Baked chicken thighs with the crunchiest chicken skin in the world, steamed broccoli, buttered corn

Scalded with boiling water. The skin tightens and contracts. When these pieces are baked the skin becomes the crunchiest chicken skin in the world. 

Pizza with homemade sauce, ham, pineapple, jalapeño

This was started yesterday morning. It's been chill'n this whole time.

I have tomato sauce but it is not specific for pizzas. So I am doing my own thing here. 

Everything is ready. Just like a pizza joint. Zactly like that 'cept diff-ernt.

I stacked the photos in Photoshop. Then turned the layers to animated Gif. 

This is eleven photographs stacked in Photoshop and realigned and then blended into one photograph to get everything in focus. I am not so sure the result is worth all the trouble.

This pizza is excellent and I don't care what anybody says about the elements being wrong. I just don't care. I and the manic-depressive mental case that married my brother and recommended this pizza to me agree. We are as one in pizza preferences. 

I cannot get a pizza like this in the out-of-doors world at large. No. They skimp on everything. I paid a fortune for genuine pineapple and got tinned instead, and you never get full blasts of pineapple wetness and brilliant flavor. But with my overloaded pizza, you do. This little thing is actually heavy.

Miso soup with bonito and kombu dashi

The websites say that it is extremely important to get dashi right. 

Extremely important. Important. Important. 

We are copying you. We know you are fanatic but we don't have to copy that about you.

We read to let the kombu steep overnight. 

We say that we'd like to have this dashi right now. 

So steep your own kombu overnight and I will have the immediate dashi right now. 

Sometimes we copiers do not get everything quite right. 

But I want to tell you something. This soup is good. Even though those little snow peas are the worst things in the world. This is what happens when they are let go just a few days too long. Fibrous as all get out. Chopping them to bits did not clear that up. This was two very good meals. 

And the pizza dough is still in the refrigerator.

Macaroni and cheese with ham and jalapeño

 

I started a pizza then realized the dough would take too long and I was starving. So I ate this, it is excellent, hit the spot, and it ruined my appetite for pizza. So the pizza dough went into chill. 

About this, I should probably mention, this is an uncaring approach. Jalapeño first in a dry little pot, then butter and kept at it until the butter turns nutty brown, then dry noodles directly into that and water sufficient to cover the noodles. The noodles swell. Water added to keep the balance at minimum water. Taste-testing along the way a couple of times to get the doneness down right. No guessing. Then switch to adding milk incrimentally to finish the noodles and coat them and cover them excessively wet. The noodles are not drained. They are not coated in butter because they are cooked in browned butter. I used one very good type of cheddar cheese along with American to blend it. This effort was two very good meals. 

Two good meals that delayed getting to the pizza. 

Shrimp, broccoli, jalapeño tempura

Malted chocolate, banana, peanut butter milkshake

* ice cream * banana * peanut butter * Ovaltine. 

* milk.

I had a Ball. Gave it a spin.  

Acorn squash in soy glaze, ham, corn and broccoli

Jazzed up pierogis

Bang. There's the dough, right there.

Although a strong and elastic dough with bread flour and hardened with egg, also softened and tenderized by having its pH jacked by sour cream. 

Leave out the egg as many do and you'll end up with even more tender pierogis. 

Green salad

* Olive oil

* Rice vinegar

* Raspberry honey

* Homemade ground yellow and brown mustard

* Salt/Pepper

Ta-daa. Done.

Wait. What?

Never had this before.

It crumbles. There are no crystals. It is smooth and incredibly intriguing in this mixture with honey and mustard. It is the best thing in this salad. 

Toasted for seconds in the microwave and that changes everything.

The two late additions to this added what Japanese call umami and they change this side salad to a genuine meal. 

But not enough. I am already thinking about what I should eat next. 

Pork and sugar peas in flavored dashi

Corn is fascinating.

As a plant.

There are three of these. The rest was frozen as kernels. The whole time I was holding them I marveled at what the horticulturalists have done with this plant. And they are still doing it. 

The plant is a grass. The thing that I am holding is outrageous plant manipulation. And then as I prepared it to be photographed the ear seemed to me to be female. The way it's wrapped. The way silk is collected and bundled at top emanating from each individual kernel. The size of it and its weight. Its very sturdy stem and its incredibly hard core. Such a greedy plant. Grown so tall and so fast. And it tastes almost like candy.

This soup with Japanese dashi and five of the seven Chinese flavor elements listed below has incredible flavor that is pleasantly strong. Odd combining seafood and pork elements but I don't care. We're bold over here. 

The peas are old and stringy. Maybe for the rest I'll crack them all open and take out the peas.