Ordered new coffee beans from Cafe Enrroca. I ordered the Marcala Organic and the Marcala Organic Bourbon and they sent me a free sample which is nice.

I made a cup of the Marcala Organic Bourbon this morning with a slightly altered Aeropress recipe:

• 15 g of finely ground coffee (8/10)
• 85°C water

1. Invert Aeropress
2. 30 second bloom with 50g of water
3. Add 180g of water, and stir
4. After one minute, press until the foam just hits the grounds

This gave me a very smooth and full bodied coffee. Very excited to try the other beans as well!

We got a turkey as a gift and I figured today is as good as a day as any other to make it. I’ve done chickens but never a full turkey, but it works just like the smaller birds. Spatchcocking, or butterflying, makes it easier to cook evenly and faster, and is probably my favorite way roasting poultry.

I had a craving for peanut butter cookies and this recipe was recommended to me. Of course I made them.

They are quite delicious but it has to be said this recipe makes a ton of dough. Like I baked not even half of it and that’s already so many cookies. The other thing to note is that the cookies came out very crumbly despite being baked longer than the recipe asked for. Either my oven’s thermostat is off or I did something wrong.

I had a lot of pasta sheets leftover from yesterday’s Lasagna-feast. Like a lot. But sadly no more meat sauce. I figured there’s white pizza so I could definitely make a white lasagna. The overall idea was to make a Bechamel sauce but infuse it with shallots and leeks, just because I had some in my fridge. I think sun-dried tomatoes would have been really good in this, but I didn’t have any, so I went for roasted red peppers. Roasting them at home is kind of a pain if you don’t have a gas burner, but turns out you can just throw them under the broiler, pretty much as good as over a gas burner. Thanks to the friendly culinary folks that gave me that idea.

Just a picture of some leeks I’ve cut today. Thought they looked very pretty, I love the color gradient from white to dark green. That’s all.

I made lasagna al forno today. I made the meat sauce as usual, except I added some pancetta. This actually was really good except it rendered a ton of fat into the sauce that I had to skim off. Next time I should probably render the fat first before adding into the sauce. The other difference was that I used Kirkland brand canned tomatoes and they didn’t cook down as nicely as San Marzano tomatoes. Not sure why, but the sauce was thinner. Tasty, but thinner.

A coworker of mine posted a mouthwatering picture of crispy tofu in sauce. So obviously I asked for the recipe.

I only had soft tofu which didn’t work out too well, I had trouble coating the tofu because it kept falling apart, so next time at least medium or hard tofu.

Overall the flavor was not bad, but next time I’d throw in some green onion, garlic, and ginger before adding the sauce, just to give it a more complex flavor.

Made Chicken Cacciatore using Cafe Delites recipe and creamy zucchini to go with it.

Something different today. Picked up this curry paste a few weeks ago at Walmart. It caught my eye because of its ingredients: shallots, chili, coriander, etc, all things I would use in a curry paste as well. It came out pretty good. You simmer this paste in coconut milk with your favorite cut of meat, potatoes, and I just added some cauliflower. You finish it with fish sauce (good that I had some at hand).

Felt like making Schnitzel so I got some pork chops. Had originally planned to serve them with a mushroom sauce but ran out of time, so we had them with Spätzle sauteed with butter.

Spätzle Notes

• Batter was too thin initially, had to add more flour and mix a lot more. Not sure if the eggs added more liquid or if I didn’t work it enough.
• Process was messy, need to improve my workflow here. Using a ladle worked ok, but lots of dripping. I wonder if I could use something like a squeeze bottle or pour it from a pitcher?
• Lots of batter stuck to the Spätzlehobel. A rubber spatula worked really well working that batter through it.

Schnitzel Notes

• Use the biggest plates you can find for drenching!
• One schnitzel wasn’t fully thinned out, need to make sure they are hammered thin everywhere
• Try the textured side of the mallet next time
• Oil temperate was off; initially too hot, in the end a little too cold. Some quick research suggest 170°C (~340°F). Need to find a good fry thermometer that can go on the pan.
• Texture and crunch was pretty good, I only added salt though. Adding a little water to the eggwash worked well and helped souffleing the crust.