Sous vide success succeeds sous vide failure

Yes, Lord. Nothing wrong with that dinner.

You and y’mama ‘n ‘em may recall that, back before The Move, I was dipping my toe into the world of sous vide. I did a couple of dinners that way this week, mostly because it’s relatively easy to set the stage (season and vacuum seal the meat, get out the cooler and circulator) the night before, and then fill the thing with hot water, add the packet from the fridge, plunk in the circulator and let ‘er rip before you leave for work in the morning. Come home, finish things off, and Boom, dinner.

Recipes (and photos) redux

If any of you followed my week of foodblogging over on the eGullet site, you will have seen all these pics, but I figured I’d at least repost a few of the week’s photos here, and add some recipes of some of the better dishes. Besides, it’s a cheap post for tonight, as I didn’t cook (still noshing on leftovers, and I had an evening meeting, to boot).

Paying homage to my German heritage, plus I was jonesing for some red cabbage.

Here we have Sunday night’s dinner — country style ribs braised in apple juice with cranberries and caraway; German potato salad; red cabbage.

I love this kind of food when it gets cold. I don’t see how the Germans can eat it when it’s hot, but maybe it doesn’t get as hot there as it does here. In any event, this is some seriously good cold-weather food, and I’m rather proud that the recipe for the pork just kind of evolved in my tiny little brain and was just damn fine.

Sunday. Lake. Ribs.

Well, so far this morning I’ve made banana bread (which is so moist it cooked up more like banana custard, but that’s OK), and biscuits to house the leftover ham as well as four patties of country sausage; what we didn’t snarf down for breakfast is now nicely wrapped and in the freezer for breakfasts later this week. Need to do some baked beans and coleslaw, and get the potatos ready to roast. I also have cantaloupe, almost too far gone, cut up and in the fridge. I have strawberries that need to be capped and put in sugar. I have watermelon we can slice. I’ve got tomatos. DTHN is going to cook ribs. I’m about to make myself a big insulated mug of fruit tea, and head down to the lake.  Check back in later.