This tomato is a freak.
lox on malted whole wheat
My malted wheat bread is better for this than bagels for its ease of eating and its extreme malted flavor. Bagels have malt extract added but they are a lot more dense and much chewier, tougher to eat.
And the lox is so delicate, and the cucumber crunchy, the rich wheat bread contributes flavor but not challenge to molar teeth.
Usually I'd use Philadelphia cream cheese but I don't have any of that around here right now so I mixed sour cream with feta cheese 50/50 and I must say it tastes better. I might stick with it.
There is a thin onion slice with alternate rings removed so it looks like a circular target pressed into the feta cheese mixture.
Baked turkey
The office downstairs called me to alert "They're bringing up Thanksgiving stuff."
So it was the office downstairs who told them to bring it to me. Apparently, they showed up out of the blue. Whoever they are. I don' t know. I was so blown away it escaped me to ask. I'm assuming some church.
Because the boy holding the box is clean cut, boy next door type if you live in an upscale suburban neighborhood, tall and thin, probably 5'11" 135 Lbs., clear face, blue eyes, blond curly hair. "Where should I put this?"
"Right there."
He came in and set the box on the butcher block cart, stopped and looked directly at me before letting go it. Bounced out of the apartment to leave. Stopped again, turned back and looked directly at me again, "Have a nice Thanksgiving."
"Thank you. You have a nice Thanksgiving too."
I examined the contents of the box. The box is large and heavy.
14.5 LBs frozen turkey
2 cans green beans
2 cans corn
1 can cranberry gelatin
5 LBs White Whole Wheat flour
2 boxes cornbread mix
1 box stuffing mix
1 package mashed potato mix
1 box chocolate cake mix
I don't know who the people are, I don't know why they delivered to me. I take food to the women in the office all the time. This is an expensive apartment building and there are no needy people that I know about. Maybe the office told them to come up because they confirmed I was home.
I had just looked at turkeys at Trader Joes and decided against cooking one this year. Actually the free range chickens looked good. I'd rather cook 4 of those than one turkey. But if I did want a turkey then those ones at Trader Joes would be a very good choice. They are well selected and they were never frozen. I was just over the ordeal and I made no plans for a dinner. And if I did make a plan it would be different and it wouldn't use any of these ingredients. There is nothing here that I would buy.
Even so, I was blown away. I still cannot get over it. This is part and parcel of being American. There are people watching out for you, people who care that you don't even know about.
Stepping back, now I think that this abundance and this generosity extended to people unknown is what the migrants pounding on our door and willing to break in want to access.
Back to the turkey.
I ate both wings for dinner. And the bones are massive. Compared to bones of chicken wings.
ham cucumber onion sandwich on whole wheat bread
Simple and yet amazing on bread made from malted whole wheat intended for brewing. Cucumber crunch is nice.
Shrimp and salmon sandwich
Salmon cut up for sushi, this uses the salmon skin.
I'm not a very good trimmer so there is a lot of salmon flesh on the other side.
Shrimp is sliced laterally so it's more flat.
I don't have any Philadelphia cream cheese around here right now so I used 50% feta cheese and 50% sour cream and that turned out better for this than Philadelphia cream cheese.
My new thing with fat messy sandwiches is wrap them in cling film and push the film down as I go.
This is a surprisingly good sandwich. Maybe it could use some nori and soy sauce. Possibly onions. Maybe lettuce. Maybe tomato.
bean and cheese taco
Whole wheat is not that great for tortillas. Too fragile. Nevertheless:
* 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
* 1/2 cup all purpose four
* 1/4 stick butter
* 1/4 cup water, thereabout, enough to bring it together.
Tinned cannellini beans smashed
Tinned roasted tomatoes
Chopped sandwich ham
Onion
Garlic
Oregano
Malted wheat milled
The grain is purchased downstairs street level at CoBrew. 5lbs cost $9.50 or something close to that, so much more expensive than simply buying whole wheat flour at the grocery. But I don't care, the difference is extraordinary and I don't understand why this isn't popular among bread bakers. I haven't read about this in any of the bread books, the sourdough books, and I haven't seen it on t.v., yet a whole world of flavors and intensities is opened.
I kept some grain to do other things. I have a wheat grain side dish in mind.
salmon and rice, red bell pepper
The same salmon not used for the sushi yesterday, now cooked, and the rice is leftover too. So the rice has sugar and rice vinegar, sweet/sour flavor. It's a very nice combination and the red bell pepper is sweet. Soy sauce added at the table.
salmon nigirisushi, green salad
Short-grain rice is rinsed and put on. The traditional method is used to cook it, 1 part rice to 1.5 water, brought to boil then turned down to low, steamed on low for 25 minutes, heat turned off then steamed unopened for additional 10 minutes, so then, steamed for 35 minutes. Sugar and rice vinegar added to the water instead of heated separately and poured over the rice while fanning. The difference is the sweet/sour mixture is absorbed into each rice kernel instead of coating them. And that's what would get me kicked out of the sushi chef guild because there is probably some very good reason they do it their way, like they want it to be golden or something like that.
gyros on malted whole wheat bread
I stopped by Melita's on Lincoln but they appeared to be closed. For good.
But nothing shows about that online.
I had hoped to buy gyros there, the best that's available, and tzatziki, and typical Greek salad, but instead bought all those things at Trader Joe's nearby and I must say the Trader Joes gyros is 2nd rate. Sliced in thin uniform cuts it has the appearance of having been frozen, somewhat mushy, pressed together, difficult to separate, and unstable. It tastes okay but nothing spectacuar.
And that's a bummer!
The heirloom tomatoes at Trader Joes are outstanding. Much better than regular grocery store tomatoes.
As always, the people who work there are all gorgeous. Lovely people. All of them.
I had fun today.
I need more grain from the brewery downstairs and I want those guys down there to know how amazing the bread is that's made from their malted grain so last night I made a loaf and packaged it to give to them to do with whatever they will.
I also took all these elements to make sandwiches so they had this sandwich as well. I also took my new Shun Japanese bread knife so their minds can be blown hard as mine is. The dude sliced the whole loaf because nothing slices like this knife does. It's awesome. Zip, zip, zip, zip, zip, zip, zip, zip boom entire loaf sliced perfectly.
You're not supposed to slice bread in advance, now it will dry out sooner, but what the heck, it was fun.
Shrimp sandwich
* Malted whole wheat bread.
* Sour cream and horseradish
* Nori sheet
* Shrimp
* Scrambled egg
baked potato slices with cheese
Oh man, I forgot the bacon bits.
This a microwaved potato, sliced and coated with olive oil, sprinkled with oiled panko breadcrumbs and cheese then baked.
tuna salad sandwich, whole wheat bread
Make a sandwich.
Step 1, make bread.
Step 1, make bread.
Sugar in the warm water gives a boost to the yeast. Now I don't have to be so careful about timing it just so as I get to other things.
The tuna is the package I opened yesterday from Trader Joes. Frozen tuna, much better than tinned tuna.
A pot of water was brought to a boil then shut off. The tuna dropped into the water that is no longer boiling. It gently poaches at low heat for about 8 minutes or so.
My own sweet ginger pickles. Taste-tested, not enough ginger so more ginger was grated directly into the bowl.
