What's for dinner? | Page 46 | GTAMotorcycle.com

What's for dinner?

@kwtoxman do you do anything else but cook awesome meals? Where do you find the time? Maybe I'm just lazy.

@JavaFan I bought a couple eye of round roasts yesterday. 40% off. Sliced them into steaks and marinating in beer for tomorrow night. Gonna try cooking them low and slow. Any other suggestions so they aren't so tough?

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yeah marinating helps for sure Joe
I've tried using lime juice which does work well to break down the tough fibers
can add to that your usual salt, pepper, garlic type stuff, leaves kind of a Caribbean flavour

slow BBQ has a law of diminishing returns...more time can equal more tenderness
but unless you're gonna babysit it and mop constantly, it's gonna lead to dryness

my experiment the other day was mediocre, I think 250 F is still too hot
gotta find a way to hit a steady 200 but still make some smoke
 
I do my low and slow cooks over water trays to keep the moisture in and it helps on such beef cooks, etc.



Thx @JB! I definitely take more time and effort to make meals than I ever have before. Though I still find it reasonable to fit these cooks with every day typical life and work. Everyone has their own balance. Also, part of my character pushes me in my interests, goals and hobbies. It's taken a lot of years and experience to get to this point on my meals. FWIW, my focus is on great meals that don't take a lot of effort.

It's also easy for me to defer to some members here and many posts where I see some very impressive cooks, dishes and meals with tons of effort compared to what I tend to do. Many of my meals don't need very much time or work investment.

I also enjoy good food enough to make the effort for every meal I can now, and far more than I used to. I visit the grocer more often and now have better quality ingredients and food around me all the time to use. I'm good at planning and almost always have a plan for cooks for the next week or two. Many of my meals work well as batch cooks with leftovers making subsequent meals easy. I have become more patient as well. I used to shortcut meals to eat sooner, now I don't. I no longer mind delaying a meal 30-60 minutes to eat better. I can always have an appetizer. :) All of these considerations have led to a cumulative effect on my cooks, in a very positive way.

Take a look at my last cook, a stir fry; it's simple, relatively quick and excellent. Having expanded the foods and meals in my cooking repertoire I now have many more ingredients on hand; that gives me the ability to do better as well as riff in a great way. I change my stir fry cooks depending on what I want and have. Shrimp is an easy and fast thaw and cook. Chicken can be done in the fridge the night before or in water for a fast thaw. The veg prep is the longest part of the cook taking 15 min or so if I have a bunch. 5 min to gather ingredients. The dried fungus and mushrooms need to sit 20-30 min in hot water before use, but that's quite easy and can be done first. A 3-4 min preheat and a 2-5 min cook for the meat separate from the wok cook on another stove element (often concurrently), which takes about 5-10 minutes depending on size. I can boil noodles concurrently on another stove element and it tends to be 3-5 min. Combine all the ingredients in the wok, season, finishing cooking and enjoy. Total time around 30-35 min or so.

I'm here to share and read about great food and meals and I enjoy the discussions. We all learn and I enjoy paying it forward. Many people and places have inspired me.

Cheers
 
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Here are some leftover ingredients I decided to riff with. A few chipotles with adobo sauce that I diced up (from the can originally), some fresh diced onion and some basswood black fungus (which I diced). :)
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I used those ingredients to bolster some salsa and give me an ultra premium version. :agave:
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BBQ chicken drumsticks using Misty Mountain BBQ sauce (national BBQ competition award winning sauce), grilled on the weber summit. :agave:
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A zoom shot :agave:.
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I recently picked up a bulk pack of chicken drumsticks (full size) on sale again. That meal is too good to not keep the option around whenever possible. 16 full size drumsticks for under $7.50. It's a tasty, inexpensive and easy grill. Plus there's a million different ways to season or marinate them. I packaged the drumsticks into individual meal amounts and put them in the chest freezer.

Cheers!
 
Not quite dinner but I roasted my own coffee beans this morning in a pan on my cooker. Turned out really well and made my kitchen smell fantastic. 8-9 minutes stirring continuously is all it takes.
 
Here's some nachos! Some of that ultra premium salsa was refrigerated overnight and even further consolidated into greatness.
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I really enjoy variety and have incorporated it many ways. The first picture of the fresh ultra premium salsa was great and I used half of it immediately. When fresh there's more texture and crunch in the serving. I took the unused half of the salsa and left it in the fridge overnight. The next day I topped up the salsa with a bit of water (it dried out a bit), a bit more of store bought salsa and chipotles with adobo sauce for a little more spice/heat. So this second picture shows a second riff on that original preparation. And sitting overnight in the fridge has softened the onions. The texture was great, not as firm as when fresh and not as mushy as when only using store-bought sauce.

Cheers!
 
Not quite dinner but I roasted my own coffee beans this morning in a pan on my cooker. Turned out really well and made my kitchen smell fantastic. 8-9 minutes stirring continuously is all it takes.

bring the beans back from C. America, JC?

that would make a great retirement hobby/business
small batch, craft roasted coffee
 
bring the beans back from C. America, JC?

that would make a great retirement hobby/business
small batch, craft roasted coffee

Yes. 2lbs of green premium beans cost about $ 13 US. Not super cheap but these are from a good farm. I brought back some geisha coffee too, it’s the most expensive coffee in the world (apart from perhaps civet coffee), can sell for up to $120 US a pound. I bought it for $15US for 250g but that was at a store in a coffee farm that was aimed mainly at tourists, I’m sure you can get it cheaper if you know where to look. I was thinking about using 50lbs of my luggage limit to bring back quite a bit of it to sell since there’s no limit on coffee unlike tobacco or alcohol.
 
Went next level stir fry here, again :). Best Ever (for me). Many of the same great ingredients as the last few I've posted here (many, many ingredients too). But chicken this time. The full house chicken stir fry! Came out amazing :agave:. Make no mistake, this is still a vegetable dominated stir fry with tons of different veg in it (and mushroom/fungus). Love the chow mein noodles. It looks amazing too :).
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Soma chocolate. This could literally be considered the best chocolate in the world. A great read on the foil package. :agave:
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Instant pot rice and tapioca pudding with fresh blueberries. :agave:
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Grilled pork back ribs done low and slow for four hours on the weber summit. One is BBQ with another national bbq competition award winning sauce, and the other is (homemade) greek seasoning. :agave:
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Cooked perfectly and very tasty. :agave:
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This picture shows how well it was cooked. These ribs are just out of the fridge and cold and you can still see broad pink in the meat. :agave:
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Cheers!
 
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alright @kwtoxman

you get the nomination for official chef
GTAM annual general meeting

you get to bring the beer too :)
 
alright @kwtoxman


you get the nomination for official chef
GTAM annual general meeting


you get to bring the beer too
LOL @JavaFan, thx! I like how you casually attached beer to the conversation. Well played. :)




Lovely ultra premium steak FLSTC. 2.7 lbs is a lot of meat! I cringe at paying for the bone in steaks at such high prices by weight. Looking forward to the cook. Enjoy!




In honour of that steak post, here's mine (had steak yesterday). My no compromise ribeye steak. 24 oz (for two) angus beef custom cut at my favourite butcher (look at the huge amount of tenderloin on it :D). Grilled on the weber summit. Pretty much a perfect cook and done rare. :agave:
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It was really juicy. And the best rare steak cook I've done in a while. Perfect sear for what I like; the summit has a great sear burner setup so you can get a nice and significant sear. And then the rest of the cook went equally well.


Got a great price on lots of super fresh nice asparagus, so that was the side as well as some fresh hot crunchy garlic bread.:agave::agave:
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A few more steak pics. :agave::agave:
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The asparagus and garlic bread was great too! :agave:(I'll post the picture of the garlic bread later and update this post)
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Cheers!
 
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asparagus done on the grill? been thinking of trying that

usually just steam it lightly and serve with Hollandaise sauce
I like it a bit on the crunchy side
 
asparagus done on the grill? been thinking of trying that

usually just steam it lightly and serve with Hollandaise sauce
I like it a bit on the crunchy side

Wrap it in prosciutto and grill/bake it...it’s amazing done that way. Easily my favourite way to cook asparagus.
 
asparagus done on the grill? been thinking of trying that

usually just steam it lightly and serve with Hollandaise sauce
I like it a bit on the crunchy side
Yup. It's amazing and very easy/fast. I predominantly do asparagus on the grill, but I've had success as well with pan-frying in my cast iron skillet. This grill cook was with some extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) and sea salt. I change up the amount of salt to whatever I'm feeling for the cook, sometimes it's very light and sometimes its more significant. 7 or so minutes on medium will get you in the ball park (maybe a little less than medium on a propane grill, especially one that runs hot). I also change up cooking times for variety and different bite/feel. An asparagus grill cook is fast and nothing beats the light char it adds to the cook and taste. :agave:

Here's a grill cook today of asparagus (I have a lot :)). I went with a lighter cook for a change and it came out wonderfully. Beautiful bite and flavours :agave:.
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I really enjoy fresh asparagus :).

Cheers.
 
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Drizzle on some evoo as well.
Wrap it in prosciutto and grill/bake it...it’s amazing done that way. Easily my favourite way to cook asparagus.

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good advice guys, thanks

asparagus is one of my favourite seasonal greens
and I figure anything that makes your urine reek
within an hour of eating it has to be good for you

and wrapping it in aged/salted Italian delicay
then oiled up has to make it even better

but I gotta fit butter in their somewhere
 

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