Meal No. 4059: Chicken Katsu (A Japanese Fried Chicken Street Food)

It's been almost a decade since I made a much-loved recipe for chicken katsu, also known as Japanese fried chicken and often thought of as "street food." In the middle of the 2010s, it showed up here quite a few times, regularly accompanied by vinegar sushi rice and a soy-mirin-onion sauce. That was the direction I went this past Thursday night. Well-satisfied and happy to have time to bask in dinner's afterglow with ongoing conversation at the table, the testament to simple pleasure in good company was pronounced and convincing.

That warmth of fellowship seemed all the more fitting given how winter so pointedly reasserted itself that morning. After an exceptionally warm multi-day teaser of springtime, in rolled a bold front of cold and a turbulent upheaval of conflicted air masses, and then a protracted deluge of downpours followed the choppy winds of change. Ominous rolls of thunder came on forcefully enough that morning to rumble the sturdy timbers of this grand old manse, but still and steady was my most excellent Sumner as he cozied close and comfy along and across my outstretched legs.

Safely sequestered inside, the morning coffee was consumed and a decent start on my next Allende novel was achieved, but by late morning I had to switch over to PowerPoint presentation preparation thanks to an impending session in Richmond that I had high hopes for. Given the 20-degree tumble of temps from wake-up to yogurt snack, a little slideshow distraction was a useful occupation to avoid discomfiting awareness of meteorological misery.

Once the clouds moved out, we were graced with stunning sunshine and fully blue skies, and cruel harsh winds to counteract what might otherwise have been a glorious Winston-Salem afternoon. Still: the brilliant blooms on the lone surviving cherry tree were stunning against the fully blue heavens later that afternoon.

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"Japanese Fried Chicken," from Cuisine at Home, Issue 98, March/April 2013, p. 44-45.

"Vinegar Sushi Rice," from Cuisine at Home, Issue 98, March/April 2013, p. 45.

Meal No. 4038: Bacon, Gruyère, & Caramelized Onion Quiche

Thursday a week ago was a chance for the beloved breakfast for dinner. I've become pretty fond of caramelizing onions, adding in finely chopped bacon, and building up the heartiness with a pretty good pile of shredded Gruyère. Once the egg and cream mixture gets poured over the top, this lovely quiche heads into the oven to cook to a creamy texture in just under 40 minutes. I also made a half-batch of blueberry muffins and had a heaping pile of fresh fruit, too.

Overnight and continuing into that morning, we got more snow. Not a ton: just a good dusting that measured maybe half and inch.

This has been quite a winter for us: an all-day sleet storm which left us with a one- to two-inch ice slab laid over every open surface; then a rare 8-inch snowfall a week later; and then even more snow a few days after that. The extended period of below-normal temps and even quite a bit of time in the teens is also not how it usually goes around here. But what's normal anymore? It's harder to predict when it's still unclear how climate change is going to increase the severity and wild swings of weather events.

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Recipe based on "Bacon and Caramelized Onion Quiche," from Mountain Mama Cooks.

"Perfect Blueberry Muffins," from Sue Moran of The View from Great Island. [Published 13 July 2021]

Meal No. 4036: Roasted Salmon on Caesar'd Power Greens

February 3rd was supposed to be a work day in Virginia, and while I’d told that school division we were unlikely to be able to proceed after all the snow days, it was a belated cancellation. And it cost me a night's charge in the hotel. But was I glad for extra time at home? Of course, and I celebrated with salmon Caesars for three of us at dinner. Served atop power greens, with some roasted sunflower seeds, and adorned with homemade creamy Caesar dressing, the salmon was tender and tasty, roasted to a perfect temp and adorned with its spice coating.

That Tuesday was almost pleasant, with better sunshine than predicted and temps approaching the mid-40s. I was back at it on the parking area, trying to clear away more of the dual winter storms' ice and snow pack.

The ice sheet from the January 25th sleet storm was still present but much more manageable. Don't misunderstand: easier, but still labor intensive. Each piece, slab, portion, chunk, or sliver: I was chipping away with a flatblade shovel or scooping with the well-worn snow shovel and walking the debris to the various piles either along the driveway or down on the street.

[Editor's Note: We managed to get another light snow covering overnight and through the morning on Thursday of last week, which diminished some of my progress on the parking lot, at least until the temps moderated.]

It's certainly no small compensation when the sun shines warmly and the precious pooch Sumner is willing to hang out with me when I take a break on the pavement.

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Based on "Easy Lemon Caesar Salad Dressing," by Kim Hardesty of lowcarbmaven.com.

Meal No. 4035: Cuban Pork Sheet Pan Nachos

Hemmed in as we were by the back-to-back winter weather events, I went into the foodstuff reserves in order to make dinner for three of us on Monday evening of last week. That made me glad for some stored-away Cuban pulled pork that served as the heart of a large sheet pan of nachos. Oh, of course there was onion and black beans, a fair amount of corn, and an abundance of Mexican cheese atop the bed of tortilla chips. A fresh batch of well-garlicked lime crema was a figurative cherry on top.

Each day of that first full week of February involved some measure of time tackling the driveway. I'd only cleared the ice pack partially, and then we got two-thirds of a foot of marvelous snow the next weekend. I had plenty to do out there.

You know: like make a path across the driveway to get to the less treacherous strip of yard along the south property line, where the pooches take care of all of their needs.

As I'd mentioned, Scarlett is well-suited to the snow cover. She loves being out in it, sniffing here and there, lying flat upon the snow and/or ice pack, ready to flick and fling icy chunks and snowy splinters whilst she leaps and yaps and nudges Sumner to play along. But let's also all celebrate how marvelous they are about getting out there and doing their business promptly and in designated locations and, at least for Scarlett, on an incredibly regular schedule.

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Sheet Pan Nachos based on "Loaded Sweet Pork Sheet Pan Nachos," from Elyse of Six Sisters Stuff. [Published 14 March 2018 / Updated 20 September 2024]

"Easy Lime Crema," from Lisa Bryan of DownShiftology.com. [Published 22 April 2020 / Updated 07 May 2020]

Meal No. 4034: Chicken with Coronation Sauce

Last Sunday was a happy supper for three, and for the first time in almost a year I served up one of our easy house favorites: chicken with coronation sauce. With its unique mix of complementary flavors, hints of curry balanced with a bit of sweetness, a hidden measure of light heat, and a full creaminess to ooze all over the bed of rice...I'm glad I had no idea this wasn't supposed to be served warm over those steamed long grains.

The first day of February rolled in overnight, with the unkindness of 12 degrees when I awoke, and yet we felt beautified by a gorgeous overlay of an abundant fluffy snowfall from the previous day. The sunshine cast about brilliantly but with a wintered impotence, and the cold weather and wind chill warnings delayed my enthusiastic snow removal until late morning. I'm glad I'd gotten a decent start on it the evening before, but more snow still fell and the winds also did their work to toss around that unusually light and fluffy adornment. I needed to be ready to get the car out, because at that point I was expecting to have to drive to Virginia on Monday.

A well-blanketed car belonging to a new neighbor from across the street showed some of what the snow coverage looked like:

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"Coronation Sauce for Chicken," from 400 Sauces, by Catherine Atkinson, Christine France, and Maggie Mayhew. Hermes House (2006, 2008), p. 155. Recipe is a variation on "Coronation Chicken," created by Constance Spry and Rosemary Hume for the 1953 Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.

The January 31st Snowstorm

A short six days after our massive sleet storm, we found ourselves in winter's crosshairs again. That's how the final day of January played out, with another deep plunge into arctic temps that occurred in symphony with a massive system of moisture coming up from the southwest and giving North Carolina its first full coverage—from one end to the other—of snow in almost 50 years.

Sumner does not love the snow as much as Scarlett does, but they were both pretty cute getting out into it. We still had accumulation yet to occur when I caught Sumner pausing on the covered parking lot (above).

I mean: 17°F at around 3 pm in the afternoon? That doesn't seem much like what I'm supposed to endure as a resident of this southern state. The polar vortex, made weaker and less organized by the warmer waters in the arctic region, keeps spilling its cruel contents in a huge splash down across many lines of latitude unused to this sort of nonsense.

But maybe it was cold enough that the pooches' return to the back door was more than their usual scurry and race:

Perhaps the husky and shepherd within Scarlett helps explain how naturally she takes to the snowpack.

It's a moment like this one that earned her a fresh nickname: Cold Belly Jones.

When the snowstorm was tapering off Saturday night, very gradually, I brought out my trusty Raleigh Paint & Wallpaper yardstick and found we were almost up to 8 inches of pure fluffy light dry snow.

The accumulation looked dramatic with the almost-totally-hidden legs of the deck furniture up on the second story porch:

And bright and early that Saturday morning, there was the team from Budd Services ready to go. I do not know if they had again spent the night up there but I've no doubt about their diligence.

The Saturday evening supper was simple: sous vide herbed chicken breast on spring mix with the last of my latest batch of Thousand Island-style dressing. This was Meal No. 4033, as the ongoing count continues for all meals made since the new kitchen was completed in 2009.

The first day of February followed, and that Sunday dawned bright and sunny but brutally cold. (That's when I took the photo at the top of this blog post.) The official measure out at the airport was 13°F (check out that RealFeel of -2°F!!) but my home monitor was a nudge colder: 12°F.

February 1st was also the occasion of the full "Snow" moon, and we were certainly prepared to celebrate it in proper fashion. I always enjoy the beauty of the rising full moon over the city:

Meal No. 4031: Linton Hopkins’s Bucatini Carbonara

The pickings at the grocery store last Thursday were understandably slim, following our intense and enduring winter weather event from the previous weekend. It was my first time of venturing out, and apparently the same could be said of many of my fellow shoppers (plus: it was senior discount day, so there’s that). Although I was able to add a salad to our dinner plates, I had to fall back on something I could produce from pantry staples that night: Linton Hopkins’s bucatini carbonara. Lordy, it’s so silky and wonderful, rich and pleasing. I still had a version of Thousand Island dressing to help along the future prospects of the spring mix I’d grabbed fresh. The guest at dinner very thoughtfully brought along a really nice red wine, which paired perfectly. Oh, and maybe a dessert also manifested before the evening got away from us, so more on that in tomorrow’s blog post.

Please note: It's outrageous to this summer-loving senior that 20°F that morning was an improvement.

And while it wasn't as much about the weather as it was distance when I needed to have a virtual meeting that morning, I was reminded that that's what school has been like for a lot of students across our area since schools were closed all week. Weather-related interruptions to the school calendar always cost us, but we all know ain't nobody coming to school on Saturday, on spring break, or after the posted end of the year.

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Adapted from "Bucatini Carbonara," by Linton Hopkins. In Food & Wine, July 2009.

A Sheetload of Ice

The grand sleet event of late January that offered us an accumulation of close to maybe three inches of mostly sleet, which compacted down into a 1.5-2 inch sheet of ice all over every ground surface (yard and driveway and steps and sidewalks!), had a lasting impact because temperatures remained very much below normal. Schools were out the whole week and I was lucky that I'd had no scheduled work trips. I thought I'd let a standalone blog post capture a piece of this story...or should I say a kazillion pieces?

After initially carving a path to walk more safely from the street to the back door, and clearing off the front steps and sidewalk as well, I wanted to get as much of the driveway cleared as I could.

The bright sunshine of last week helped even while it was still too cold for my efforts to get boosted by any rapid melting. Instead, I had to rely on gradually chipping away with a flatblade shovel, wedging underneath where I could, and hoping that a large enough section would break up or lift up. The wheelbarrow helped but unfortunately the tire isn't holding air for very long.

Digging in the front edge, pushing in gently, lifting a bit, waiting for the rewarding sound of cracking ice, and either happily grabbing up a huge chunk or aggressively shoveling the bits and fragments...

I mean: I did finally get the car out, and I reckon not quite half of the parking lot was freed of its icing.

One of four massive piles of these ice slabs is pictured here, tucked behind a dead cherry tree but easily accessed from the upper lot area. Another sizable pile of this icy debris sits in the kitchen herb garden; a couple of smaller piles are nearby. At the street, on one side of the driveway entrance is a similar pile of these chunks and on the lower side is a pile twice as big. Here's a shot of that taken once the snow had begun last Saturday morning:

Eggnog Cinnamon Rolls for the Sleet Day

We were stuck with such a winter weather mess last weekend, and what form it was to take or how much damage it might do proved impossible to predict. But it sure put me in a mood to make a batch of eggnog cinnamon rolls before my final holiday carton of it reached its unusable state.

Ooey gooey sweet and sensational, the fluffy cinnamon rolls produced from this particular recipe are consistent winners. I certainly didn't realize I'd left these aside for almost two years. They are heavenly bundles of sugar and spice, fully adorned with an irresistable eggnog and white chocolate glaze, and then raised to excess by a cream cheese icing.

This last picture (above) is how the rolls looked straight out of the oven, before they were amply doused by that afore-mentioned sugary glaze. Also: in my incessant disposition to count unimportant things, I'll call this the 25th batch of some sort of cinnamon roll that I've made since I started this blog in 2008.

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"Easy Fluffy Eggnog Cinnamon Rolls," from Tieghan Girard of Half-Baked Harvest. [Published 24 November 2020]

Winter’s Late January Sleet Smack

Oh, with giddy anticipation, once the cackling imprecision of breathless long-view predictions had put in our minds the slimmest glimmer for a foot-high snowfall fever dream, did we all hustle and bumble into dedicated preparation last week. But a complex convergence of multiple systems and fronts made it hard to know what all those models were promising. And we all should understand and be forgiving of the floundering meteorologists: the models are playing catchup to the shifted landscape that comes with climate change uncertainty.

When I woke around 4:30am Sunday morning, it was 14°F and we had mostly gotten sleet, in abundance. The barest incidence of light snow flakes and occasional pelting by fat cold rain drops were nothing compared to a couple of inches of those rough tiny granules of ice. Sumner hated it, finding it to be terribly disconcerting. Scarlett, true to her shepherd, husky, and Saint Bernard lineage, was ready to seek a cliff face for ice rappelling.

Reports around the state and region made it clear we were lucky in terms of damage but we missed out on what would have been an enormous gorgeous snowfall had the precip been otherwise. Just around the corner from the house was what appeared to be the command center or staging hotel for one huge crew that never had to go out since we didn’t get all the ice that was so fearfully anticipated.

Our power stayed on even if elsewhere fortunes were much less bright. To have this much sleet coverage was a bit of a wonder but it also really was coming down for a good part of the day. Imagine if it had only made it all the way down as snow! I still got out and trudged my 3.5 miles while the sidewalks and streets were stompable enough as long as the boots were steady and sturdy...that's when I spotted the linemen's trucks behind the hotel and was sure those crews didn't mind never getting called out.

Speaking of crews: a team from Budd Services (the company that provides groundskeeping for the neighboring office building) spent Saturday night in their trucks on the parking lot behind us. We get to see these gentlemen regularly through all seasons, always impressed by their diligence and focus.

After daybreak Sunday, they emerged into the brutal cold and got busy spreading ice melt and running the scraper blades. But yeah: tell me again about the immigrants who don’t work but who are taking our jobs…?!

The Monday that followed all this was bright and sunny but still cold and breezy. As is so often the case, the house looked lovely in that early morning light but I also knew I'd have to get the flatblade shovel in hand and get to work clearing off the front steps for the postal carriers and some sort of path across the parking lot down to the street.

And a task like that is a sore and painful reminder that I have entered my seventh decade on this earth.

An even colder arctic push invaded overnight Monday so that by the time I got up Tuesday morning, it was 11°F on my Tempest weather station, and the nearby Smith Reynolds Airport was registering 9°F. Current projections are that our area will continue to experience below-normal temperatures perhaps into the latter part of February. You can count on me to keep you posted, especially if bellyaching results.