Category: cooking with LTS food

Cool-ish. It was still very comfortable after midnight so I think it might be a bit warmer this morning. And since it was well into the 90sF yesterday afternoon, a little bit of summer is still holding on. Unless we get rain and a front moving through, I expect today to get hot and muggy too.

I did auction stuff in the morning, and then met a young man to sell my buddy’s item. He had Radio Operator plates on his vehicle, so that was pretty cool. He said he got licensed so he could do more drone stuff, rather than from any love of ham radio though. Some of the video from the bigger more pro level drones uses part of the ham spectrum. He’s got a drone operator’s license too. I’ll have to meet with him again on Friday because I forgot some of the paperwork he needs.

That took about an hour and a half to do, with a bit of chatting, and then it was home to do kid taxi stuff, after a local pickup.

Since I was home I cooked some pork tenderloin for dinner. Oven roasted potatoes, and baked apple slices with cinnamon and honey in bacon fat rounded out the meal. It was pretty good. I am wondering when the girls will get a bit more interested in cooking. I don’t think that they really consider it a skill, since it’s always just happened. Baking, that they were interested in, but mostly learned on their own. Dinner hasn’t caught their interest.

We all need to eat and being able to cook with whatever resources you have is a pretty big plus in my book. It’s funny, because my dad cooked all the big meals at our house, and we (me and my sibs) considered my mom’s cooking to be … workmanlike is probably the best description. We’d joke that she could burn water, but she pointed out that we didn’t starve while she did most of the weekday cooking.

I didn’t really learn cooking from either of them. I did basics when I was in school and afterwards, with some time working in a restaurant kitchen that helped me get the mechanics of it down. I’m no chef, can’t make hollandaise or a souffle’, but I can follow recipes and can even get a good idea what a basic recipe will taste like from reading it, and what can be altered or improvised.

I use some of my dad’s recipes and do my own versions of a couple of his signatures, which were pretty variable anyway. I’ve mentioned and recommended several books before, including

The Simple Fools Handbook to Cooking

(very helpful when I went away to school and needed simple meals), a pre-1975* version of

The Joy of Cooking

, and for apocalypse cooking using all those stored can goods

A Man, A Can, and A Plan

. There are others to fill in the gaps and I love the ‘church lady’ recipe books, but Joy of Cooking will teach you everything you need to know, and it’s filled with humor too. If I could only have one book, my go to is Joy of Cooking.

Those other gaps are filled with

Two Burners and an Ice Chest

(focused on cooking on a boat),

America’s Favorite Brand Name Recipes

(all the best recipes from the back of cans and boxes), and a couple of books on wild game cooking.

Someone here recommended a good cast iron book or D/L but I never got to actually try it out.

I’m a firm believer that in addition to everyday feeding the family, everyone should have at least one meal that they can make for guests that, with a little attention to presentation, is restaurant quality at home.

Like any knowledge based skill with a large practical component, the only really good way to learn cooking is with practice. And by eating all the things…

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Today I’ve got some pickups. Yeah, I’m cutting back, but there was a thing for my non-prepping hobby, and some things for vehicles and the BOL that I just couldn’t pass up. I am buying a lot less, and I do have more time since I’m doing fewer pickups.

Then I’ll try to get some more work in here at the house, and maybe at the shop. Some of it is actually synergistic as I can move stuff from here to there and kill two birds with one rock.

And some of it is managing the stacks. More breakage means more replacement… so stack it up.

nick

*versions after the mid 1970s (of all cookbooks, not just Joy) start to harp on salt, fat, cream, etc with some very sketchy “science” and I prefer to not have my recipes constantly nagging me.

Slightly cooler but sure to get hot later.  Mainly because I’m going to need to work in the attic.   National forecast has us in the clear so that sun will heat everything up.  It stayed cool in the shade yesterday but it was moist and hot in the sunlight, even with a light overcast.

I did one pickup, mostly home goods, but included 2 kindle paperwhites.   D1 cracked her screen a while ago.  I made her pay half for the replacement kindle.   I think I spent $30 each so it wasn’t a hardship, but bad decisions shouldn’t be rewarded.  Got a UV flashlight too.   Should come in handy.  It was $3, so I expect it to be less than pro level.

Went by the bins since I was in that part of town, didn’t find much of interest.   Some days it’s like that.   Nice pair of like new Vans,  if they fit D2 and she likes them, that will have made the stop worth while.  Spent some time at my storage unit going through stuff and sorting for the eventual auction. That’s where the late afternoon sun was beating down on me, even through the overcast.   Came home soaked in sweat.

Dinner was boxed Beef Stroganoff, one of the cheesy hamburger helper style meals.   Beef was in the freezer for over a year, in a vac bag.   Box meal was on the shelf for a year past its best by.   Milk was UHT shelf stable opened last week.   All was good.  No leftovers.(and I use 1 1/3 pounds of meat, instead of just a pound.)   Eat what you store, store what you eat.

Did some searching through surveillance video.   Fish is there at dusk on Saturday but never seen again.   That night a big tabby cat does come sniffing around, but walks off.   The rain started soon after that, and went on for 12 hours, so I don’t have great video, and I can’t see any time when the pond was disturbed at all.   Can’t figure out what got Mr Fish, but he’s gone daddy gone and has been for a week.   That’s kinda the worst part, that we didn’t notice for a few days and didn’t investigate for a few more (we feed him daily.)  I just figured he was hiding in the deep end.  So much for my situational awareness.

Today I’m headed to my client’s house to do the rest of the install.   The NVR came in, and I can get the rest of what I need on my way.   That’ll be later in the morning though.   I should still be able to waste time on the internet with my friends.  You know, get the day started right.

And then I should be able to  invoice and stack up the result.  ‘Cuz sometimes the best stacks are greenbacks.

nick