Leafhopper Assassin with a meal.
Hummingbird enjoying succulent flowers.
Shooting Star or Primula hendersonii (maybe) at Hidden Lakes, Lassen National Forest last Friday 6/12.
Sous Vide Filet Mignon, Medium Rare
We set the Filet Mignon into the water bath (in a bag of course, air displaced by water so water touches as much steak surface as possible), then set the Sous Vide to 130ºF. Once the water hit 130ºF, we set the timer for an hour to officially start the cook. When the Sous Vide cook was finished, we removed them to pat them dry, and then generously salt and peppered them. We then seared them off in a smoking hot cast iron pan with a tiny bit of peanut oil. After about 1 minute and 15 seconds, we flipped the filets, put unsalted butter in the pan, and basted the heck out of them for about a minute. So after about 2 minutes and 30 seconds of searing heat, we removed them and put a bit of finishing salt on them. This method worked perfectly for Medium Rare-- without the guess work of typical cooking methods! The steaks weren’t mushy, which can happen if you overcook thin pieces of meat in a Sous Vide.
Tostones or patacones (made whenever we find green plantains at SavMor, which isn’t often). 😋
Hidden Lakes, Lassen National Forest
We went on a hike to the Hidden Lakes in the Caribou Wilderness on the Lassen National Forest. It started at the Hay Meadows Trail Head, north of Lake Almanor, California. It was six miles of relatively flat hiking with periodic steep inclines. The trails were not at all crowded, though we brought masks just in case.
We saw a male Western Tanager (bird). I cropped to zoom:
A closer view, using Pixelmator Pro’s ML Super Resolution with crop:
And plenty of lakes — here’s Long Lake:
And plenty of Basalt of Hidden Lakes:
The Shooting Star flowers were brilliant:
Volunteer tomato is flowering. Who knows what kind of fruit this might grow (if pollinated). So too blooms our late April direct seeded peppers blooming.
[Crispy Cheese and Kimchi-Topped Skillet Rice](https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2019/10/kimchi-cheese-rice-recipe.html) — quite delicious.
Keep MacBook from Sleeping with Lid Down
The MacOS app Amphetamine is pretty slick. As promised, it keeps my MacBook Air awake even if the lid is closed and there is no external display attached. So now I can run it as a part-time file server (via SFTP and Secure ShellFish for iOS). At least, that’s the plan. Since it is running on a laptop, I really appreciate the audio alert it’ll give if I unplug the MBA while Amphetamine is keeping it awake. Now that MacOS 10.15.5 has battery aging management, now is the time to try this out.
My goal is to somehow simplify things by no longer needing an aging QNAP NAS and using a single platform. I love the idea of having a spare laptop but also actively using it and getting more value out of it.
The California Buckwheat is now blooming — cool hot pink anthers!
The toyon is in full bloom and it is impossible to photograph its flowers without pollinators. A very popular plant!
Today’s front yard Poppies and Clarkias.
I finally got around to messing with iStat Menu's Time menu and I’m sold. Having a calendar and events embedded in the clock is lovely.
Cultivated native California grapes are coming along quite well.
... made from the left over Bulgogi the next day, Bibimbap! Crisped up the white rice a bit too.
Homemade Bulgogi.
If only I could have got closer to this gorgeous blue dragonfly in the front yard. This super crop will have to do.
Inaugural cook on the Baking Steel Mini Griddle. We love the original size for pizza, cooking lots of vegetables etc but it is too big for most of our griddle applications.
The Annie Cat in a box.
Bee butt on the first understated blooms of our cultivated Toyon (Heteromeles arbutifolia).
