Peter's Cooking Diary #15

Well its another week, and of course I did some more cooking. It was the week of the Super Bowl, but I didn't do all that much cooking. It wasn't much of an event for me this year, and it was a surprisingly boring game.

Cooking started like it does most weeks with onions and garlic cooking in bacon grease, this same base was actually used in 3 different things over 2 days of cooking. I like to plan ahead and do any precooking that I can to help reduce cooking and prep time later on.

I set some of the cooked onions and garlic mixture aside and then continued with the remaining 2/3 of the mixture.

To the remaining onions and garlic I added some mushrooms similar to what I have shown in the past on here, I did use some baby bella mushrooms instead of the button mushrooms I have used in the past, but there isn't much of a difference.

The next thing I was going to add to the pan was some chopped ham. I usually choose a smoked or pit ham for the things that I use it in because it provides the most flavor, but in this situation I used some off the bone ham that was on sale, although in retrospect I should have gone with the pit ham.

Tossing the ham into the pan with the cooked onions, garlic and mushrooms, the ham is fully cooked so it doesn't need all that long in the pan, just long enough to heat up and for the flavors to marry.

The final part of this stage of cooking for the onions, garlic, mushrooms and ham. This mixture was halved and used in 2 different recipes.

I believe I have made a similar pizza before, I used store bought fresh crust from Festival Foods. This was the wheat crust. I have used it before and I know that I really liked it.

Just the normal pizza making process adding a good amount of sauce to the crust, add whatever amount of sauce you want to your pizza.

I added a lot of cheese, including some Parmesan, some oregano and some red pepper flake which are my seasonings of choice on my pizza. I couldn't find any decent fresh basil so I just didn't get any, but if there is any good fresh basil I would slice it up and use it, or you can just tear the leaves.

To the top of the pizza I added some of the onion, garlic, mushrooms, and ham mixture after I had let it cool. I also put a little more Parmesan cheese on top.

The pizza once it was taken out of the oven, it was really good, not quite as good as some other pizzas I have made, but it was still quite good.

Heated up the remaining onion, garlic, mushroom and ham mixture to go with my eggs for breakfast.

I took the onions and garlic that I had set aside the night before, and mashed them up with a potato masher. This is the one element that I have changed in the following recipe from what my father taught to me. He uses onion and garlic powder, although I am sure he has used fresh onion at some point. The recipe can actually be used as hamburgers, meatballs, or meatloaf.

To the onions and garlic I added ground beef, soy sauce because I didn't have any Worcestershire sauce, parsley flake, Parmesan cheese, bread crumbs, and some eggs.

The only way to mix all of this up is by hand, its the best way to ensure proper distribution of all of the ingredients.

I rolled out the meat into balls by hand, they are inconsistent in size a little bit, but I still loved the result that I got.

My arrangement in the pan, I had used some lean beef so I put some oil in the bottom to make sure they wouldn't stick to the pan.

I cooked the meatballs for about 2 minutes on each side. The larger ones got a little bit longer on each side.

I had a mix of some tomato sauce and bbq sauce in my slow cooking warming that I bathed the meatballs in. These can really go with anything from marinara to gravy.

The final shot of my slow cooker with all of the meatballs in the slow cooker.

Randomness

It has been over a week since I last blogged. Since the last post, my little brother graduated from college, and I have really been suffering through a cold. I am feeling much better now.

Yesterday my my brother, who is staying with me for a few weeks, made a ton of food. We fired up the grill, and I figured since we were heating it up, we should get the most out of it. We grilled burgers, brats, hot dogs, and some peppers and onions for good measure. On top of that we boiled some corn on the cob, which I have since removed from the cob. I made some of my dad's BBQ cole slaw, it is like a normal creamy cole slaw with some BBQ sauce and pickle juice mixed in. I think it is my favorite cole slaw ever! And last but not least I made some yukon gold oven fries with garlic, olive oil, and italian herbs. They might be my best potatoes I have ever made. We have leftovers that should feed us for a lot of the week.

I am not ashamed to admit that I really like Oscar Meyer hot dogs, just the regular cheap ones. I like them better than the natural casing hot dogs that have the crisp to them. We grilled a few packages of Oscar Meyer hot dogs, but the coals were really low, before they died out, so they pretty much go smoked in there. They taste so wonderfully smoky. I like to have a hot dog and put some of the BBQ cole slaw on top of it, which is friggin amazing.

So while working today (Memorial day) I was just thinking about how some people really fall for the different tactics that grocery stores employ to sell products.

For those that don't know me, my night and weekend job is as a cashier at a grocery store. As a side note a lot of the topics that I write about on here ccome to me while I am working, others while I go on my long walks at night.

Grocery stores use the package price to get you to buy more items than you actually need. In the vast majority of cases you don't have to but all of the items to get each item for that price. Just make sure you read the sign, if it doesn't say you must buy all of them, then don't feel obligated to.

Buy one get one free is not always a great deal. Lots of times items are cheaper when they are on sale, that each item costs in a buy one get one free deal. People love to get stuff for free, but they don't notice that sometimes its not as good of a deal.

Smaller items that are on sale, can still be less per ouce than the larger items which are not neccessarily on sale. Stores know people will lean towards an item that has a sale tag even if its not that great of a deal. That is why they put so many of them out there.

The one item in a grocery store that actually makes me lose a bit of respect for people is Tropicana 50. For those who don't know Trop 50 is its orange juice that has half the calories and half the carbs of regular orange juice, that comes in a smaller container that is more expensive than normal orange juice too. Now how do they make orange juice that has half the sugar and calories? They add water! Why not buy the regular orange juice and dilute your own, you would be making so much more juice for yourself. This is such a weird thing for me to rant about, but I really think people need to think more when they buy things. Its got half the calories, it must be better right? well in this case absolutely not!

Well I think that is all for that rant. I just needed to spill a lot of that stuff. I would like to write more often, but I just never have the inspiration when I want to write haha. I am going to start backlogging some different posts so hopefully that will help me post more often.

I just wanted to say that I really think that Foreplay is my favorite song by Boston. Its the prelude song that leads to Long Time, and that song just plain rocks! It rocks more than Long Time itself. I know, another unsolicited thought from me.

Well thanks for stopping by.