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Sunday, May 31, 2020

Chocolate Croissants


That right there is my first-ever attempt at something akin to a chocolate croissant.


I still had half my laminated dough from making cronuts over the weekend, as well as a terrible lack of willpower to resist the call of some sweet dessert in the soaking rains of Tropical Depression Bertha last Wednesday night.


My irrigation trenches I'd dug were all full of water, rain was dripping again from the second story hallway ceiling underneath the leaky center dormer, and it seemed a shame for that buttery pastry to go to waste.


I had no idea what I was doing, so I rolled it out and broke out a couple of chocolate baking bars and laid 'em halfway centered, folded over the dough, made a half-hearted attempt to seal the edges, and set 'em aside to rise just a bit. Then I whipped up a basic egg wash, heated up the oven, and baked those buggers.

They were mildly fantastic in a rapturously tantric sort of way.

Saturday, May 30, 2020

Meal No. 2596: Chicken Salad via Sous Vide


With split chicken breasts still reasonably priced, and lacking creativity when it was another multi-day rain period this past week, I opted again for delicious fresh chicken salad at suppertime Wednesday night. Cooking the chicken breasts sous vide, with thinly-sliced lemons, fresh thyme sprigs from my kitchen herb garden, and basic seasonings nets a tender, flavorful, perfect temp result, awesome in homemade chicken salad to serve on a brioche bun.



Adapted from "The Best Classic Chicken Salad Recipe," from J. Kenji López-Alt, Chief Culinary Consultant of SeriousEats.com. [Published 03 June 2015 / Updated 17 April 2020]

Friday, May 29, 2020

Meal No. 2595: Juicy Burgers on the Grill


I was a hard yard worker last Tuesday, moving wheelbarrow load after wheelbarrow load of dirt and clay and rotted roots. I removed most of the remaining bad root-infested topsoil from the south side of the front yard and put in another trench for the irrigation system that I still believe in. At dinnertime, with it being such a nice May evening, I liked the idea of burgers from the grill that were then eaten in the pleasant dusk breezes, in camp chairs on the driveway.



Based on "Juicy Burgers," originally from Pillsbury Classic Cookbooks recipe magazine, July 2003, p. 52-53.

Thursday, May 28, 2020

Meal No. 2594: Biscuits 'N Gravy


With homemade biscuits left over from the previous dinner and a block of Neese's hot breakfast sausage approaching its use-by date, one could hardly consider any other option besides biscuits with sausage gravy for dinner this past Monday night.

Wednesday, May 27, 2020

Meal No. 2593: Chicken Thighs on a Southern Plate


I don't suppose cooking boneless skinless chicken thighs in a sous vide immersion circulator set-up seems all that Southern, but when those delicious juicy flavorful legs are joined on the plate by huge cat head biscuits and an oozing mass of Willie Mae's mac and cheese...that seems quite the Southern treat. Before the long drawn-out evening of rains and thunderstorms rolled over Winston-Salem last Sunday night, that was the means by which bellies were filled to discomfort and joy.


That morning's quarantine task jar drawing was a necessary task but an easy one: affix deodorizers to the poop station can and to one of my outdoor garbage cans. It took only about five minutes and it was nice to just check that one off.




"Sous Vide Chicken Thighs," from Anne of UpstateRamblings.com. [Published 01 September 2019]

"Cat Head Biscuits," by Cali Rich. In Cook's Country, April/May 2010, p. 12-13.

"Willie Mae's Mac and Cheese," shared by Willie Mae's Scotch House of New Orleans via Good Morning America. [Published 19 May 2020]

Tuesday, May 26, 2020

Cro-Roe-Nuts


Oh, those damnable blue slips in the quarantine task jar! Last Saturday, with the morning coffee drawing time, a third blue in a row was pulled from the random collection of chores and tasks! This time it compelled me to try making cronuts for the first time, that magical hybrid of croissant and fried doughnut created by Soho pastry chef extraordinaire, Dominique Ansel.


But I did not try to follow his recipe and I sure didn't want this to be a three-day ordeal. Instead, I came across a two-part video on allrecipes.com that made it all doable in a day.


In the vein of the remarkable yeast glazed doughnuts of hometown favorite Krispy Kreme, but with a satisfying crispy crunch on the outside and airy tender croissant-style dough within, and dipped in a perfect helping of vanilla glaze...these took the place of dinner that night.


As for the doughnut holes? I popped them into a pile of cinnamon sugar when I took them out of the fryer. Unfortunately, while they were still pretty darned good, that helped them to hold on to too much of their external grease.




"How To Make Cronuts, Part I," from Chef John of FoodWishes.com. Posted to allrecipes.com.

"How To Make Cronuts, Part II," from Chef John of FoodWishes.com. Posted to allrecipes.com.

Monday, May 25, 2020

Peanut Butter-Oatmeal Sandwich Cookies


Over the last few weeks, I've drawn less from the quarantine task jar since I seemed to be making excellent progress on projects without that means of compulsion. And because it seemed I was drawing too few of the more necessary tasks, I'd actually removed my fun blue slips from the drawing except on the weekends (for a couple of weeks) so that I could try to get a better focus on things that really ought to be tackled. They joined the rest of the task slips again this past week, and then two blue slips in a row got drawn back-to-back! So after making that amazing and incredible French silk pie on Thursday, the task jar "chore" drawn Friday was to try making cookie sandwiches. This was another one of the kitchen creations that I'd gathered a few recipes for but never had gotten around to making, and that's why it ended up being one of the fun tasks in the random draw during this pandemic.


With Ben Phillis as my muse, because he made them years ago and brought over to the house, and depending on a recipe I must've gone in search of right after he shared his own good version, I made peanut butter-oatmeal sandwich cookies. These are reminiscent of the glorious Do-Si-Dos of Girl Scout Cookie fame, which have always been my favorite. And they're not actually all that hard to make. If I liked peanut butter confections more, perhaps I'd put these into regular rotation.




"Peanut Butter-Oatmeal Sandwich Cookies," from King Arthur Flour.

Sunday, May 24, 2020

French Silk Chocolate Pie


While my commitment to making progress especially on outdoor projects means I've not drawn a slip from the quarantine task jar every day this month, I'm glad that the last seven tasks represented a better balance among the different kinds of tasks that the jar contains. Since drawing "Make Cookies" back on May 3rd, there have been four of the dreaded "purple" slips and two of the outside "green" yard tasks...and this past Thursday a fun blue slip came out of the jar: "French Silk Pie."


The recipes I put on the blue slips were to help break the monotony and to give me both enjoyable things to do but also to push me to try recipes I'd been holding in the trial queue for a while. Cook's Country published this one 11 years ago, so that's how long I've waited to get around to it. Actually, my friend and former colleague Linda Dunlap gave me her recipe for French silk pie at least 15 years ago (or more!)...and still I've yet to make it!


The cold multi-day rainy spell that assaulted us mid-week made the timing excellent for this endeavor, and after a reasonably productive morning on the endless other to-do tasks, I got busy with pie-making. My recent novice experience with pie crust was an unshakeable stopper on trying a scratch-made pastry shell, so a frozen store-bought one was the stand-in. I did the double-boiler to cook and whip the egg-and-sugar combination; I used the high-dollar bittersweet chocolate baking bar; I made homemade chilled whipped cream to fold into it.

And the result was a frickin' amaze-balls French silk pie. I'm still looking for the socks it knocked off.



"French Silk Chocolate Pie," by Diane Unger in Cook's Country, February/March 2009, p. 26-27.

Saturday, May 23, 2020

Meal No. 2592: Chicken Salad Sandwiches


The dinner menu last Thursday was once more driven by the package dates on items in the meat drawer...I therefore had to think of a good use for some split chicken breasts that had been on a great special. In all honesty, the chicken salad I made just a few weeks ago was so good that I didn't feel the need to look beyond that sous vide recipe from seriouseats.com. I nudged the cooking temp up just a few degrees and pulled the breasts out after two hours. Into the ice bath for 15 minutes after that, and then they deboned and diced into incredibly flavorful and remarkably juicy morsels for my homemade tarragon, fresh chive, dill, and red onion dressing. Served on brioche buns, these were pretty satisfying sandwiches that evening.



Adapted from "The Best Classic Chicken Salad Recipe," from J. Kenji López-Alt, Chief Culinary Consultant of SeriousEats.com. [Published 03 June 2015 / Updated 17 April 2020]

Friday, May 22, 2020

Quarantine Task Jar: May Updates


When we all had to hunker down in shut-down "stay-at-home" mode in the midst of this terrible coronavirus pandemic, I devised for myself a somewhat entertaining means for imposing discipline on the very, very long to-do list that I'd accumulated: the Quarantine Task Jar. That quarantine task jar has served me exceptionally well, and I'm pretty pumped to have checked off as many items as I have. You all have been polite enough to avoid asking why the task jar hasn't been mentioned lately. Perhaps you recognize that I've been laboring pretty hard outside on the yard while the weather is cooperating, and while I've still got the gumption to do it, and that means I've not needed the discipline of task jar duty assignment. That's why about half the days in May did not include drawing a random task out: I already had a full task agenda.


It seems I've also gotten pretty bogged down on some days by the incredibly crazy-long to-do lists that include lots of things not coming from the task jar...just daily things or actions or whatever. The above photo is from this past Wednesday morning. I barely made a dent in it even though I was pretty focused all day long. And for a few days earlier this month, I also found myself, well, finishing out one of the early tasks: building up the back yard in order to alleviate some drainage issues resulting from the HVAC drain line project.


While most of the tasks drawn thus far have been dealt with to a state of completion, some have remained deserving of further attention or are waiting for the next stage of whatever process applies. Early in April a task slip was drawn that caused me to spend time thinking about and planning for the next phase of smarthome upgrades, as discussed in this blog post from April 13th. I hadn't yet worked out all the finer details of it, and I needed to inventory the smart fixtures and figure out what else I had to order, as well as figure out what new switch plates would be needed and in what configurations. My ponderings in the meantime had led me to revise even the most recent plan and that necessitated the review that ended up taking several hours Tuesday night and into Wednesday afternoon. I've ordered the rest of what I need and also updated the relevant fuse and breaker notations so that the electrician won't have to figure that out when he's here.

Finally, a couple of the tasks drawn from the jar have not been easily tackled and they interrupted the flow, because I had to carry them over until I could either find a way to deal with them, or get the proper motivation to take them on. I'll fess up to those at the end of this post. Even so, with those self-serving qualifiers now out of the way, I do have positive progress to report on other quarantine tasks.

Roofing Estimates Update (QTJ May 1st)

When this slip was drawn at the beginning of the month, I researched roofing companies and made phone calls to set up appointments, as noted in this blog post. Since then, all three have come to examine the roof and gutters and I've got estimates now from two of them. The main issue is that the original LeafGuard gutters are failing: that was the unanimous opinion of all.


Each had a different idea about what I need to replace them with. I also got varying assessments of the other roof issues, including how the upstairs balcony rubber roof is holding up and what might be the source of the leaking around the front center dormer.

Spray Roundup (QTJ May 7th)

A very kind green slip was drawn at the end of the first week of the month: spray Roundup. I'd already done a good bit of this but found that the quarantine task jar proved useful in compelling me to get out and do another treatment, especially now that lots of weeds are coming up along the retaining wall and around the driveway area.

Ticket Stubs Album (QTJ May 8th)

One of my less onerous to-do items was to rework my movie ticket stubs album to incorporate all the movies I saw through the Winston-Salem Cinema Society's Films on Fourth programs from 2003 to 2007.


Since the notebook is a chronology, but I'd not originally scanned and included these, I wanted to get them properly sorted and archived with all my other cinema stubs. It wasn't a long project but it's nice to check it off. As a reminder, the Instagram feed for my movie stubs can be found under the profile ticketstubsstash.

Read Professional Literature (QTJ May 9th)

I regret to report that I am not always attentive to a regular schedule of reading the various educational journals that come through here. That made it a wise task jar choice, and I already had in mind two themed journals on coaching that would be the focus of that time. I've been putting them off because (1) it is very much an area of professional endeavor for me, elevating its importance; and (2) I already knew that I'd have strong reactions to some of the content and needed to have the cleared mental space and energy for annotating and capturing the resulting germination or crystallization of ideas.


My rule for myself is that I have to spend a minimum of an hour on any task drawn, in full recognition of the reality that some to-do items in the jar are extensive or involved or ongoing. I've devoted far more than that to these, including coffee time outside on nice mornings; I've also had a couple of days where I kept thinking and cogitating while I was outside digging or hauling and had to repeatedly step back inside the kitchen in order to make additional notes on particularly thorny or troubling articles.

Plumber/Irrigation (May 10th)

This slip was drawn on a Sunday but I'd already begun tackling it. Still, it motivated me to make a new initial contact with a utilities contractor as well as follow up with my regular plumber for some guidance. This is still very much in process because it seems increasingly likely that installing a second meter for irrigation and landscaping is going to be prohibitively expensive. More to come...

Will: Household Distribution (May 16th)

I got my will drafted, finally, back in 2012. One provision in it, though, was a statement to the effect that there would be a supplemental list of household items, antiques, clocks, and so on that were specifically designated for certain people, rather than getting lumped into the whole estate.


For instance, if my sister Allison wants our mother's sofa that I inherited, she gets first dibs on it. My mother's wedding china should go either to her or to one of her two sons, if they want it. But here it is 8 years later and I had yet to create that list...until the task jar told me to!


Morgue Insulation (May 17th)



Back in the day, I suppose the north side of the cellar is where coal would have been delivered. When FIRST, Inc., the chemical-and-alcohol treatment organization, owned the house in between the Roedigers and me, they walled it in as a tool room, and now it's just called The Morgue.


Thanks to various electrical or internet cable projects, some of the insulation in there, which is basically under the dining room, has gotten dislodged. It's been yet another untouched to-do item that the task jar very kindly forced me to finally deal with.



It doesn't seem overly charitable to suggest that I've achieved quite a string of successes with this quarantine task jar gimmick. I'm keeping the growing stack of accomplished task slips on the counter beside the task jar, and it makes me feel pretty good. However, two of the drawn tasks have not yet been successfully completed. I mentioned one of those, from way back at the start of the shut-down period: insulating behind the bar cabinets in the attic. I put that one aside because, after I looked at it, my whole idea about how to approach it had to be revised and I needed time to come up with a new plan. The other item that I've stumbled over was drawn on May 2nd: "Revise Post-Observation PowerPoint." The Instructional Leadership Institute that I offer to administrators, coaches, teacher leaders, and others is pretty solid overall. I did a major design overhaul three years ago, cleaning it up but also giving the PPT shows a more unified look and feel. As my ideas have evolved and as I've attempted to update especially the final "chapter" in that institute (Post-Observation Conferencing), it is due for a bit of further cleaning up, and I need to revisit its organizational structure, and there are some ways I can tighten it up and make it more concise.


But I also need to be in a particular frame of mind for that sort of endeavor, and I'm too distracted by the many other things I've been messing around with these last few weeks. The official report at this time is that I have failed to follow through on that task jar slip, so it is still hanging out there haunting me until I can get it done.

Thursday, May 21, 2020

Meal No. 2591: Sous Vide Pork Chops


When I found some thicker-cut pork chops on a recent grocery run, I thought I ought to give the sous vide approach another go and see if I got a better result. And I did, even though they weren't bad a few weeks ago when I first tried them with thinner chops. With some Creole blackening spice and more fresh herbs from the garden, and then finished with a good pan sear and a butter-garlic spoonover as they reached perfection, I found myself sorry they weren't even larger. I made homemade mashed potatoes, with plenty of butter and a dose of heavy cream. And since the world has not quite figured out how best to anticipate the uncertain weeks and months to come in this coronavirus pandemic, and you can't find canned green beans at Costco anymore, I splurged on a couple of cans from my dwindling supply.



"Sous Vide Pork Chops," from J. Kenji López-Alt, Chief Culinary Consultant of SeriousEats.com. [Published 08 April 2016 / Updated 13 April 2020]

Wednesday, May 20, 2020

Meal No. 2590: Monie's Pasta Carbonara


Monday night I just had a hankering for a big bowl of rotini coated in Monie's easy carbonara sauce. It's a shortcut and definitely not true carbonara...and it's also pretty darned delicious.



"Pasta Carbonara," a recipe shared by Monie Lawrence of Raleigh, NC.

Tuesday, May 19, 2020

Meal No. 2589: Roasted Salmon


Oh, how fine to return to salmon, roasted to a perfect temperature and joined on the plate with a heap of roasted broccoli! My yard labors last weekend led me to believe this was a well-earned meal.

Monday, May 18, 2020

Meal No. 2588: Sous Vide Chicken Thighs


Friday was busy with house stuff and it wasn't until late afternoon that I was able to get back out to continue digging trenches in the front yard. But dinner was still going to be made, and I took the path of simplification by setting up the sous vide immersion circulator again in order to cook chicken thighs to a perfect tender and juicy state, seasoned with herbs from the garden and a bit of creole blackening spice. Quick stovetop stuffing and seasoned green beans made it all come together into a satisfying start to the weekend.



I followed the cooking instructions for sous vide from "Crispy Sous-Vide Chicken Thighs with Mustard Wine Pan Sauce," from J. Kenji López-Alt, Chief Culinary Consultant of SeriousEats.com. [Published 27 July 2015 / Updated 29 August 2018]

Sunday, May 17, 2020

Front Yard: The Disaster State


From this angle, maybe the yard doesn't look so bad. The photos above and below were taken in April 2019.


But if you look closely, perhaps you'll see that the grass itself is sort of patchy and there's actually a good bit of clover taking over:


Last May and June, I thought I'd just tackle it and set it all straight. As a result, the front yard has been a disaster for a year now.



It began early last spring, after I had aerated and fertilized and realized that it was simply a clover-and-wiregrass monstrosity that would not and could not be healed. Extreme measures were called for, and I decided I would rip out all of the topsoil layers that were infested with those deeply buried nasty invaders' roots and replace it with brand new soil layers.


The first step was to kill everything with Roundup, with a minimum of three spaced applications.


That ended up including a portion of the back yard near the kitchen door as well (shown above).

On the north end of the front yard, I tilled it all...


...and then removed the broken up/loosened soil a wheelbarrow at the time.


But it turns out that way too much wiregrass survived because it needs so little for its root nodules to spawn new growth. That put me back to waiting and killing with Roundup.


As for the south end of the front yard, instead of tilling, I took the flatblade shovel and excavated one scoop at the time. I wanted to go as deep as any of the wiregrass roots seemed to have infiltrated and make sure I got it all out.


I also knew an ongoing barrier to a lush green lawn was going to be the lingering after-effects of the two large trees that had long ago been removed. (I previously blogged about the stump and roots I excavated last summer.)


For the leftside tree that had been removed, even though I had the stump ground up, there was still plenty of rotting base and roots to dig out, and I found that some of that gosh darned wiregrass was living quite extensively and thick, as deep as 12 inches down.

As is so often the case, even with the size and scale of this as a stand-alone project, it becomes an inevitable can-of-worms, and you might say that one of the holes I uncovered was actually a many-passaged rabbit warren. Not literally, mind you, but one thing led to another until I ran out of steam and ran into the blistering heat of July 2019, and all progress stopped for the rest of the year.

So digging up stumps and roots: mostly yes (or so I thought) on the north lawn, and halfway on the south lawn. But then I got into the dilemma of the granite wallcaps on the north end, and that consumed a lot of time (see this blog post).


Remediating that led me into alleviating water and drainage pressures on the wall, so I also dug out a pretty deep trench behind the wall.


And then I discovered a vertical drainline hidden in the northeast corner of the yard.


And that led me down to the busted clay drainpipe at the bottom interior of the retaining wall so I went on a fruitless search for a connector so it could be fixed.


And came up empty so I decided to just build a brick catch basin to connect that northside drainline (from the backyard - see this blog post):




I even pre-cast a top for that drainbox so that I could restore a vertical drain connection as well:


I am even more inexpert at this than you might've guessed but so far it seems to be reasonably functional.


It also seemed like a chance to add in a drain for front yard run-off, but the effectiveness of this will have to wait until I finish rehabbing the lawn...for now, it's constantly getting covered over with eroding ungrassed soil.


I backfilled with gravel all of that area behind the north end of the front retaining wall and then got it covered back over.

Remember how this began as a lawn rehabilitation project? By this time, I'd completely removed shovels-depth layers of soil and I was also thinking about laying sod instead of seeding the lawn. And as long as I'm living in this do-it-yourself fantasy world, and with the yard already dug up, I mean, shouldn't I install an irrigation system? I'd never be as faithful a lawn-waterer as a sodded lawn would require and how awesome would it be to upgrade to an automatic system to preserve, protect, and defend my various landscaping endeavors?

Rabbit hole after rabbit hole after rabbit hole...

So after stripping down all of the north side of the front yard, and just over half of the south side, and repairing the north retaining wall when I damaged it while resetting the granite wallcaps, and excavating behind the wall and reworking the drainlines there and refilling with gravel, and unearthing and digging out the mass of old roots and stumps, and receiving a huge load of topsoil, and starting to plan an irrigation system, and then thinking: Hey, I should get a second water meter dedicated just to landscaping...then the heat and wet and misery of July hit and I was worn out. The disaster state of the front lawn continued unabated all through the fall and winter.

But I have begun my labors on it again, so stay tuned...