to cook tomorrow as well.  I'm tired.  Of course, dinner was hours ago, and spicy tuna rolls aren't the most filling thing ever.  I think it might be sandwich or ice cream time.

Saturday: Lunch time

I had planned on getting up and going to the farmer's market today.  That would have happened, except I woke up ten minutes before my alarm.  That annoyed me, so out of spite, I decided to sleep for another hour.  Three hours later, I woke up again.  I guess that plan didn't work very well.

I did get up in time to do part 2 of my plan:

Lunch at Hank's Haute Dogs.  For some reason, I've had the impression for the past year or so that they were buried deep in downtown.  They're not, they're basically a block from the ocean.

It's kind of tucked into a warren of car dealerships and warehouses, which isn't exactly where I'd expect to find a fancy hot dog place.

My order:

Lilikoi lime soda.  A bit heavy on the ice, but a nice fruity companion.

Truffle mac & cheese.  I like this idea, and I'm beginning to think that I might do something like this for Thanksgiving, since that's coming up.  It's a bit soupy, but the flavor is good, with just a hint of white truffle oil.

What's inside?

Oh, man, lettuce? Ick. Scrape scrape flick...

Duck sausage and foie gras.  I didn't really see the foie gras, but the flavor was definitely there.  It was tasty, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't $10 tasty.  I'll have to stop back in the future, because I want to try their chili dog.  They also have fries cooked in duck fat. That sounds really good too.

Slider Week Friday: Burgers

I decided to end Slider Week with a classic style burger. Let's look at the assembly:

Bottom bun, swirls of ketchup and mustard.

Burger.

Bacon and cheddar cheese.

Lettuce, Maui onion, roma tomatoes sliced the way I intended to do yesterday with the BLTs.

Top bun.  I made sure to cook the burger quickly on high heat, but not to overcook it, to ensure that the juices didn't run out and make the burger super dry.  This worked well, and these burgers were an excellent end to Slider Week.

No salad today, as I used up the last decent looking lettuce on the burgers.  I'll need to pick up more tomorrow.  I'm thinking about going to the Ala Moana farmer's market, since I've been getting up fairly early this week (probably a residual jetlag thing).

See? I've been getting early enough to make delicious bacon and peanut butter topped cinnamon raisin bagels. Om nom nom!

Today's linkstorm:

• Google's trying a bit. Coloring links is helpful, and I've noticed this evening that the annoying "All items" bar in full screen mode goes away as I scroll.  Going to the next item with "n" doesn't quite format things correctly, and the space that bar took up is still there, but it now shows the bottom of the previous item.  It's a start at least.  Shame they don't care to make sharing useful again.
• And nothing bad ever happened. Ever.
• Pokemon Snap was a wonderful game.  I seem to recall the catching Charmeleon was hard, but I don't remember if this was why or not.  I think he was just before a cave, too, so you had a really short time to get him.  I should try to get my N64 working again someday.
• Dogs aren't very smart.

Slider Week Thursday: BLTs

In my continuing challenge to eat different animal based sliders each day, today was BLT day:

This also is why I suggested BLTs to Julie yesterday. I already had the idea in mind.  Admittedly, my tomatoes aren't big like hers were, but they are nice local roma tomatoes.  I had intended to slice them the other way, but forgot until I had it half done.  Same sides as the rest of this week:

I am going to steal Julie's idea of posting random links in blog posts, since I can't share them via google reader anymore.  Thanks a lot for ruining everything, google+. I used to think you were cool.  Anyway, I'm catching up on my feeds that I didn't read over vacation.

• Where google blatantly lies to everyone.  I'm finding that it's not faster, and even in full screen mode, it still eats up a bar to tell me I'm reading "All items."  Thanks. I'm dumb, and forgot that fact between funny cat picture 9, and funny pokemon picture 7.  Also, it's great that I can't just directly share things with a single keypress.  If you wanted to tie this to google+, why not just have a "share to your default reader group"?  Then again, that'd still suck, because everyone would have to go to google+ to read things.  That's why I'm thinking about doing this:
• Share in Google Reader Again.  It's a pain to have to set up an RSS feed for the things I share, and then try to get other people to do the same so I can read interesting things I don't see in my regular feed, but since google thinks no one needs that, I guess that's the only solution.
• Funny Pokemon picture 7. I think Oshawott is my favorite new Pokemon in generations.
• LOL.  Is Mario Batali even on food tv anymore? I assume not, since otherwise they'd probably be angry that he's making fun of the douchebag they put on every chance they get.
• This looks good.  Ok, not that one, but the concept of a bulgolgi burger sounds really delicious.
• Krug-Man!
• I'm pretty sure this one didn't make my Boston terrier Halloween posts.
• I have a lot more links than I expected. Ok, last one for today. Funny Halloween math plot jokes.

My goal for this weekend is to get the rest of my vacation posts finished.

Slider Week Wednesday: Buffalo Chicken

Again, not terribly challenging.  Take boneless skinless thighs, pan fry in butter at reasonably high temperature until cooked, and then add a few big glugs of Frank's:

Place on bun with a bit of lettuce (to get that "lettuce that sits under the wings" feel) and some Stilton (that you melted instead of softened, because you forgot to pay attention to it):

Plate with the now standard "salad and chips" sides:

The sauce was a bit mild for my taste, with minimal nose-running.  The Stilton covered the blue cheese flavor well, but since the sauce wasn't super strong, the cheese kind of overwhelmed it.  In any case, it worked reasonably well to cover the Buffalo chicken experience I was looking for.

Slider Week Tuesday: Shrimp

Not too difficult today:

Since I now know that I like sriracha, I bought a bottle, and used it on these.  The shrimp were just quickly fried in a pan with some green onions.

Lazy salad and chips again.  I used the leftover macadamia paste from yesterday, thinned it out with a bit of oil and vinegar, and used that as the dressing for the salad.

OMG breakfast!

I decided to take the time to eat instead of rushing off to work.  It's a cherry/apple twisty danish thingy.  It was reasonably good, even though it was in the most impossible to get into box I've ever seen.