What Are You Ingesting?

[Darth Fluffy 302]

For my first time ever, I tried cooking fresh asparagus. I fried it, and was not happy with the results, very woody. The insides were tender, though. Turns out, a few of the recipes suggest peeling it ... I have plenty left for further attempts.

I have grow asparagus before, but cooking was never an issue. The young shoots are so sweet and tender that they were usually eaten in the garden, especially after my kids figured out that they could, and otherwise got used in salads. Never had any mature.

[mlooney 3,423]

5 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

... like the AI robots in Questionable Content.

Something like that.  The only "tea" she has tried to drink was mint tea.

[Darth Fluffy 302]

Just now, mlooney said:

Something like that.  The only "tea" she has tried to drink was mint tea.

Thank you for sharing your cat.

[mlooney 3,423]

7 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Thank you for sharing your cat.

Your welcome.  To be honest I take pictures of her to keep my self sane and centered.  Sharing them is just a side effect.

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

Having a bowl of Ainomoto brand microwavable Yakitori w/fried rice & vegetables. Not bad as far as Costco fare goes. Could use a bit of soy sauce, but I'll save that for my next bowl.

[mlooney 3,423]

I didn't feel like cooking so I just heated up a can of corn, added 3 teaspoons of sugar.  Sub par, but will do for my daytime meal.

[Darth Fluffy 302]

Wendy's Crispy Chicken Sandwich, no mayo. I had to refill meds, was on the way home. I added a slice of Swiss and some horseradish when I got home. $1.39 with tax.

[mlooney 3,423]

I'm having a small bowl of cheese slices and a small glass of local cider.  EtC sniffed the cider, then pulled back a bit a sneezed.  It was cute, but she shows no interest in more sniffs of the cider.  Not sure if it was the alcohol or the carbonation that made her pull back, but one of the two did.

[mlooney 3,423]

I ordered delivery via DoorDash from my local Mexican restaurant.  I had Chicken chimichanga, two chicken enchiladas, and chile con queso.  Very good and very filling.  EtC sniffed the sour cream that came with it but wasn't interested in the chicken or beef.  She eats kibble and that's about it.

[Don Edwards 548]

She was a barn cat? Offer her some nice fresh mouse...

[mlooney 3,423]

27 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:

She was a barn cat? Offer her some nice fresh mouse...

Well, I would but I haven't seen one in the house for over 6 months now.

[Darth Fluffy 302]

Due to the mandated isolation, I have been making further forays into preparing my own food. One of my new staples is fruit salad. Right now, one apple, diced (I use the term loosely, they are not cubes), six grapes, cut in half, six Sweet 100 tomatoes, cut in half,  that is my normal base, since I tend to have those around, one kiwi fruit, diced, one half of a banana, sliced, two dabs of Trader Joe's whole grain Dijon mustard, it's mostly mustard seeds, some liquid, so it's like a paste, and Wishbone Italian dressing. Thumbs up.

Lunch was al fresco (don't ask me why their brand name is not capitalized, I didn't come up with it) smoked andouille chicken sausage (oddly, all of those words on the package are in ALL CAPs), split lengthwise and fried, on rye with a slice of Swiss and some horse radish and spicy brown mustard. Also thumbs up; I tend to like food that bites back, so maybe not for everyone.

[Darth Fluffy 302]

Saturday's noon meal did not go as I planned. Was going to be rice with shrimp, but I burned the shrimp, left them sitting on the stove too long. So I had rice with fried asparagus tips and another andouille sandwich (since andouille is a pork product, I don't know what makes chicken andouille 'andouille'; I'm guessing spices, which is kind of lame). That was the last of the andouille  sausages at least until I go shopping.

Drinks were V8 Caribbean Greens fruit and vegetable medley, about an oz of half peppermint schnapps and half Brandy, and some leftover coffee from this morning. The V8 was maybe an 8/10, not bad, not great, maybe healthy. The shot was nice, the brandy cut the overly sweet schnapps nicely.

[mlooney 3,423]

19 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

I don't know what makes chicken andouille 'andouille'; I'm guessing spices, which is kind of lame

Normally when a meat product is made of an animal it's not normally made of, it's a direct change  of the "new" meat for the "old" meat, assuming that there is a body part that more or less works.  In the case of sausages, it would be they used chicken meat where they would normally use pork, but kept the rest of the recipe the same, so, yeah, it's the spices and maybe how ground the meat is.

Beef bacon, for example is just beef brisket smoked and salted like normal bacon.  I'm not exactly sure what they do to make turkey bacon, I suspect that is some what more complex.

[Darth Fluffy 302]

3 hours ago, mlooney said:

Normally when a meat product is made of an animal it's not normally made of, it's a direct change  of the "new" meat for the "old" meat, assuming that there is a body part that more or less works.  In the case of sausages, it would be they used chicken meat where they would normally use pork, but kept the rest of the recipe the same, so, yeah, it's the spices and maybe how ground the meat is.

Beef bacon, for example is just beef brisket smoked and salted like normal bacon.  I'm not exactly sure what they do to make turkey bacon, I suspect that is some what more complex.

Andouille is notable for using innards, such as tripe as part of the filling. The chicken ones do not mention pork at all on the label, so <shrug>? There are parts of a chicken you could substitute, but I don't think it would be the same.  Chickens don't have a stomach for tripe, the closest analog is the gizzard, which is more of a heart-like muscle. All that said, it's not bad sausage, but if you had it side by side with actual andouille, I think you'd notice which is which. Much like bacon?

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,586]

7 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

V8 was maybe an 8/10, not bad, not great, maybe healthy

V8 is ok if you want to get a week's worth of salt while you drink two servings of vegetables

Low sodium V8 is not worth discussing

 

[Darth Fluffy 302]

10 minutes ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

V8 is ok if you want to get a week's worth of salt while you drink two servings of vegetables

Low sodium V8 is not worth discussing

IV8 Caribbean Greens fruit and vegetable medley; it's a sweet drink, not like V8. Not salty, and the label does not mention salt.

It is an odd drink, the vegetable overtones are noticeable, unlike some similar concoctions that I've had at juice bars. (There was one in the Philly downtown subway station in the 1990s that kicked butt, a nice quick lunch on the way in to do customer service.)

The weirdest thing is the color, a light olive drab. That works well for some foods, olives for instance. In this drink, it is off putting. But the weirdest thing about it is that it is apparently intentional, because several of the last fruit and vegetable ingredients are 'for color'.

I should just get a juicer, I could do better.

[mlooney 3,423]

I made a large bowl of steel cut oats porridge in the magic rice machine.  I added a serving (4 oz) of "canned"¹ peaches to it, including the syrup.  Will do again, but I suspected this would be good because back when I was making normal oatmeal I would often add either peaches or raspberry jam to it as my standard thing.

¹Well, cupped.  Those individual serving cups of peaches that you can buy.  My grocery store had a sale on a 24 pack of peaches which I bought.

[mlooney 3,423]

I am in the middle stages of doing a 500 degree (f) roast.  While preheating the oven I forgot that I had a pan with bacon grease in it still in the oven.  Net result:  The fire alarm when off when the grease started smoking.  I have a slightly hazy kitchen right now, but I've turned on the fans which should help some what.

[Darth Fluffy 302]

Made one third of a pulled chicken barbecue kit It wasn't bad. The kit was a huge lump of more or less shredded chicken and three packets of sauce, nicely dividing into thirds. Had some yesterday, liked it, today I added a pack of sweet and sour sauce to it because it seemed like a good match; I wasn't wrong. Those packets come with Dollar Tree egg rolls, and I have an accumulation; the egg rolls are good without them.

The sad thing is, I did not intend to get the kit; I thought I was grabbing sliced lunch meat, it was in that section, and I didn't read the label in detail.

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

Taco Cabana had a deal on flautas and margaritas. Not bad on each. We know the margaritas weren't watered down because they gave us the tequila in a separate bottle to be added once we got everything home.

[Don Edwards 548]

5 hours ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

Taco Cabana had a deal on flautas and margaritas. Not bad on each. We know the margaritas weren't watered down because they gave us the tequila in a separate bottle to be added once we got everything home.

Liquor regulations are fussy about that stuff. Restaurants can get licenses to serve liquor in open containers in the restaurant, and stores (and restaurants in some places) can get licenses to sell liquor in still-sealed containers for carry-out, but - in most US jurisdictions - a license to serve liquor in open containers for carry-out is NOT HAPPENING. (New Orleans is the only exception I know of.)

My daughter had fun with those rules at one of her first jobs. In a restaurant that could only sell beer already opened for consumption on the premises. They had beer both on tap and in bottles. But she was under-age, so while she could fill a glass from the tap and carry it out to the customer, she was not allowed to open a bottle of beer or carry an already-open bottle. (Please do not ask me to explain the logic behind this.) And she couldn't deliver a still-capped bottle to the customer, because that would officially constitute selling it for carry-out. Normally, of course, she'd just pass an order that included bottled beer to one of the other workers*, but sometimes there were no other workers in the front of the house. So she developed a routine she'd explain to the customer: she carried the beer out still capped, she *and* the customer, together, would hold it, the customer would remove the cap, then she would let go. So she was never in full control of the open bottle, and the customer was never in full control of the capped bottle.

* She was instructed by the shift supervisor that when someone ordered a bottle of beer she was supposed to assemble the order, including the still-capped bottle, then call out "Hey, old people!". She actually did this at least once.

[The Old Hack 2,450]

27 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:

She was instructed by the shift supervisor that when someone ordered a bottle of beer she was supposed to assemble the order, including the still-capped bottle, then call out "Hey, old people!". She actually did this at least once.

Now that is rude. If I had been a customer there, I'd at least expect the courtesy of being told, "Could one of you fossils help me?"

[Darth Fluffy 302]

2 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

Liquor regulations are fussy about that stuff. Restaurants can get licenses to serve liquor in open containers in the restaurant, and stores (and restaurants in some places) can get licenses to sell liquor in still-sealed containers for carry-out, but - in most US jurisdictions - a license to serve liquor in open containers for carry-out is NOT HAPPENING. (New Orleans is the only exception I know of.)

My daughter had fun with those rules at one of her first jobs. In a restaurant that could only sell beer already opened for consumption on the premises. They had beer both on tap and in bottles. But she was under-age, so while she could fill a glass from the tap and carry it out to the customer, she was not allowed to open a bottle of beer or carry an already-open bottle. (Please do not ask me to explain the logic behind this.) And she couldn't deliver a still-capped bottle to the customer, because that would officially constitute selling it for carry-out. Normally, of course, she'd just pass an order that included bottled beer to one of the other workers*, but sometimes there were no other workers in the front of the house. So she developed a routine she'd explain to the customer: she carried the beer out still capped, she *and* the customer, together, would hold it, the customer would remove the cap, then she would let go. So she was never in full control of the open bottle, and the customer was never in full control of the capped bottle.

* She was instructed by the shift supervisor that when someone ordered a bottle of beer she was supposed to assemble the order, including the still-capped bottle, then call out "Hey, old people!". She actually did this at least once.

Also, it varies by state. Here in NC, a minor cannot serve alcohol. If the restaurant serves alcohol, a minor cannot be a waiter/waitress.

 

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

35 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Also, it varies by state. Here in NC, a minor cannot serve alcohol. If the restaurant serves alcohol, a minor cannot be a waiter/waitress.

I think that's still how it is in Texas. Back when the drinking age was 18, that's how it was.