ODG Eats

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 decided to go balls to the wall with dinner tonight. I'm talking about 3 pans and 1 pot taking up my four burners, plus some oven usage. I knew that keeping that many things going and synchronized would take some focus, so my first step would definitely be a glass of whiskey.  I opted for the Old Dominick's Huling Station Single Barrel bourbon, and it was absolutely lovely. Despite the high proof, it's a smooth drink, strong caramel notes, just...well, fucking lovely. Now, as you can imagine, with all of the things going on, there weren't a ton of pictures, but I'll give you a quick run-through of what I planned to make, then what ended up happening. So my plan was to bread a chicken breast, sear it in butter and olive oil, then top it with grated parmesan and bake it in the oven; grate some purple sweet potato, mix in a little egg white and minced garlic, then fry that up in butter and top it with pickled zucchini and "egg pearls," which are drops of eg...

 Told you there'd be one more. So, if you remember way back in Part 1 , we broke down a whole chicken. We separated out the tenderloins and skin , two   breasts , two wings , two legs , and two thighs , and we were left with the rest of the carcass: bones, a little bit of meat, a patch or two of skin, some crushed organs up in there, etc.  So this is what I used for making broth. Broth is super useful for soup bases, sauce bases, or just to sip on if you've got a sore throat. It's relatively low effort, but can take a bit of time depending on how you want it to go. If you make your own, you can season it however you like and really come up with some fun customizations. You can include veggies, bones, odds and ends; I keep a ziploc of veggie scraps in the freezer for broth and highly recommend it (PSA: cut down on food waste!) I kept it simple this time, though - just chicken carcass. For a basic broth, I just rub down the carcass with some extra virgin olive oil and seaso...

So after I had dinner a The 'Dolo the other night, I needed to cook up something for the next day's lunch/dinner. I had a chicken breast that still hadn't quite thawed, so I put it in some water in the sink and did a Stardew Valley stream . By the time I'd finished streaming, the chicken was thawed and I was tired as fuck, so I knew I had to do something quick so I could get to bed. I grabbed a couple mushrooms, a carrot, and a handful of tomatoes and got to it. I peeled and halved the carrot, the sliced one of the halves lengthwise. I diced the tomatoes into 6 pieces apiece, and just kept the tomatoes in whole. I threw all of the veggies onto my foil-lined baking pan, doused them with extra virgin olive oil, and seasoned with some salt and black pepper. I also rubbed the chicken breast with the oil and seasoned it with the M9 seasoning I used during the Whole Chicken adventure . Then I just preheated the oven to 450 and threw the pan in (note: I did not actually throw...

I was fighting off a panic attack and was hungry, so it was time for frenetic cooking with minimal planning and a scattered group of dish ideas. I grabbed a ton of veggies and got started cutting them up: celery was sliced (right-side clear bowl), baby bella mushrooms were peeled and sliced thinly (15 slices per mushroom; blue bowl), radicchio was chopped (red bowl), orange bell pepper (blue), radish (right-side clear), and onion (middle clear) were diced, parsley (red bowl) and basil (left-side clear) were minced, and the kale stem was sliced (right-side clear bowl) and leaves were chopped (left-side clear). Once the veggies were prepped, I took a handful of pistachios and chopped them up pretty well. I covered my last salmon fillet with some extra virgin olive oil, seasoned the skin with black pepper, then coated the meat with grated parmesan and the pistachios. I put that on a foil-lined baking pan and, on the other side, put some halved grape tomatoes drizzled with olive oil and se...

Since the next piece I thawed was the other breast, I decided that I wanted a remake of part 3  with a slight do-over on part 4  with a better executed roasted veggie sauce concept. I did the same M9 seasoning on the chicken breast and roasted it in the oven. Nothing special or different there. The sauce is where things got a little different. I used orange bell pepper, carrot, onion, wood ear mushrooms, and kale tonight. See? I can cook without garlic, especially if I...forget the garlic until halfway through cooking because I'm distracted by other bullshit.  I removed the leaf from the kale and chopped it up, then quartered the mushrooms.  The carrot, bell pepper, and onion were sliced up, thrown on a baking sheet, doused with extra virgin olive oil, seasoned with salt and pepper, and roasted at 425 until the onions started blackening around the edges, at which point I dumped them (and the olive oil) into my food processor. I mostly pureed the veggies, then added a...