Tuesday 27 November 2012

Test Kitchen: Day 2


More weird and funky things coming out of the test kitchen because it's frigid here and all I want to do is stay toasty and make yummy foods. Look at all the buildings running their heat. I didn't even go outside yesterday.


Breakfast prep...ramekins greased with tallow


Broth warming



I lined the bottom with ox tail meat


Then a layer of zucchini and spaghetti squash


Homemade bbq and more meat because a gal can never have too much meat.


Eggs cracked on top of the lot and in the Breville


Precious drink ready to go


Eggs after about 20 minutes. I am still figuring out the fine nuances of the Breville. Me thinks the convection should not have been on but whatevs.


While the eggs cooled a little I mixed more oxtail with the homemade bbq sauce for dinner.


Breakfast... since my avocados weren't ripe so I quickly chugged a glass of homemade almond milk with about 2 tbsps of cold pressed flax seed oil shaken up (no pic sorry!). Easy, yummy omega 3 and good fats. I personally need a lot of fat protein and veggie carbs in morning to set me up properly for the day and of course the bone broth.


With the egg mixed in


Lunch...I am really bad for eating half my meal while I am prepping the half. What you don't see was celery loaded with half a can of tuna and homemade mayo the way you make ants on a log. I ate 3 of those while making the other half of my lunch which you do see. The lone leftover burger with bbq sauce and mayo and huge salad with homemade dressing (raw apple cider vinegar, extra light evoo and some weird brown compliant mustard all shaken together)


Check out my cute new travel mug. It's the kiddie mug from David's Tea (you NEED to know about David's Tea...my savior after I gave up coffee. If you don't have a brick and mortar, check em out online) I heart this mug, it's my new hot room cup since I totally demolished my old one I bought only 2 months ago. I am rough on to-go cups.


 FINALLY! Homemade bacon. Apologies for the lighting in the test kitchen, it is awful AND the fixture is in a really weird spot so it casts shadows from almost every angle. This friends is homemade bacon. Uncured pork belly from the Asian grocery store, rubbed in sea salt and a tiny pinch of garlic powder and left to brine in the fridge for a week.


I was unaware I was suppposed to slice the skin off BEFORE the brine step, so I just cut it off after. These pictures make it look awful and it doesn't help that it gets dark at like 4pm here. I tried my best not too cut off too much fat and to not cut into the flesh. I think I did an ok job for the first time and it was cold and slippery as hell.


Bacon and a the removed skin.


Once the belly was doing it's slow bake I was left with the skin and what to do with it. I basically don't throw anything out anymore (almond pulp got made into awesome almond flour, squash seeds saved and roasted) pig skin apparently makes delicious cracklings. I read on the web for about 15 minutes about lots of confusing methods on how to make them one involved a hair dryer...no effing way was I doing that. So I cut up most of em into small squares and cooked em in the cast iron until my smoke detector went off and then I threw them in the Breville with the 2 small strips I put in there to see how they would do.

This is the end product. The end product was delicious. Crunchy, kinda chewy, salty and a little greasy...basically heaven. I got 2 small pieces before the beasts literally devoured the rest. Add pork skin to the list of stuff that was going to go in the garbage but ended up being awesome. That yellow thing is fluff from the towel I put them on to dry...please remove fluff before eating.


Time to start dinner...I riced up a quick bit of cauliflower for fried "rice" to go with the "pulled" oxtail I mixed up in the am.


Dinner...fried "rice", pulled oxtail with homemade bbq sauce and leftover spaghetti squash and chives because I'm fancy.


Lots more goodness in the test kitchen as the bacon has to get sliced and cooked, the bone broth will be done soon and other things!

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