tavernkeep-fenne

[tavernkeep-fenne]

Very simple beef stew

[tavernkeep-fenne]

I like using a mix of homemade stuff and storebought. I feel like it's good to share that bit of realisticness. For example, chicken tastes too chickeny lately but I have a lot in the freezer bc it's our main protein for the costs. I bought these:

Above are pictured two packets from McCormick. Each packet is a two-part envelope with a seasoning that goes on the chicken as you cook it, and a seasoning that goes in Greek yogurt or sour cream to make a sauce. One packet's flavor is labelled as Shawarma Pita with Garlic Sauce and the other is labelled as Greek Style Gyro with Tzatziki Sauce. End description.

These sounded like good hot weather foods, and tonight I am trying the shawarma one.

This meal doesn't have a lot of homemade elements bc I'm also cheating and just using the tortillas we have, instead of getting pita. This weekend though, I will probably make and freeze homemade cottage pies, using the one premade ingredient of mashed potatoes. To be fair, they were leftover packet mashed potatoes I put in the freezer. I'll make the gravy for that from scratch, and I've got veggies to cut for it as well.

Food is fuel. Some foods do this better than others, but there're also other factors like how filling, affordable, and tasty it is. I also have to think about how easy or difficult a meal is to prepare and whether or not I am going to be too exhausted to eat after I'm done cooking.

The only bad foods are ones that are spoiled, you don't like, or are allergic to. And of course things that aren't meant to be food like aquarium gravel or the sins of the ghost lurking in your hallway. (Thank goodness this is Tumblr bc people wouldn't get it on Instagram)

[tavernkeep-fenne]

While I'm remembering I have this blog, these are the most beautiful eggs I have ever bought

Even tweaking the settings, this photo does not do the blue eggs justice. There's only one white egg. They're not all the same shape. There's poop and feathers on them.

They're from the farmer's market. The poop and feathers are normal, and are easily removed by gently washing them. They're perfectly safe. I've still got them in the fridge bc I got them out of a fridge at the market.

Prices of eggs in the US are so high that $7 for backyard chicken eggs is an acceptable price even compared to the factory farmed eggs. I have to budget but I also need eggs, so I may as well support someone a lot more local.

They're so beautiful

[tavernkeep-fenne]

Now that I have moved over to desktop because I am disorganized like that, here is what I did:

Ingredients 1lb stew meat 1 large yellow onion 4 large-ish russet potatoes garlic cloves (however many, I used 3) tomato paste basil paste fresh rosemary, sage, and thyme (or dried, I felt bougie) bay leaves I guess 2 beef bouillon cubes salt black pepper olive oil an abundance of water

This isn't some recipe I swear by. Like I said, I threw it together. It came our tasty though. I made sure the stew meat was roughly the same size chunks. Then I peeled the 4 potatoes and chopped them into roughly 1 inch pieces. I roughly sliced the onion so I could saute it, and carefully used a mandolin slicer to slice the garlic. I'm used to that tool, but if you'd rather use a garlic press, go for it! Don't have either? You can mash it with a fork and some pressure. The point is to get it into pieces, really.

I put the onions, garlic, a drizzle of olive oil, and a sprinkle of salt in an instant pot set to saute and stirred it around a little. Mainly I wanted the onions to soften and start getting a little more translucent. I spent maybe 10 minutes on that? I also has not pre-washed my potatoes so I could ignore my onions while I rinse the peeled taters, and cut them up.

While the onions were cooking, I also microwaved a couple cups of water to make it easier to dissolve the bouillon. I used a frother to make that even easier.

After the onions were cooked a little, I dumped in the meat, the cut potatoes, and the beef bouillon. The I added more water to mostly cover it all. I added more salt, some black pepper, basil from a squeeze tube (roughly a tablespoon) and then roughly 2 tablespoons of tomato paste. I broke these last additions up with the frother, and knew I would be stirring everything after a couple hours.

Then I went to the store. Don't worry, my husband was home and I did not leave these hot machine cooking alone. Allegedly it's safe, but I don't want to risk it. I went to the store for fresh herbs. I have all of these as dried herbs, but I felt bougie and wanted to use fresh herbs. I rinsed them off after coming home, and then used a rolling pin to crush them to help release the oils. Then I added bay leaves bc sure why not.

After six hours, with occasional stirring, I used a strainer to pull the solids out and make a gravy to thicken the base. I put the meat and potatoes in the meal prep trays, poured the base over that, and kept as much of the herbs off to the side as possible. They kind of disintegrated and I really should have used a cheesecloth.

No wine? No wine. I don't like how it tastes. It really is just putting stuff in water and letting it cook for a long time. One of the trays will be going camping with us, per my husband's request. It's really why I made it to begin with.

Dammit I thought I deleted this blog bc I keep forgetting about it

I made stew! I'll reblog this with the madness of how I threw it together. It's not hard, and I don't have a written recipe or any particular tricks. I just throw stuff together for stew lol

[tavernkeep-fenne]

Dammit I thought I deleted this blog bc I keep forgetting about it

I made stew! I'll reblog this with the madness of how I threw it together. It's not hard, and I don't have a written recipe or any particular tricks. I just throw stuff together for stew lol

[tavernkeep-fenne]

Chai tea bag + lil but of brown sugar + apple cider packet + 16 oz. mug of hot but not quite boiling water

it will not Fix You but like. maybe. maybe.

[tavernkeep-fenne]

From the official Horizon Cookbook:

Mesa Bread!

I made a small mistake that may have made the outcome a little different but that's okay, they're still yummy!

[tavernkeep-fenne]

I got a larger shelf for a whopping $12 at Walmart, and now can prep and freeze more meals to basically just reheat and eat.

I'm using the instant pot's slow cook setting for some of it since the chicken comes out tender and easy to shred, and the large skillet to cook the large amounts of taco meat, and a sauce pot to cook any sauces I want to store separate from the meat.

I've also got basic rice in two forms. Flat frozen jasmine and cube frozen white rice. They're portioned and easy to grab and use.

The stocking up also uses quick ingredients like taco seasoning packets and canned veggies.

Really not a fan of the amount of single use plastic I am using but I'm going to use even more during recovery. It's currently necessary and practical.

I don't care to use so much single use plastic but I need to prepare food for use during my recovery since I'll be down a hand for 2 months. I have gotten some souper cubes to freeze more liquidy things in, which I didn't have for the top row of foods

[tavernkeep-fenne]

I don't care to use so much single use plastic but I need to prepare food for use during my recovery since I'll be down a hand for 2 months. I have gotten some souper cubes to freeze more liquidy things in, which I didn't have for the top row of foods

[tavernkeep-fenne]

I made tortillas

They're flour tortillas

I didn't use a recipe but I did make use of my tortilla press that I usually use to make thin burgers, and they turned out okay. Not great, but not awful

[tavernkeep-fenne]

Not So Great News

My wrist has been noticeably messed up since February and last week I was able to see an ortho about it, where it was determined I will need surgery.

Now, two things: 1) It is the wrist of my dominant hand. I have next to no coordination with my other hand, so this will be extremely limiting. 2) I will spare the details and just say I expect my hand/wrist to be pretty useless for up to six months. 3 months for the primary recovery, then more for rebuilding of strength and all that.

The great news about this is how bad I've been at keeping up this blog. I keep forgetting to document and blog, and also tumblr likes to tell me no when a wall of text is interspersed with pics. I don't know why, I doubt staff knows why either.

The original point of this blog was low-spoon meals. I'll definitely be doing low-spoon while I'm recovering from surgery. A lot of this will be done by meal prepping on high-spoon days and freezing that prep for when I need it later. I'm planning that for next week, after I have fully recovered from the emotional shock. I'll just say that my bones are incorrect and it's a genetic issue, not an injury. I've been headed for this road for a very long time and it could very well explain some pain I've had for 20 years. Mind you, I'm only 33.

Anyway! I have no choice but to look at low-spoon easy-prep so I can't accidentally slide in something that I think is easy but y'all do not. And given how limited my activities will be, there will be more focus on blogging, and hopefully blogging better.

[tavernkeep-fenne]

Used a mini waffle maker to cook eggs to freeze and reheat later for sandwiches. I know, they don't look appealing but they're filling and easy to make. I made enough for the week, but took this pic when I was cooking the third one.

Standard cupcake liners are the perfect size to separate them before stuffing them into a freezer bag to toss in the freezer.

Next week I'll make the effort to mix stuff into them like cheese, peppers, and of course seasoning. (I forgot to even salt these. Whoops!)

To reheat, just wrap in a damp paper towel and microwave. I have no idea for how long just yet.

[tavernkeep-fenne]

If you struggle to make food bc cutting everything takes so long, consider a food chopper.

I made a salad in about 5 minutes, and ate it right out of the container the cut food goes into.

I'm still figuring out what things do and don't do well with it but that's okay!

Mine came with two claws to pull everything out of the top grid, and a brush for cleaning out other parts. The lid comes apart to more easily fit in the dishwasher, and all the parts are top-rack dishwasher friendly for this one.

Mine is the $40 Fullstar one, and it was worth every penny.

[tavernkeep-fenne]

Great news! My witchy auntie ordered me a copy of the Horizon cookbook for my bday and it got here today! I'm so excited. I get to sit and type up all the recipes and it gets to take as long as it takes and I don't have to worry about it being overdue.

(Why am I typing them up? My father in law gave me a computer that I decided to put in the kitchen, and I'm going to keep the recipes as local files on there. I can't really write them for my recipe box right now bc of a wrist injury, but typing them is much less painful)

[tavernkeep-fenne]

A really unfortunate update as my symptoms evolved, which I chose not to share:

I think I actually had covid last week. The newer variants look a lot like a cold, which is the level at which a lot of virus settle to spread themselves. It doesn't do a virus much good to kill all its hosts.

Anyway, there were a lot of sinus symptoms but felt like no illness I've had before, and I didn't bother testing bc it's as easy as avoiding people in most cases.

Where did I get it? Probably when we ate out for my birthday last Monday.

I'll let the library know I had a suspiciously covid-like virus when I return the cookbook so they can do what they need to do. To be fair, I thought it was just a migraine when I picked it up bc my migraine pain typically starts in my sinuses.

What does this mean to this blog? It means cooking will be a little late. I might copy down a bunch of the recipes before I return the book or I might just order a copy of it because I don't know if I can copy the recipes down that fast lol

[tavernkeep-fenne]

I requested this cookbook for my local library bc I wanted to look through the recipes before committing to a purchase, and I've learned it's a journal by Milduf as he goes around collecting recipes from each of the tribes. His entries are very entertaining and I definitely couldn't help but wonder how he managed to go from one side of the map to the other

I definitely plan to make things once I'm sure I won't have a rebound migraine. I'm feeling way too drained today, but am hoping to feel better by Monday.

[tavernkeep-fenne]

So, Plauntie... How do you make mead again?

Sterilize the fermentation vessel. An empty milk jug works well. Fill mostly with hot water, dump a tablespoon or so of bleach in there, put cap on, shake well, dump bleach out, rinse out thoroughly with more hot water.

I use ratio of 1/5 honey to water. So, for every cup of honey you use, use five of water.

Boil up the water, dump the honey in, bring back to a boil, take off the heat.

When it cools down to about blood temperature, dump a packet of wine yeast in there and stir it up.

Pour into sterilized jug. Stretch a balloon over the top, and put a pinhole in it. That’ll let CO2 out and not let contaminants in.

Let ferment somewhere warm for several weeks. . Once it settles out and the liquid is clear with a layer of yeast residue on the bottom, siphon off into bottles and there ya go.

Feel free to experiment with spices or juices or whatever the hell you feel like throwing in there!