roasted chicken thighs, gravy, potato, tomato

The chicken is coated with flour spiced up heavily as Indian cooks do except with American and Mexican flavors, and roasted in a pan covered with foil for an hour. 

* Smoked paprika

* Chipotle powder

* Cumin

* Fíle, it's a Cajun thing from sassafras leaves

* celery salt

* garlic powder

There's nearly as much spice powder as there is flour. 

Not really. 

About half as much.

After baking, the chicken is removed to a bowl. The bits in the pan are used to prepare gravy the usual way by browning a roux from the leftover spiced up flour.

A diced onion is added.

Deglazed with sake. Simmered a minute until the mixture turns to sludge.

Liquid smoke is added.

Loosened with chicken broth and milk that is also spiced up from coating the chicken.

So both those things, spiced up flour and spiced up milk are used twice.

We try not waste around here.

The chicken is returned to the pan, covered again and continued to cook boiling on low for another half hour.

That's an awfully long time to cook chicken. It's literally falling away from the bone.

Every drop of fat is used, the skin is still on, and the bones are contributing considerable flavor.

The chicken is desperately overcooked and that's the way, uh-huh uh-huh, I like it, I like it. 

A diced potato is simply boiled.

A tomato is chopped into rough chunks but not cooked.

This meal is incredibly satisfying, and I don't care who ya are.

waffle, blueberries, bacon and egg

ARTS!

And this is where my stomach signaled STOP! Just stop already, you pig.

Could I carry on anyway? Could I override my body's instruction? 

Yes, I can. I can do this.

This is why everyone out there is fat. 

This is an odd waffle. It has white flour, corn meal and whole wheat flour.

* An egg is dropped into the immersion blender cup.

* Milk is added. Too much actually. That was a mistake that affected everything else

* A few kernels of dry pozole corn kernels are processed to powder in the coffee bean mill.

* White flour is added by the tablespoonful but it's taking more than anticipated.

* Whole wheat flour is added by one heaping tablespoonful.

It's still not thick enough because I used so much milk. So more white flour is added.

* Salt, because all things like this must have salt or else they're just awful and naked.

* Sugar to make it more like dessert and to help browning.

* Cinnamon because it seemed like a good idea.

* Clove, barely a trace, to make the whole thing more mature.

* Vanilla because that goes into cakes and cupcakes and I like it.

* Baking powder to make the thing puff up inside the waffle iron and press against both sides.

If I wanted blueberries inside the waffles, or pancakes or anything for that matter, then I would roll them in flour so they stay suspended in the batter. But then they would break inside pressed against the waffled heating surfaces presenting a problem of cleaning and I don't want that. I'm lazy. I want cleaning to be easy as possible.

barely cooked salad

Vegetables fried incrementally for 4 minutes and less in olive oil and butter. Corn boiled for three minutes tossed with the vegetables in the pan so that everything is coated with fat. Sprinkled with rice vinegar to brighten, and right there's a simple oil/vinegar salad dressing. 

Green beans

Broccoli

Brussels sprouts

Zucchini

Yellow squash

Corn

chocolate popsicle

News is circulating around the blogs that I read about San Francisco legislators and school officials disallowing chocolate milk in schools and my first thought was, "Oh man, chocolate milk sounds great." 

I put the sticks in straight up but they shifted as they froze and that made removing the top very difficult. They tell you to wait until the mixture has started freezing but I'm terrible at timing it just so and I didn't want to wait. So I suffered.

Paletas in Spanish, named after the stick. The English cognitive is wooden pallet.  

pork roast, cole slaw

I've never tasted pork roast this extraordinary.

And I mean it.

I finally got my pork roast act down.

Not my usual thing. I've overcooked these roasts every time I tried them and this time I made sure not to do that. Oven set high to 400℉ Set the timer for 8 minutes, flip it, then 7 more minutes, then outside the oven closed the foil around the baked roast for longer than necessary. It was room temperature by the time that I went back to it.

Before that the roast marinated for the whole afternoon, but it was still slightly frozen when started. 

Soy sauce was poured into a vacuum seal bag, then sugar to counter the soy sauce and aid browning, then rice vinegar, so sweet / sour once again, sake, and half a teaspoon thereabout of toasted sesame oil. That broad combination of sweet and sour and tart and bitter and saltiness from soy worked very well even without any herb nor any spices like the usual chile hotness that I like so much. 

The meat tasted sweet. Additional mineral-y salt at the table balanced everything so well that I couldn't believe what I just cooked. And it's so easy. And fast. 

I went back for more and ate half this whole roast.

The roasts were on sale two for one. So I have another whole roast to do this again.