Hats off to you wino, you're adventurous and will try different recipes. I love Mexican, but it's one of those rare treats I enjoy at a local restaurant. As I've mentioned before heart disease is throughout both sides of my family, so far my heart is very healthy. As long as your doctors are happy and you're healthy Wino, enjoy.

What we eat is strongly influenced by how we were raised and cultural and regional influences. My mother's mother was always reading Prevention Magazine and my mother was a big fan of Adele Davis, a very popular biochemist and nutritionist long before healthy eating became a fad. We all have our comfort foods, they are a refuge when life becomes chaotic.

highdesert wrote: Wed Sep 04, 2024 10:04 am Hats off to you wino, you're adventurous and will try different recipes. I love Mexican, but it's one of those rare treats I enjoy at a local restaurant. As I've mentioned before heart disease is throughout both sides of my family, so far my heart is very healthy. As long as your doctors are happy and you're healthy Wino, enjoy.

What we eat is strongly influenced by how we were raised and cultural and regional influences. My mother's mother was always reading Prevention Magazine and my mother was a big fan of Adele Davis, a very popular biochemist and nutritionist long before healthy eating became a fad. We all have our comfort foods, they are a refuge when life becomes chaotic.

I'm not healthy, but has little to do with food I eat, but more to do with my past work and habits - smoking, under and above ground mining, chemical plants, asbestos exposure has destroyed my lungs (cancer, COPD, asperillgosis) along with spinal osteoporosis. Due for more spinal surgery later this year. However, a positive attitude helps more than some meds IMHO. Cancer seems to be my hereditary inheritance, not coronary.
Since my activities have been reduced due to aging, eating, cooking, baking is something I can do and enjoy immensely while maintaining a reasonable weight in the high 160's - down from 210 some years ago. BTW, Tex-Mex is nectar of the gods and SATX is in the heart of it!

Wino wrote: Wed Sep 04, 2024 10:40 am

highdesert wrote: Wed Sep 04, 2024 10:04 am Hats off to you wino, you're adventurous and will try different recipes. I love Mexican, but it's one of those rare treats I enjoy at a local restaurant. As I've mentioned before heart disease is throughout both sides of my family, so far my heart is very healthy. As long as your doctors are happy and you're healthy Wino, enjoy.

What we eat is strongly influenced by how we were raised and cultural and regional influences. My mother's mother was always reading Prevention Magazine and my mother was a big fan of Adele Davis, a very popular biochemist and nutritionist long before healthy eating became a fad. We all have our comfort foods, they are a refuge when life becomes chaotic.

I'm not healthy, but has little to do with food I eat, but more to do with my past work and habits - smoking, under and above ground mining, chemical plants, asbestos exposure has destroyed my lungs (cancer, COPD, asperillgosis) along with spinal osteoporosis. Due for more spinal surgery later this year. However, a positive attitude helps more than some meds IMHO. Cancer seems to be my hereditary inheritance, not coronary.
Since my activities have been reduced due to aging, eating, cooking, baking is something I can do and enjoy immensely while maintaining a reasonable weight in the high 160's - down from 210 some years ago. BTW, Tex-Mex is nectar of the gods and SATX is in the heart of it!

I agree, we're alive and active and that's a huge plus. Back in the late 1980s I visited a work colleague in Dallas and I enjoyed Tex-Mex a number of times, along with strong the Texas accents. I had a lot of fun.

Both my wife and I cook. I don't like to cook but I LOVE to eat good food, whether simple or fancy. Our youngest just went back to college a few weeks ago. Since he lost his sense of taste and smell at age 7, and only got his sense of smell back AFTER he got Covid at 17, he relies on texture to enjoy his food. Getting back the sense of smell adds to his appreciation, but foods have to have definite and different feels to them. So when he's here we cook things like that: breaded chicken breasts with steamed broccoli and rice, steak & potatoes, even burgers and fries.

But when he's not we can make stews, soups, pot pies, quiche, etc, stuff he says feels like nothing but mush. So I few nights ago I made a beef stew over noodles. I've got frozen chili and lentil soup, great for damp chilly nights. I like to stir-fry too. But I enjoy most making bread. Still, my wife doesn't like me to make it too often--"It's too good and I eat too much of it! We don't need the calories!" Plus, since my thumb surgery I've avoided kneading the dough.

I also enjoy when she cooks--but I get the worse end of the deal--except for the fact that she's STILL a better cook than me! (and I'm pretty good) I'm pretty obsessive/compulsive about cleaning as I go because I HATE spending an hour or 2 cleaning up after eating, but while she's far better than when we were young, she still leaves more work for me than I do for her.

When the weather is cooler I'll make some soups from scratch, I too enjoy them in the cold months. I use the crockpot/slow cooker for stews or similar dishes, no fuss. I finally got a wok, so I'll be experimenting with easy stir fry dishes. I got the message early when I was being taught to cook, clean up as you go so you won't have a mess at the end.

highdesert wrote: Wed Sep 04, 2024 2:26 pm When the weather is cooler I'll make some soups from scratch, I too enjoy them in the cold months. I use the crockpot/slow cooker for stews or similar dishes, no fuss. I finally got a wok, so I'll be experimenting with easy stir fry dishes. I got the message early when I was being taught to cook, clean up as you go so you won't have a mess at the end.

We have a Crock Pot that's oval--good for long things like brisket. But we also have a Mueller Pressure Cooker (competitor to Insta-pot) that both sautes and slow-cooks. So for a stew I can brown the meat and shallots, then load in everything to slow-cook for up to 9 hours, with a glass lid. And...if it's not quite done, 10 minutes with the pressure cooker top and Presto!

Google Caldo de Res, a Mexican meat soup which you can throw in about any veggie.

I call this my Six Hour Red Sauce. The guy who gave me all the zukes also gave me excellent tomatoes. So I made this. Great with linguine noodles.

Six Hour Red Sauce
Makes enough for four


half a big onion
half a red bell pepper
three stalks of celery
three fat garlic cloves
a generous quarter cup of excellent olive oil
chop these and cook covered in a heavy pot over small heat, stirring six or eight times an hour for about two hours or ‘till mush

a six ounce can of tomatoe paste; fry it in the mush until it’s mixed
six Roma tomatoes, chopped and cooked two hours till mush

half a bottle of red wine
one fat teaspoon oregano
one big Bay leaf
small salt
simmer down two hours until quite thick

It really should take six hours.

CDF

CDFingers wrote: Wed Sep 04, 2024 6:57 pm I call this my Six Hour Red Sauce. The guy who gave me all the zukes also gave me excellent tomatoes. So I made this. Great with linguine noodles.

Six Hour Red Sauce
Makes enough for four


half a big onion
half a red bell pepper
three stalks of celery
three fat garlic cloves
a generous quarter cup of excellent olive oil
chop these and cook covered in a heavy pot over small heat, stirring six or eight times an hour for about two hours or ‘till mush

a six ounce can of tomatoe paste; fry it in the mush until it’s mixed
six Roma tomatoes, chopped and cooked two hours till mush

half a bottle of red wine
one fat teaspoon oregano
one big Bay leaf
small salt
simmer down two hours until quite thick

It really should take six hours.

CDF

No basil? Otherwise sounds pretty good. But my wife is deathly allergic to colored bell peppers and even green bell makes her sick. For me, this is problem because I can eat bell peppers like they are apples! Raw, stuffed, baked, stir-fried, in meat loaf, stews, just about any way but rotten!

Just as good to chop basil and sprinkle over pasta/sauce along with grated Parmesan and red pepper flakes. Damn!! It's bed time and I've got the munchies - gonna have to give this sauce a whirl.

CDF - on the Roma - do you use whole seeds and all or just skin and meat?

The guy who gave me the tomatoes didn't water them well, and they have almost no juice. Only meat. With my thumb I took out the little knots of seeds. Now, about the bell peppers. They give my stomach a trouble unless I cook them to a mush. Hopefully it might work with YT's wife. But no matter. The basil will be nice in there. Next batch I'll put some in.

CDF

I can eat a totally vegetarian sauce, more like a marinara sauce. I also like a meat sauce for spaghetti, fettuccine or angel hair pasta. I brown a decent quality ground beef or Italian sausage is an alternative meat, I pour off the fat, add chopped onions and garlic that were sauteed in olive oil, then tomato sauce and tomato paste (San Marzano are authentic), add herbs either the mixed Italian herbs or fresh ones and white wine. Slow simmering deepens the flavor.

As per my Post #25, I finally got around to making the "Drunken Shrimp" with Tequila, butter, garlic, cilantro, lime juice, salt/pepper/red pepper flakes. I followed recipe to the tee and while it was good, wasn't spicy enough for me. Next time I'll use more garlic, throw in some serrano slices and maybe a bit of lime zest. It was my lunch (2 lbs. shrimp) and will be my dinner tonight.

Looks mouthwatering wino.

highdesert wrote: Thu Sep 05, 2024 3:24 pm Looks mouthwatering wino.

Plus one there.

One neat thing about the six hour sauce is you put the sausage in at the first, which permeates the sauce with the flavor.

CDF

Punched up the Drunken Shrimp at dinner time using dashes of Tajin Mexican spice (ground dried chile peppers (a blend of chiles de árbol, guajillo and pasilla), dehydrated lime, and sea salt). Drunken shrimp is all gone!

I seem to be an outlier here. I've been on a low-carb/ketogenic diet for six years now, IIRC, and while it's possible to do keto/low-carb on either vegetarian or even vegan plans (I think vegan keto would be miserable and maybe unhealthy), I've definitely eaten more meat than in my early and early-mid-adulthood.

Every once in a while I'll buy two pork shoulders (around ten pounds each), rub with plenty of salt, cumin, Aleppo and black pepper and usually Mexican oregano and throw them in my electric smoker overnight, then cram all that in the freezer. My spousal critter eats surprisingly little of the resulting product...

My usual breakfast, unless I'm in a hurry, is 1/4-1/3 pound of some sort of meat, about half a dozen grape tomatoes, a little onion, a little of some sort of red or orange pepper and/or green chiles, and a good bit of cabbage or broccoli, fried and then braised with some chicken stock, then four eggs poached on top. This morning the meat was beef heart that I get from Skagit River Farm's booth at a farmer's market. Usually it's something less exotic. Only had three eggs today since that's how many were left in that carton and I decided not to dig into the backup carton. Weight of the meal was a little less than usual. More often it's close to 900 grams.

edit: My spousal critter calls my brekkie "your sludge." I make something more presentable for her...

Looks good Buck. I'd never burn off all those calories though, even when I worked I had sedentary jobs usually working at my desk or in meetings. I'm now more into grains and vegetables and chicken, turkey and fish for protein. I do miss eggs.

The young couple that live cross street from me have helped me in many ways and vice versa - we babysit each others dogs, bring in packages, share mowers, rides to doctor or during car repairs and things I can't do any longer - plumbing, ceiling fan replacement - you get the gist - so a few weeks ago I got an offer from Sam's for the quoted Rastelli's below at $119.98 frt, paid and thought I'd give it a whirl for a Sunday dinner with those neighbors. We did it yesterday for noon meal in prep for Cowboys game at 3:30 PM.The meal was delicious - the prime rib excellent - tender, lots of flavor, juicy, just the right amount of marbling, served four people easily with enough left overs for two. The sides were both quite good IMHO, as I was a bit worried due to some bad sides reviews. The Boys winning capped off an excellent day as we consumed fresh batch of Margarita's from scratch. I ate the burnt end yesterday, leaving the center cut, then ate the other burnt end today for lunch.
Frankly, I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the meal - I'm not normally comfortable doing mail/on line orders of sight unseen with such an expensive cut of beef, but really wanted to show neighbors my appreciation for all they help me. \
I have no connection with Rastelli's, but I would not hesitate to buy this again in hopes I wouldn't be disappointed on a repeat.

Rastellis Beef Prime Rib Meal + Two Side Dishes (10 lbs.)
Prime Rib Roast ( 5 lbs., with 1 lb. of compound butter)
Crème Fraiche Mashed potatoes (2 lb. tray)
Mac & Cheese with Shell Pasta (2 lb. tray)
Ingredients:
Black Angus Beef Boneless Prime Rib Roast: Beef.
Signature Butter: unsalted butter (pasteurized cream, lactic acid), garlic, salt, rosemary, thyme, black pepper.
Crème Fraiche Mashed Potatoes: Mashed potatoes (yukon gold potatoes, milk, butter [sweet cream, salt, annatto color], salt, potassium sorbate [to protect color], spices), heavy cream, crème fraiche (cultured pasteurized cream), sour cream (cultured grade A cream), butter (cream, natural flavoring), sea salt, white pepper.

That was a very nice thank you dinner wino, from scratch Margaritas plus a Prime Rib dinner. I shop Costco occasionally but haven't been to a Sam's Club in years, don't know how they compare.

I shop both Sam's and Costco as both nearby. Generally have better quality beef at Costco vs. Sam's IMO. This deal for prime rib w/sides was eezypezee as all done on line and stashed in neighbors freezer upon receipt. Three days thawing in fridge prior to Sunday cook.

Was to be four skinny long loaves, but thought I'd give the Dutch Oven a shot as a round sour dough. Still cooling on wire rack.

That, my friend, is a lovely loaf.

CDF

Yes, very nice Wino. I love bread too much, I've got to watch myself. As the weather gets cooler I start craving root vegetables like red potatoes, baby carrots, yellow onions, rutabagas, parsnips...almost time to drag out the slow cooker and make some stews and soups.

Leave us not forget the glories of purple sweet potatoes.

CDF