What Are You Eating?

The last time I was in the Farmhouse Market, the grocery store in Fall City, they had elk steaks but they were prepackaged and from New Zealand. I passed on them.
 
The last time I was in the Farmhouse Market, the grocery store in Fall City, they had elk steaks but they were prepackaged and from New Zealand. I passed on them.
I went to Golden Steer in Redmond earlier in the week, but they wanted $32 a pound for elk steaks, which looked fantastic! I passed. I talked with the owner and said they don't bother with venison, as it has to come from New Zealand!
 
Made some homemade chicken broth, need to part out the rest of the chicken and freeze some. Used the back bone, wings, gizzards, carrots, celery, onion, peppercorns, fresh dill and Italian parsley and a little salt.. delicious!

Mexican with mom for dinner, street tacos, el pastor and a Canterino! Again delicious!

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TL;DR - I got bored of cooking the same shit and made beans with ingredients mostly associated with southeast Asian food. It was Bitchin'.

It's March in AK, and that means schizophrenic weather and a serious case of the shack nasties. Snow? Yup, did this morning. And afternoon. Rain? That was in between snow showers. 10° and clear? That was last night. Blowin' 40kts? That's in the forecast tomorrow...

At any rate, I digress.

After a winter of cooking a LOT of the same stuff, a fella just needs to go a little hog-wild and get creative. I tend to stay away from many well-toe'd cooking paths, preferring instead to let my ingredients at hand dictate how best to become tasty meals and just following their advice.

Yesterday, for some as-yet-undetermined reason, I decided that what Thai cuisine needs more of is beans. Not Mung beans, or yardlong beans, or even the pedestrian green bean...Thai food needs more white beans.

As a Rancho Gordo Bean Club kinda fella, I've got more than my fair share of beans layin' about the house. Set upon Thai fusion, I grabbed a bag of Alubia Blanca beans, pondered once again the ramifications of this unholy mashup, and set to work.

The end result, after the (mandatory, IMO) cook/cool/reheat cycle -
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White beans, shallots, celery, carrots, red peppers, Thai peppers, Kale, Cilantro root, cilantro stems/leaves, lemon balm, Thai basil, green onion, ginger, garlic, lime leaves, chicken stock, palm sugar, fish sauce, white pepper, cumin, rice wine vinegar, 3 ham hocks, and a quarter pound of brisket just to be on the safe side.

Had a bowl for lunch, and it was pretty dang OK. My wife had a bowl last night, and declared them awesome. Gonna have to put this one in rotation...
 
Baked Ribollita from Ottolenghi. Used this weekend's rosemary sourdough for the bread component. Highly recommend!
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I'm sure you guys are cooking up some wonderful stuff and I would like to try some of it. But your photographs all seem to bear out one obvious truth--food doesn't photograph well. Most pictures are taken from the same angle with marginal light conditions and end up looking like dog food instead of elegant cuisine. Unlike wildlife, landscape or big boob babes photography food photographs tend to look more like mug shots than art. It happened to me yesterday, I had to replace my old Costco card that wouldn't activate the scanner and they had to take my picture of course. They showed me the picture in color before putting it on the card and it looked good, somehow making me look 15 years younger than I am. Then when I saw what went on the card I was shocked to see someone that looked 95 instead. I looked like a food photograph-of cold mashed potatoes!
 
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