Photos
Our (majority) whole wheat crust pizza.
🐞
Home fried sweet potato chips. Because we didn’t use the potato in a Massaman curry last week (had spaghetti instead).
I’m experimenting with Meteobridge Templates and Siri Shortcuts so Siri can tell me about the weather just by pulling data off the local network data logger. Works pretty good!
Newly emerged ladybug 🐞
Future native California grapes.🐞🐝
Was prepping the vegetable garden bed and had to dodge lots of ladybugs.
Front yard (mostly) native garden update.
Good morning! Here’s Orion’s Belt of Ladybugs on white clover.
Yellow Dal w/Garlic & Brown Basmati and make ahead veggie enchiladas all at once.
Our local grocery store’s distributor ran out of eggs by the dozen. 😕
What do you need this morning? Bee butt on Gilia flowers and Baby Blue Eyes.
Realized we can keep our front door open with closed screen because there shouldn’t be door to door sales people right now. The Annie Cat is in heaven.
Takeout from a local Orland, CA restaurant. Even in rural California, online takeout is available! Several restaurants here are offering online orders or call-in. One restaurant has kits to make meals. Another has frozen takeout. 🤞
It’s high time we start taking photos behind the flowers. Apricot flower.
Sous Vide London Broil (Beef)
We had a two pound London Broil in the freezer chest and nowhere to go because of SARS-CoV-2. Might as well try Sous Vide!
We did the water displacement method with a 1-gallon freezer bag. I massaged out as many air bubbles as possible. I also pinched the sides of the bag together. The idea is to make sure as much direct contact happens with as much meat surfaces as possible with water.
Straight out of the Sous Vide bag the meat is grey and even more oddly, not leaking juices (which always happens with meat removed from blazing hot cooking environments creating a huge temperature and pressure gradient):
Then we cooked it in the water bath for 8 hours at 132ºF or 55.56ºC for 8 hours. It looked grey straight out of the bath and was as you’d expect after reading Kenji’s The Food Lab.
We seared it off in a smoking hot cast iron on all sides and suddenly it was quite appealing to the eye! (plus actually added tangible flavor at the crust).
Seared off in a smoking hot cast-iron gave the meat some color and delicious Maillard reaction
We’ll do this again but next time try it at 131ºF or 55ºC; some of the meat closest to the surface was getting close to over cooked despite still being mid-rare. The meat had just enough chew after being thinly sliced. I doubt this tough cut could get any more tender. I’ll also push the meat down flush against the cast-iron to get better color and take my time searing the sides.
Mid-rare doneness - tender enough and not dried out:
Not going anywhere unless necessary so time to try Sous Vide London Broil. Just under two pounds of meat held at 132°F/55.6°C for 8 hours. Just salt and pepper for the beef. Will sear it to finish.
Cherry tree in full bloom.
This morning’s view out the backyard window. The California Lilacs (purple!) are out of control. Mandarin in the foreground. Elderberry to the far left.
A successful section of our vegetative fence line screen. Elderberry (Sambucus mexicana), California Lilac (Ceanothus), and a Mandarin tree. A few years in the making.
