A little pasta fazoooool

I've been out if the hospital since last Tuesday. Food is limited to my mobility and the help of the wonderful Pesqueira family. I haven't bothered to take pics until today, but not because the food isn't worth it. It's been awesome, I just haven't really felt like photographing. 

My appetite is still small, due to just sitting around and not eating much in the hospital. It's not a bad thing. I've rediscovered hot oatmeal with walnuts and raisins and peanut butter. And dinner wise, I've been eating like a king, not portion wise, but taste wise. My first real meal after getting back was home made calzone with ricotta cheese and sauce on the side that I can still taste. I also had delicious life affirming beef stew, and a wonderful butternut squash stuffed with peas and tomatoes and ground turkey. It sounded weird (which i like) but it was reaaaallllly tasty. Also a delicious pot roast with mashed potatoes and green beans. Straightforward delicious healing stuff for my bum leg.

Here's a pic of my knee, there's even more sutures unseen:

To my untrained eye, those look like a combo of simple interrupted sutures and vertical mattress sutures....I have a lot of time on my hands.....

Today I had pasta fazool, aka pasta fagioli. What a silly name, goofy bastard Italians.

There's some sriracha on top. Great stuff.

I'm just waiting and wishing and hoping. Mourning the loss of my fave jeans and underwear.

 

And finally, I have to deal with side effects   of all the painkillers I was on and still take occasionally for the pain. So, if a catheter wasn't indignity enough, I also have to take these:

What can ya do?

Hospital food

The food here is overall not good. Also, I had surgery, and the anasthesia really messed with my appetite. I'm eating now, though. But less. 

My aunt sent me a Harry and David basket. I've never heard of them. Their pepper ad onion relish is saving food for me now. 

Here it is on a roast beef on rye sandwich 

My sister came and visited and brought bagels. Which were awesome. But I couldn't even finish 1. But what I ate was delicious. I'm stealing her picture from Instagram cause I didn't take one.

No god damn oat flakes on that bagel, like it should be. Various seeds, onion, garlic and salt. Get the eff off of everything bagels you pos oat flakes. 

I'm off to rehab tomorrow for two weeks. Maybe less. That'll be 3 weeks out of the house. I'd like to shower again. I also hope I'm approved because I got empire blue through the ACA an they're making a goddamn mess out of everything. We'll see. 

Oh, and I got my catheter out! It's a complicated process; they just yank that bad boy out!

I don't know if the food at rehab is gonna be good or bad. I'll find out soon!

Shattered

So, I'm in the hospital again. 

Awesome. 

It's day 3. No smoothies. No sardines. Food isn't bad, but it ain't great. How about hit or miss. Breakfast stinks, always. The highlight is a banana. Here's a sample menu:

It says Cheerios, but it's the knockoff version.

I've had turkey with stuffing and sweet potatoes - very good

Chicken parmigiana with green beans- very good

Pulled pork with cauliflower and carrots-gross.

My friend Monica also brought snacks. Here's a pic of sunflower "nuts":

She also brought some balloons. They give me reason:

Damn you, leg

Next time, food pics. And a detailed explanation of the Foley catheter!

Mushroom mania

I've been doin smoothies, salads, sardines for lunch. I bought 2 pounds of mushrooms to make mushroom millet soup, inspired by feudfood.blogspot.com

I was too lazy...to make soup. Lol. 

Instead, I made socca. I love the stuff for various reasons. Most because of flavor, but also because I make it differently every time, it's just time an temp that is around the same.

 If you couldn't tell from reading this blog, I'm not a recipe nut that goes by the book everyone I make a dish.

So, besides the ton of mushrooms, another twist was that the supermarket did not have plain garbanzo flour from bobs red mill. There are 5 pound bags of the stuff in the ethnic aisle with Indian food, but I don't want that much. What the market did have was bobs red mill garbanzo and fava bean flour. I figured I'd try it out.

Uncooked socca. With sautéed mushrooms added.

I wasn't kidding about the mushrooms. Also lots of parsley and onion powder and salt and pepper. So they go in the oven and viola!

Those sons of guns were delicious. 

While at work, I also insist on drinking only the finest coffee. Because the stuff here is dreck. I have a handy dandy French press cup and coffee roasted in bucks county pa.:

I like my coffee strong, black, and bitter.......like Barry Bonds......

Also, I love roasted beets in salad, dammit!

Mmm mmmm mmmmmm mmm mmm

As the sun goes down, the creatures of the night call to me. Oh what beautiful music they make!

The call to me. 

I cannot resist. So I eat them.

Ok, we get it with the Dracula stuff you dope. 

I guess some people would find that picture gross or stomach turning. I don't. I've converted. The king Oscar bristling sardines are effing delicious. Just give me a fork. There's lots of different sardine types, and bristling are small and tender and only found off the waters of Norway. 

Every spring, peas grow there.

I change it up with boneless skinless sardines which are usually from morocco and considerably plumper. If what I read is to be believed, they're better than tuna too, because they don't have mercury in them because they're low on the fish food chain...or something. I dunno, leave me alone!

What else can I tell ya?

Wings 'N Things!! (YUCK)

I've been behind on posting. For that, I blame myself. And the polar vortex. I'm using the blogger app on my phone, so lets see how this goes.

No work pics, this is meat only based. Specifically chicken wings. Faithful readers will remember I was planning on making wings the Sunday after Christmas. I ended up in the hospital instead. But I'm better, and I'm here to say I have back pain, back pain doesn't have me!!!! Yeah!!!!.........Ouch I think I hurt myself typing! But seriously, ladies and germs.

I make really good wings. My first experience with home cooked wings, baked in the oven, no less, was New Year's Eve, 2011. They were delicious and really the inspiration for me to try to make my own. They weren't rubbery and gooey and gross like most places wings are. They were crispy outside and meltingly tender inside. And getting that result is super easy. You gotta bake em for 40 minutes at 400 degrees, then take them out, baste them in hot sauce, and put them back in at 450 for 20 minutes. The time and temp vary from oven to oven, but it's hard to mess up, because longer and hotter is better.

Cooks county, the tv show and magazine recommends tossing the wings in corn starch before cooking to get them extra crispy. I have not tried this method yet, however, I find these to be perfectly crispy. But, I will try it one of these times.

The sauce I use is simple. I don't measure,  really. It's frank's red hot and butter. A lot. With a few dashes of Worcester sauce. 

Another good combo, for a sweeter less spicy flavor, is half dinosaur BBQ BBQ sauce and half franks sweet chili sauce. I really like this combo on the wings. 

Have I written enough? How about some pics? Ok:

Those are wings...in a bowl...with celery. 

A hungry man waits, and is thankful:

It's time to eat:

It turned into a massacre:

Those are what remains when you cook meaty wings the right way. Not a gross chew to be found.

And here is where men are separated from boys. My friend had to summon the little warriors to ask...when does enough become too much?????

The temptation of a bowl of wings, while already having sated his beastly urges:

Eat me, warrior!

What do I do, little warriors?!?!?!? One...more....wing......ooooneee....mooooreee....wiiiiing.....no....no......HELL NO!!!!!!!!

Whew, I'm exhausted. What a roller coaster of emotions. 

And delicious food.

Next time, healthier fare.

The Return to Blogging (Hit it, Enigma!)

I haven't updated my blog because I hadn't been cooking because I ended up in the hospital the Sunday after Christmas. I was buying foodstuffs at lovely Wegman's in beautiful Downingtown, Pennsylvania, when, after placing the miller high life and dinosaur bbq sauce and celery I had purchased in the front seat, attempting motor vehicle safety, I reached for my seat belt, and felt immediate blinding pain in my back and right leg. And that was that.

I got to ride in an ambulance, and got to meet 2 terrific volunteer firefighters, both around my size, who empathized with the pain I was in...and that I wasn't going to be able to enjoy the wings I had been planning to make and eat during the Eagles/Cowboys game later that night.They made an awful situation somewhat less awful. Also, the two shots of Dilaudid helped.

After discharge, I ate a delicious Wawa hoagie.

So, I was in bed for a week. I missed New Years Eve. I missed farmer's markets. I missed out on cooking. Then I got called to return to work at the IRS.

That means a drastic change in my eating habits. I'm not gonna cook as much. But I will cook. I also am not gonna eat as much because, and I'm translating here what the doctors told me, "I'm too fucking fat".

At least I'm down some pounds from my Walter Hudson phase:

I'm still paying the county for the wall removal, backhoe and wench.

So, I'm working in an office where there's no place to walk around for food. This means I'm making all the food I'm eating there. Which I take as a challenge.  But all that will come out over time. Let's get to the damn food already.

Smoothie. The usual. This time with Mike Francesa on in the background. And remotes. (Also, take note, I'm trying to follow my sister's advice. Any mistakes are mine)

I also got cherries to put in:

 So I'm taking salads to work. And sandwiches. There's gonna be lots of salad pics. With homemade honey mustard vinaigrette.

Um, Watercress and spring mix? And radishes.

Spring mix, collard greens, spinach.....and radishes.

I'm just being obnoxious, hahahaha. I like the first picture, though.

So, I ate one of two different sandwiches each day.

Sardine, avocado, onion, mustard and sriracha

 
Second pic is awful. But I like that first one. It grew on me.

Egg salad and beets

Yum!

I ate various healthy things for dinner throughout the week. Not too many pics. Some food prepared by me, some by the amazing Pesqueira's.

I only have a couple pics. Marsala mushrooms, sweet potatoes, and collard greens in random states.

I also made some more baked beans to have with all of the above in various combos.

I have even more pics, but this update is long enough. More and better food and pics for next time.

Holla.

Titled a lot of pictures of Christmas food:

A couple days before Christmas, I ate the following:

In the interest of taking better pictures, I tried to get closer. Still nothing terrific. But I don't care. That's spaghetti with olive oil, garlic, asparagus, and tomatoes. And more farmers market baby kale salad.

Next?:

That's meatloaf with some farmer's market sausage mixed in, steamed kale, baked beans from my previous post, and roasted japanese parsnips and golden beets. Also, a perfect ketchup mound. Everything was great, the beets were awesome.

Which brings us to Christmas. I didn't get pictures of everything, because by the end I just wanted to eat.

First the pecan pies I made the 23rd:

Those are made from a recipe from a friend, with an additional 2 tablespoons of this:

Uhhhh...they were awesome.

I also made an apple pie, with bourbon. Don't have a great picture. It's there in the left corner:

Then on Christmas Eve morning I made the chicken liver pate:

So that (livers, onions, garlic clove, 2 bay leaves, marsala wine, butter) got all food processed with more butter, and served with crumbled egg yolks and minced onions. Along with olives and cheeses. It was the beginning of the Christmas Eve food bonanza.

And then the time came to start eating. It was at this point my sister attempted to teach me how to take good food photos with my phone. Let's see how that turned out, shall we?

That's a good picture of the spread. Lot's of brown and yellow, San Diego padre-esque, even. Everyone thought the liver was to die for!!!!! Or something. It was damn good.

From there we moved on to baked stuffed cherry stone clams, prepared by my father.  Me and him devoured them.

 More good pics from my sister:

She's gonna ruin this blog's reputation.

Next for the Christmas Eve feast? Little neck clams. But before the pics, let's go to a video of Richard Jewel shucking clams for the Wakal family:

He's really in terrific shape! And what a great 'stache! Good job, buddy! I never believed them when they said you set off that bomb at the Atlanta Olympics!

So, how did they turn out?

Hot stuff.

But wait, there's more. Kielbasa. Obviously, I took the picture.

And then after everyone went to sleep, visions of sugar plums dancing, and Christmas Eve turned into Christmas Day, we awoke. To more food.

But first, some prep to get through the day.

Now, ready for the day, and the food.

Oysters? Yep.

 
Caesar salad? Sure.

And then, Prime Rib.

So, there was a plate of prime rib and horse radish sauce, and lobster tails. and garlic mashed potatoes, and kale and chard. But I didn't take a picture.

Enough already!

There was a lovely Christmas sunset:

Merry Christmas!