Monday, December 26, 2016

Christmas Weekend Kitchening and Garagening,,,

I Sous Vide'd a top round steak on Saturday (along with grilling some chicken) for this week's protein. I do it in my Igloo cooler, using a candy thermometer to check the water temperature till it's 135 degrees for medium rare. This came out a bit rarer, maybe a thicker, heavier cut of meat than I am used to?


But damn it comes out so good! The water bath cooks it, then it goes on the grill for a minute on a side to brown it. Damn look at those grill marks :D

Christmas I made a Pulla...though I must've mis-counted the cups of flour and had to add more water as I mixed they came out pretty good. Mom said they were a little dense, which I think may have been the water as liquid instead of exclusively milk and eggs that normally provide all the liquid.

It was pretty mild out, so the house was only about 58 and I didn't feel like cranking up the wood stove since that would have made it too hot in the afternoon...but it also meant the only "warm" spot for the dough to rise was next to the stove.





We went to Pam's for Christmas Dinner. Gave them a pulla, and gave Ed the other pulla for his birthday. I brought home the left overs from the meal, including the bones from the roast to make stew:



Ok, some pulla and milk before bed while the beef stock simmers in the crock pot overnight!
After straining out the stock, I did go through and pick out the shredded meat to add to the stew.
Then I used the "ratchet rake" on the bucket, weighted down with firewood, to break up some of the ice on the driveway. The frost got into the ground, but it has mostly been rain since (I haven't used the snow blower yet) so we have quite a bit of ice forming since the water isn't percolating away.

Brought the big one over to Mom's while it was still hot out of the crockpot. Had to run out to get some diesel so I have could top off the tractor fuel tank.

The garage fleet all tucked away for the night in "Winter Configuration:"

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