I haven't done one of these posts in a while. To be totally honest, work has been crazy busy, so I've been making the same thing over and over for the Missus.
The weather has also been kind of wacky…….95 degree weather in the middle of November had us eating stuff like this.
Salads with pickled eggs; charcuterie and cheese plates…..tomatoes, radishes (though the Missus still can't figure out the deal with radishes and butter), and the like.
Sometimes with a nice glass or two of wine. Our visit to Burgundy really ramped up the Missus's love for wine and I really enjoyed the whites from that area. One in particular that makes an interesting story……..more on that in a later post.
Then overnight we got rain and now it seems like fall. Which made the Missus want some Suan Cai Yang Rou. The cooler weather means it's time to start making Suan Cai.
At the end of my smoke session; smoking tri-tip for the Missus's Thanksgiving potluck, I looked through the fridge and found some tofu and cauliflower, which I love smoked. I'd recently purchased some La Rou and decided to do a simple stir fry with vegetables.
That smoked tofu tasted really good in this one. I'll be doing that again the next time I use the smoker.
We recently tried some roasted duck from a newer place….that too will be a future post. It wasn't very good; but for some reason, the drippings had some nice flavor. So it was duck fried rice time.
Funny thing, the Missus wanted all of this for lunch this past weekend. After I returned home from working half a day to catch up on things.
So the Missus got Her wish and I got all of this done pretty quickly, most of it is prep.
Other than that it's been pretty routine. Except for maybe this thing.
One evening I really didn't want to go out and eat….strange, I know. I picked up a chicken breast on the way home….even stranger because, other than for chicken katsu, I'm not a big fan of chicken breast. I could have gone for the easy out….Katsudon, which the Missus would have surely enjoyed, but I decided to just cook whatever. I made a balsamic reduction and did a simple, brined, then pan seared chicken breast with a balsamic sauce.
The thing that was fun was the other "stuff". Having broccoli and cauliflower on hand; I ended up ricing the veggies. I then rendered lardons of bacon using the fat to cook the riced vegetables, with some shallot, garlic, and scallions. Sort like funky fried rice.
It was delicious….though what do you expect……there's bacon in this, right?
Hope you're having a great week!