ODG Eats

So on Saturday afternoon and into the evening, I did my first cooking livestream since 2022. I decided to do my personal twist on Thanksgiving dinner which included some more traditional items as well as some fun changes. I do apologize for the shit image quality: these are all screen captures from the stream VOD.  The first course was simple enough: panko breaded and air fried chicken wings with cellentani in a creamy parmesan and asiago sauce. I included some ghost pepper in the corn starch I used to dredge the wings, then a quick egg wash, some panko crumbs, and into the air fryer for 25 minutes (15 on one side, flip, then 10 more). It was a hell of a start to the meals. Second course was an oven "smoked" turkey leg. I cooked it in the same fashion that I recently cooked the beef bottom round roast . It took a bit longer than I had intended for the turkey to reach an internal temperature of 160, and that ended up throwing off the rest of my timing for everything else in ...

I worked late tonight, which sets off a chain reaction of misery. My dogs didn't see me until later. I didn't get to use the bathroom and change clothes until after that. I didn't get to start cooking until after that was done. Worst part was, I had an idea at work for what I wanted to do for dinner, and it was something that took a lot fucking longer to make than I wanted to wait. But I did it. I waited. And it was fucking worth it.  So I minced up 5 baby bella mushrooms, and that took way to goddamn long. Some of the pieces ended up a little bit bigger because I was fucking tired of chopping fucking mushrooms. I finely diced about a quarter of a yellow bell pepper and dumped that in with the mushrooms, then I minced a bit of red onion and garlic cloves.  I started off the onion and garlic in some melted butter and let them sweat for a few minutes. By the way, if you've never cooked garlic and onion in butter, fucking do it, just for the smell. It's like heaven sha...

I had a couple more pieces of salmon to cook, plus a bag of almonds, so I figured why not try almond encrusted salmon? That sounds fancy, right? I tried something similar with pistachios a while back, and it didn't go terribly well. That time, I put some olive oil on the salmon, then topped it with crushed pistachios and parmesan before broiling it. This resulted in burned pistachios, which wasn't the worst thing I've ever eaten, but it was far from good. Okay, it was pretty shitty. Whatever.  So this time I decided to try something different. I seasoned the fish with some salt and pepper, then gave it an egg wash. Instead of my normal approaches of dunking or pouring, I brushed it on like a sensible fucking human being.  I stuck a few handfuls of raw almonds (without the shells, of course) into a freezer bag and then made use of one of my least utilized kitchen tools: my meat tenderizer hammer. I honestly have no idea if it works for tenderizing meat, but I can tell you t...

So I bought a fillet of salmon at Kroger last week, and it was pre-portioned into 4 pieces, so I thought, "why not fuck around with some of this?"  So I did. I kept two pieces (the larger pieces in the foreground) and stuck them back in the fridge for a real dinner/lunch tomorrow, and used the smaller pieces for a poaching experiment. I've never poached fish before, but I saw a video about it a couple weeks ago and thought, "Yeah, that's simple enough to do, right?" Turns out: poaching fish is easy as fuck. I seasoned the fish up with some salt and pepper to keep things simple and consistent between the two pieces. The video I saw talked about cream being the traditional poaching liquid, but also mentioned butter as an option, so I decided I'd try poaching one piece in cream and the other in butter so I could compare the two. If you're unfamiliar with poaching, it's essentially the same as boiling or simmering something, except not at a high enou...

It's been a busy-ass week at work, and, to top things off, I had a pork loin I was going to cook a few nights ago, but, when I got to the house, the fucking air conditioning wasn't working, and there was no way in hell I was going to be cooking a pork loin when the house was already hot. Luckily, I was able to fix the AC that night, but it was far too late for cooking, which meant that the next night, I had to cook all of the pork loin because I didn't want it to start to turn. Well, pork loins are pretty sizeable, so I ended up making two meals (four servings) simultaneously. It was exciting. There were two pans and two pots on four burners, plus another pan in the oven. There were entrees, sides, and sauces. There were not a ton of pictures. My bad. Starting off, I trimmed as much of the thick-ass fat off as I could. I know, I know, fat is love, fat is life, but the thick slab of fat on a pork loin can get unseemly really fucking fast. After the cleaning, I cut the loin i...

I wanted to have some kind of dramatic title for the post going live after the 2024 US Presidential election, but I'm writing the post before the election, so...I'm just gonna go with something generic and hope it's clickbaity enough that some new fuckers click my link in a moment of existential crisis. I am of the opinion that many existential crises could be solved by what I consider a criminally underutilized ingredient in home cooking: the turnip. I know, I know, you , dear reader, fully appreciate all parts of the turnip in a myriad of different preparations; you , dear reader, eat seven servings of turnips every week; you , dear reader, are the avatar of all that is glorious in cuisine, and an unattainable goal to which we should all aspire; you , dear reader, can fuck yourself - this is for the rest of us.  This meal started like most: I grabbed an assortment of veggies and a knife, then applied the knife to the veggies in specific ways. I minced up a few cloves of ...