Still feeding friends this week! For breakfast, ended up cooking with ingredients that I had around: pancakes, sausage, leftover soup
But the Skyfish is where the fun is. Stuffed swai with cooked marinated beef, carrot, scrambled egg, broccoli (the cabbage got left in the b&b and I had to improvise) and then wrapped it in a tofu skin and battered and fried them up. The wings were potatoes mandolined thin and rolled up and slightly battered with the same batter and fried.
It's like fish and chips plus! I don't know what else to say! Chilchuck was right, some ale with this is pretty great. Prep under the read more!
My baby daughter got her adorable puffin-print dress absolutely CAKED in mud crawling around the yard and my first thought was "oh no her beautiful dress"
And my second thought was "oh huh it really WOULD be easy to unconsciously steer her away from playing in the dirt. Unlike my son, whose outfits are usually some kind of solid dark easily washed pants plus a shirt that doesn't trail in the dirt like a dress does."
Anyway something something gender roles start getting shoved on kids from literal birth, but with a little time to think about things, YOU TOO can let your children of any gender absolutely destroy their clothes in the dirt pit they're digging in your garden
I like to think that Vulcans who come to understand that Humans just can’t try to process emotions the same way as them, it’s just healthiest to let it out in harmless ways, decide that venting and stuff should be taken just as seriously as Vulcan’s meditation time, and will encourage the Humans around them to complain about what’s upsetting them
People who are used to aloof Vulcans who avoid Humans at all cost running into one comforting a Human
“-and then they said my cheesecake was subpar, and they didn’t even bring a dish!!!”
“The purpose of this event was that every participant brings a food item of sorts, correct?”
“Yeah!!”
“And they did not follow this rule while insulting dishes that were brought?”
probably time for this story i guess but when i was a kid there was a summer that my brother was really into making smoothies and milkshakes. part of this was that we didn't have AC and couldn't afford to run fans all day so it was kind of important to get good at making Cool Down Concoctions.
we also had a patch of mint, and he had two impressionable little sisters who had the attitude of "fuck it, might as well."
at one point, for fun, this 16 year old boy with a dream in his eye and scientific fervor in heart just wanted to see how far one could push the idea of "vanilla mint smoothie". how much vanilla extract and how much mint can go into a blender before it truly is inedible.
the answer is 3 cups of vanilla extract, 1/2 cup milk alternative, and about 50 sprigs (not leaves, whole spring) of mint. add ice and the courage of a child. idk, it was summer and we were bored.
the word i would use to describe the feeling of drinking it would maybe be "violent" or perhaps, like. "triangular." my nose felt pristine. inhaling following the first sip was like trying to sculpt a new face. i was ensconced in a mesh of horror. it was something beyond taste. for years after, i assumed those commercials that said "this is how it feels to chew five gum" were referencing the exact experience of this singular viscous smoothie.
what's worse is that we knew our mother would hate that we wasted so much vanilla extract. so we had to make it worth it. we had to actually finish the drink. it wasn't "wasting" it if we actually drank it, right? we huddled around outside in the blistering sun, gagging and passing around a single green potion, shivering with disgust. each sip was transcendent, but in a sort of non-euclidean way. i think this is where i lost my binary gender. it eroded certain parts of me in an acidic gut ecology collapse.
here's the thing about love and trust: the next day my brother made a different shake, and i drank it without complaint. it's been like 15 years. he's now a genuinely skilled cook. sometimes one of the three of us will fuck up in the kitchen or find something horrible or make a terrible smoothie mistake and then we pass it to each other, single potion bottle, and we say try it it's delicious. it always smells disgusting. and then, cerimonious, we drink it together. because that's what family does.
Ice Golem Fish (and) Chawanmushi, Sweet Simmered Mandrake, and Barometz
Big one today! A lot of multitasking but I got it all out warm.
I did filet the fish myself (probably gonna put those in a reblog). Grabbed a milkfish and butterflied it, putting the head and bones into the pot to make broth which was then used for the chawanmushi and mandrake. Clam for nightmares in the chawanmushi along with some mushrooms I had around. The chawanmushi had a delicate flavor and the textures of the clam and mushroom were fun little surprises. Fish was simple and tasty.
The mandrake is celeriac again. I tried to use the same recipe as for taro, but I think it was underseasoned. Also I wouldn't recommend cooking with skin on even though it looks more like it. Has a bad texture and a little bitter. Otherwise it was a nice fresh flavor in contrast to the heavy lamb dish.
Now this was the star of the night. Garlic shoots stir fried for the shoots. I seared the lamb for a little bit on each side and then tossed em with crab paste for the crabby flavor and steamed with sake for a few more minutes and let rest while I cooked the rind. Squash for the rind, cooked in the same pan with the drippings from the lamb with garlic, sauteed until soft with a little salted egg as a treat and a nod to the balut. Goodness gracious. The lamb was perfectly cooked and tender and seasoned just right. And oghh man the squash. Slightly crispy on the outside and tender soft inside. The whole thing was a hearty umami blast with the fresh crunch of the greens when you need it. Would do again 💯