The WORST EVER Chocolate Chip Cookies

I could have been outside working more last Wednesday evening after the southwestern Caesar salad supper...and instead I made cookies. These are a basic chocolate chip cookie, perhaps, but there's nothing basic about how delicious and addictive they are. Perhaps in a rare show of enforced self-control, I limited myself only because I committed to giving away samples to various neighbors on the street...still, though, I greedily hoarded a few, if you must know.

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"The WORST EVER Chocolate Chip Cookies," from Sam Merritt of SugarSpunRun.com. [Published 28 November 2018; Updated 13 November 2019]

Meal No. 2613: Southwestern Caesar Salad with Grilled Chicken

I continue to be mighty happy that it's not yet the yucky days of summer. Wednesday brought another glorious dawning morning with incredibly pleasant temps and light breezes for enjoying coffee and a quiet start to the day with Sumner at my feet. It also allowed me to get an earlier start in the yard that took me up to lunchtime. Then I ventured to City Hall to see about placing the order for a second water meter for the irrigation system and then I fell into a nap! By late afternoon, a less pleasant humidity had rolled in and I decided to worry about dinner instead. On the menu: Southwestern Caesar salad topped with sous vide chicken thighs that I finished on the grill. Adorned with diced fresh tomato, corn, and black beans, it was a creamy and spicy abundance of flavors.

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Southwestern Caesar Dressing was my creation but was based on:

• "Southwest Caesar Dressing," by CookingONtheSide. From GeniusKitchen.com
• "Southwestern Caesar Salad with Chipotle Dressing," from the Hyatt Regency at Gainy Ranch (Scottsdale, AZ). Published in Bon Appétit, March 1997.

Meal No. 2612: Sheet Pan Beef Nachos

Once again the dinner menu on a recent evening was dictated by the sell-by date on a meat item in the fridge. That's what led me to throw together a quick batch of sheet pan beef nachos last Monday night, as a brief interruption to a very full yard work day (that didn't end until about 9:45 pm!). Oh, but they were ever so good, enjoyed on paper plates in the camp chairs in the nice breezes of that early summer evening.

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Taco-Style Meat Based on "Crispy Beef Tacos," by Hilah Johnson. From HilahCooking.com.

Seasoning was based on "Taco Seasoning I," from Bill Echols on AllRecipes.com.

Quarantine Task Jar: The Broken Chair Leg

A couple of summers ago, when the Roediger House played host to the family of an old Wake Forest grad school chum of mine, the leg of one of my parlour side chairs gave way. It's another of the small items on the long-running to-do list that ended up on a slip in my quarantine task jar. It was drawn at the end of May. I discovered belatedly that the picture above was terribly misfocused, but it'll still do as a "before" shot (along with this zoomed out view, below).

I do not pretend that there was anything expert about my repair efforts...

...and I'll not be surprised if they fail at their first serious test of stability and strength. It's a chair that doesn't get a lot of action, and I'm just glad it's no longer sitting at an angle in the comforting environs of the North Parlour.

Meal No. 2611: Roasted Salmon and Broccoli

Sunday was stunning for the first full day of summer. It was a long stretch of coffee and reading and a bit of computer work as the morning proceeded, in the camp chairs out on the driveway. I made reasonable efforts with the ongoing yard projects (including initial installation of eight out of 16 sprinkler heads!) and was happy to put roasted salmon and roasted broccoli on the dinner plates that night. It was a fine day.

Now that summer has officially begun, as of this past Saturday, I can stop and marvel at how this month of June seems to be proceeding, which is proving to be rather a balance of gorgeous and amazing days and no small number of wet ones. Given how awful the mosquitos and flies were the last couple of summers, it was interesting to note that neither has been much on the scene just yet. Last week granted me the privilege of seeing the first goldfinch of the season, unable to compete with the teeming crowds of other birds at the front feeders. I also spied—briefly!—a hummingbird, attracted by the bee balm I had planted a few years ago. Lightning bugs showed up a couple of weeks ago. The daylilies are still bursting with beauty. The petunias in the planters are growing and glowing and spreading. The clarion call of official summer burst forth late afternoon on Sunday: the first cicada with its glorious song. Although I am still pretty dedicated to my yard labors thus far, I do dread when the heat and humidity of the real summer overwhelm me. As of this moment, though? Life's pretty darned good in the mini-universe of the Roediger House.

Meal No. 2610: Glorious Beef & Mushroom Stir Fry

With beef tenderloin on a better-than-usual sale, which I appreciated all the more given how meat prices have surged during the coronavirus pandemic, I brought home a moderate-sized one to carve into steaks (prepped for later sous vide cooking) and for making a couple of meals right away. Friday night's beef tenderloin tips was immediately followed by beef and mushroom stir fry over rice noodles on Saturday night. This meal is one of two that I consistently have made over the last 12 years, after I got my first useful wok cookbook, and it always satisfies.

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"Glorious Beef with Mushrooms," in Wok Fast by Hugh Carpenter and Teri Sandison. Ten Speed Press, 2002, p. 87 (recipe) and p. 26-27 (marinade and sauce).

Meal No. 2609: Beef Tenderloin Tips

The expected rains held off last Friday and I was mighty happy to get to be out in the yard, trying to make more progress on the latest tasks and projects. As noted in yesterday's blog post about the discard pile, I put in time cutting down a huge stretch of invasive reeds along the back end of the southside property line. Then, I shifted my labors to the front yard so that I could employ some revisions to my irrigation set-up, which involved digging up one of my zone lines and adding a couple of lateral lines with fresh T-junctions. Anyway: I knocked off the outside work late afternoon, showered, and headed for the kitchen. For dinner, it was some pretty darned good beef tenderloin tips on homemade mashed potatoes, with a shallot and port-wine demiglace sauce and roasted asparagus. Oh me oh my!

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Sauce adapted from "Sauce Poivrade alla Marsala or Madeira," from MoreThanGourmet.com.

Not Missing the Massive Dirt Pile

One of those long overdue projects in the yard realm of the Roediger House was getting all the excavated clay, rocks, roots, brick, concrete, and soil scooped up and hauled off. Over the last eight years, I had created an enormous and long hill of discard as I've dug out various areas of the yard, mostly for planting beds and landscaping.

This is the northwest Piedmont, after all, with plenty of deep dense red clay, and this house is old and a lot has been dug up and covered up on this downtown plot.

The rains held off enough last Wednesday that this was kind of a perfect quick afternoon job for them while other projects were having to dry out a bit. With my pile of discard having grown to about 25 feet long, 10 or 12 feet deep, and as much as 6 feet high, it took the good guys of Superior Lawn and Landscaping six loads to haul it all off, including a return couple of trips the following morning.

After they left, I set about trying to cut back all of those invasive reeds that have come over from the neighboring back yard and now I have quite a pile of those down by the curb. That carried over into Friday as well but I knew it would be quite a job!

Before a quick and brutal storm blew through at midday on Saturday, I was able to rake and hoe and smooth it down, albeit roughly, and then fertilize and plant some shade grass. It's not a particularly sexy part of the yard and for now it's still pretty rough looking. Nonetheless, I am really enjoying the feeling of progress!

Giant Salted Espresso Hot Fudge Cookies

It was rainy and cold Tuesday, an absolutely miserable weather day. When it came time to take a break from inside tasks, chores, and endeavors, the distraction I pursued was for a somewhat involved cookie recipe that had just come out from Tieghan Girard, who is responsible for the Half-Baked Harvest blog. Behold: giant salted espresso hot fudge cookies. Generally not really my thing, this kind of cookie, although it seemed interesting enough to see what happened with it.

I just made eight of 'em, and used the rest of the batter for a toffee cookie instead of this stuffed hot fudge thing she's got going on. I liked the toffee cookies better, but the hot fudge cookies did manage to pull off a pretty interesting and appealing flavor. They're just cumbersome to make and a bit of a mess to manage once you are ready to eat one.

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"Giant Salted Espresso Hot Fudge Cookies," from Tieghan Girard of Half-Baked Harvest. [Published 12 June 2020]

Meal No. 2608: Breakfast for Dinner

Being cooped up inside all day on Tuesday, while it rained constantly and never got much warmer than the upper 50s, put me in the mood for an early meal and for something comforting like breakfast. It was a chance to fry up some sausage patties and sunnyside up eggs, along with cooking a pot of creamy grits that just tasted glorious.

After all, it's been a whole month since I made this, right?

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Guidance for making the creamy grits: Luquire Family Stone Ground Grits, milled in Greenwood, SC.

An Aerial View of the Roediger House

Here's something that doesn't present itself every day: the Winston-Salem Fire Department's (relatively) new KME tractor-drawn tiller aerial ladder truck parked in front of the Roediger House. It was a day of testing fire hydrants, apparently, and the spaces in front of the house were perfect for that behemoth to slide into. You can regularly see this rascal cruising through downtown, expertly navigating the tight turns at intersections.

Here's to hoping this is the only reason it ever appears in front of the house, if not when staging for a downtown parade.

In case you were hoping for something else with the title of this blog post, I seem to have never gotten around to posting this drone shot shared with me by the guys from Way Up Media, from summer 2016, when they lived down the street:

Meal No. 2607: Supper-Sized Baked Beans

After being introduced to beefy baked beans on an early trip to Winchester, VA, when I regularly visited friends who used to live there, I have simultaneously found myself thinking they were awesome and also forgetting to think about them. Their appearances at the Roediger House have been next to nil, except for just last fall and maybe one other time way, way back in the old kitchen days. With temps having weirdly topped out in the upper 50s Monday afternoon, with mizzle and drizzle and generally greyed-over blah, the hearty bowls of this beefed-up recipe were just about ideal to the evening's mood.

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"Baked Beans," from Redith Mozelle Newman Quesenberry (1927-2019) of Carroll County, Virginia, via Cindy Coulson of Cana, VA.

Meal No. 2606: Braised Chicken over Brussels Sprouts

Years ago, when friend and colleague Donna Whitley-Smith shared a set of recipe magazines with me, I doubt she had any idea how fixated I'd become with the second recipe I tried from it: braised chicken over Brussels sprouts and shallots (the first recipe from Everyday Food that I tried was Bull's Eye Eggs in Toast). This dish makes frequent appearances at the Roediger House, mostly because it's so simple and yet ever so good. It was the ideal choice this past Sunday night.

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"Braised Chicken and Brussels Sprouts," in Everyday Food, Issue 97, November 2012, p. 22.

The Morning Coffee Work Routine

I have many, many reasons to love the summer season, not least of which is the joy of starting most days with coffee in the pleasant mornings before the heat or humidity kick in. With a camp chair and its helpful side tray, Sumner at my feet, birds on feeders, and neighbors throwing up hands in greeting, it's a relaxing beginning of a new day and a chance either to work on tasks or just to enjoy sitting and thinking. For instance, although I left behind many of the trappings of university life when I stepped away from my faculty role at Wake Forest University, I've kept active as a reviewer for professional journals. When I'm assigned an article, it sure is nice to take it with me in those early morning hours and spend time in careful consideration of the author's submission. Unfortunately, of course, sometimes the manuscripts need a lot of work, as might be indicated by the picture above.

Meal No. 2605: Roasted Salmon

I'd let a bit of time pass since I last made the house favorite of simple spiced roasted salmon, together with a pile of roasted broccoli, which helped make it extra good to me last Friday night on a glorious June evening...before I went back to yard work until well past 9:30 pm!

The Red Wheel Barrow

XXII

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

- William Carlos Williams, 1923

Salted Caramel Skillet Brownies

After the weekend when my quarantine task jar compelled me to create three sweet concoctions in a row, I've been taking a break on the desserts front. But an otherworldly compulsion overtook me Wednesday night and in an almost out-of-body-experience manner, I looked down at myself making a batch of salted chocolate caramel skillet brownies, and then promptly ate an excessive portion of them.

And they might have been the best they've ever turned out, so there's that.

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"Salted Caramel Skillet Brownies," from Maria Lichty of the Two Peas and Their Pod blog. [Published 29 April 2013]

Meal No. 2604: Pork Medallions in Dijon-Mushroom Cream Sauce

Tuesday's humidity (and spotty showers) put the kibosh on my outside yard labors for the bulk of the day, so I threw together an early supper: pan-seared pork medallions in a dijon cream sauce with port-sautéed baby bella mushrooms. I added to it a fancy side and a simple side: Brussels sprouts gratin and instant mashed potatoes. Food was directed to the belly and clean-up was achieved by 5:45 pm, leaving an evening to catch up on some overdue tasks.

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"Pork Medallions with Dijon Mushroom Sauce," by Frank Hollands of Moorhead, Minnesota. Bake-Off Contest 37 (1996). Published in Pillsbury Classic Cookbooks' A Taste of the BAKE-OFF Issue from March 2001, p. 40-41.

"Brussels Sprouts Gratin," by Alison Roman. From Cooking on newyorktimes.com.

Like a Good Neighbor...

Monday of this week felt like good neighbor day, or at least I hope I was being a good neighbor. The new folks next door wanted to rake the yard outside their entry, along the south property fence line, and I was glad to offer up a leaf rake and my city yard cart for disposing of it all.

After supper, I texted the good ladies down the street and then dropped off a container of our pork barbecue and a tub of the sauce to go with it. Another neighbor saw me passing and said "You got some of that for me too?" So I grabbed another to-go container to take over to him as well.

When the fill-in postal carrier found himself at the locked front door of my security company across the street with a very heavy package to deliver, I told him to hand it off to me and I dropped it off the next morning. Appropriate, isn't it, to use a security camera picture to accompany that part of my do-gooder day?

Meal No. 2603: Texas Slow-Cooked Pulled Pork Barbecue

As the ongoing coronavirus pandemic continues its dominion over daily life, North Carolina has joined other states in appearing to use politics rather than science in determining whether we ought to gradually reopen more of our daily activities. Here at the Roediger House, there is no rush to rejoin the realm of contagious contacts and excursions for provisions remain limited and carefully undertaken. On my Sunday afternoon grocery run, the fresh meat section at my Harris Teeter might have been suffering from a bit of overstocking, which is understandable with the manic buying and panicked hoarding of our populace. (I guess that's why chicken tenderloins, normally $5.99/lb, were an eye-popping $0.29/lb.) And a sad collection of Boston Butt pork shoulders were two days away from expiration and had been marked down to a more appealing $0.99/lb...meaning one of those pork packages went into my cart. Before bed Sunday night, I prepped the pork for an overnight slow cook, awoke the next morning to the marvelous smells and aromas, then shredded and sauced it mid-afternoon...and enjoyed immensely the incredibly tender and tasty morsels out in the grove Monday afternoon, along with some slaw inspired my mother's recipe.

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Pulled Pork based somewhat on "Slow Cooker Texas Pulled Pork," from cmccreight on AllRecipes.com.

Barbecue Sauce adapted from "Sweet and Tangy Barbecue Sauce" from the recipe for "Indoor Pulled Pork," by Bryan Roof. In Cook's Illustrated, January & February 2010 (No. 102), p. 6-7.

Sweet Southern Coleslaw based on recipe from Allison M. Jones.

Meal No. 2602: Not So Cajun Chicken

While I've had to leave behind rice, for the most part, when it comes to many of my regular menu items, it turns out that pasta can still work as a substitute. That's what helped last night's meal to still be a tasty undertaking: not so cajun chicken over fettuccine.

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"Not So Cajun Chicken," a dish I regularly enjoyed at Crowley's Old Time Favorites restaurant and bar on Medlin Drive in Raleigh, NC.  (Another version of the recipe can be found here.) A heap of thanks is due to Jimmy Randolph for tracking down the recipe for me.

Meal No. 2601: Penne alla Vodka with Chicken

With another full day of yard work upon me last Friday, before the storms rolled through after suppertime, I turned again to my Joule sous vide set-up in order to cook some chicken thighs I'd already prepped and had in the freezer. That took care of the protein for the pasta dish I made when I broke from the outside labors to make dinner, which was a return to penne alla vodka. It's been almost exactly four years since I last made it and it proved to be a fine supper that night.

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"Penne alla Vodka," by Rebecca Hays. In Cook's Illustrated, Number Eighty-Three (November & December 2006), p. 10.

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

The Trenches Are Trending

The slow and plodding labors on the Roediger House irrigation system are proceeding, and it seemed appropriate to offer an update. First, the fun news: while I've mostly been digging up both live and dead roots, lots of broken bricks, chunks of mortar and concrete, and tons of Piedmont red clay, I have finally and at last actually surfaced an old coin, as shown above. Not a high dollar one and given its size, I almost missed it, but that there is a 1945 Liberty dime that turned up in the front yard.

Perhaps it's the dime one might have received for a bottle deposit, because in the back yard I dug up this very-nearly-intact old Pepsi "wave" bottle. A bit of internet research and an earnest review of the coding on the bottle's bottom suggest it might just be a 1948 vintage, or thereabouts. The labeling long ago wore off but the embossed glass design (common from around 1941 through the 1950s, I think) is still distinct.

Finally, here are a couple of shots of the state of the front yard as of this week, with most of the trenches dug and also some of the various zone lines laid and awaiting sprinkler heads.

With June Come the Daylilies

When I stepped out the back door the morning of June 1st, the delightful sight of the first blooming daylilies greeted me: Strutter's Ball.

By the middle of the day, the earliest blossoms of another bunch of daylilies up at the front wall were putting on their show (see photo above), and when I was washing up that evening at the kitchen sink, I saw the ones on the backyard slope were also busting out:

This way I've got more than oppressive heat making me glad that summer is upon us.

Meal No. 2600: Juicy Burgers on the Grill

Yesterday I had to drive back over to Cary for the third and final visit to my long-time dentist, Jeff Kearney, to receive the permanent crown following the crack, abscess, and emergency root canal I endured in the last few weeks. This likely saved me from having to get in the yard in the brutal heat of June 3rd, a sudden jolt following a couple of really terrific outside days. And I was starving from the time I left Winston-Salem mid-morning so, when I got home, even though it was only about 3 pm and even though I'd just fixed burgers a few days ago...that's what I went with for a very early supper, eaten outside in that shocking heat, enjoying some light but impotent breezes in The Grove.

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

Meal No. 2599: Roasted Hoisin Pork Tenderloin

While I still managed to toil away in the yard most of the day yesterday while the sunny skies prevailed and the temps didn't get too rough, it all seemed slow, plodding, and piecemeal. I left myself time to put together a simple dinner before returning to the yard for more digging until past dark. On the plates, an adaptation of the one-pan roasted pork tenderloin with green beans, with the extra flavor boost of a hoisin glaze. I also had a couple of sweet potatoes and decided to try cubing and roasting them, and I reckon I'd best proclaim them as a roaring success.

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Adapted from "One-Pan Pork Tenderloin with Green Beans and Potatoes," by Christie Morrison. In Cook's Country, October/November 2015, p. 27.

"Roasted Sweet Potatoes," from Chelsea Lords of ChelseasMessyApron.com. [Published 04 March 2019]

Meal No. 2598: Steaming Bowl of Oatmeal

I'm deep into yard work mode and my idea for last night's supper had to be shelved since I instead made another run to Lowe's. When I got back, the easy choice was a big bowl of steaming oatmeal, complemented with the adult's prerogative to overdo the brown sugar, with the added bonus of just the right amount of ground Saigon cinnamon.

Meal No. 2597: Lamb & Mushroom Meat Loaf

Saturday night at the Roediger House, a pretty awesome dinner of lamb meat loaf with homemade mashed potatoes and roasted broccoli. It had the added benefit of making enough that there were tasty leftovers for Sunday evening supper out on the driveway, as a brief interruption to the hard labors of the yard that day.

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"Lamb and Multi-Mushroom Meat Loaf" (p. 150), in Tupelo Honey Cafe: Spirited Recipes from Asheville's New South Kitchen, by Elizabeth Sims with Chef Brian Sonoskus. Kansas City: Andrews McMeel Publishing, LLC, 2011.