My Week

Friday night we flew out of San Francisco to Dallas.  Yes, the oncologist said I was well enough to go see Marty's brother, Keith.  We landed at midnight, we got our bag quickly and headed for the shuttle to Budget for our car. The shuttle passed us by three times.  One hour and 45 minutes later we had our car.  Budget is not really a 24 hour service.  We were prepaid, yet no car was waiting for us with the keys in it. We had to wait in a long line at the Avis desk (run by idiots) and fill out all information again.  BOO HISS.

We arrived at Keith's close to 3:00 AM, had an adult beverage, and talked until close to morning,  Since then Keith has cooked gourmet breakfasts and dinners.  He is a from scratch cook, and I mean really from scratch.  He grinds his flour, his multigrain oatmeal like cereal is ground by him.  One dinner we had steaks bigger than the plate (everything is bigger in Texas) that he prepared by sous vide.  Tonight we are having ribs that he has had in the sous vide cooker for over two days.  Wonderful food.  We also have eaten at some great places. 

Saturday morning drug ourselves out of bed to meet a friend from Houston who visiting her son about 30 minutes away.  We had a great visit with them.  Love you Susan.

When we left home I was having some swelling and redness of my feet and legs.  I blamed too much sitting without my feet up and salty restaurant food.  The red became even more angry looking and the swelling was getting worse.  I emailed my oncologist and she wanted me to be evaluated by a doctor. 

Monday we went to an urgent care center.  A huge rip off and not overly clean in my opinion.  I had given all my health issues to a tech and why I was there.  The doctor walks in and the first thing out of her mouth was, "Why are you here?"  I lost it and asked why I had needed to fill out the info earlier if she wasn't going to read it.  She was useless, said she couldn't run the tests to see what was wrong, and I should go to an emergency room.  But they could take our $247.

So off to Baylor Hospital ER, with me crying, pissed off, and scared.  Baylor was right up there with Kaiser care.  They were kind and they took good care of me.  I had an ultrasound to check for clots, none there.  So that left infection.  No immune system and being a diabetic, infections are a heartbeat away.  I am on antibiotics and the legs are some better. 

Tuesday a friend drove 6 hours to have lunch with us. After all the flooding in Texas it was an awful drive for her: roads washed out, bridges gone, and bad weather.  We had a great visit.  And I helped her pick out her Mother of the Groom dress.  That was fun.  Deb is part of the A Team that I written about for years.  Love you bunches, Deb.

We've done  family things for a couple of days.  Tomorrow we going to see some gardens in Dallas.  And Saturday we fly home.

Some of you are asking where are pictures, why not nightly updates?  Well, this is the first day I have been able to get on the internet except on my phone and mini IPad.  No way I can write a blog on them, and post pictures.  Keith's security system hates Windows 8 and even when hard wired we have had trouble connecting.  Marty talked to the Geek Squad, and they gave up  He then called Microsoft, and they wanted money upfront before they would talk to him.  Their system on a new computer, and they don't give a damn.  Today I was asked if I would like to upgrade to Windows 10.  I don't think so.  When I get home I will post some pictures of our trip.

I am amazed I have done so well. I haven't rested as much as I have at home, my legs haven't been up as much either.  But I am holding up.  We are having a great visit.  Lots of laughter, adult beverages every now and then for me, and incredible meals. Today has been strictly a day of rest for me.  Feet up, and naps. 

Prayer Warrior special prayers for the flight home Saturday night.  I do not like flying. 

The A Team

I have written about the A Team before.  This is a group of people who met to cook together.  We have become very good friends.  There are 4 couples, 3 of whom live in the Oakland Hills.  One couple was transferred to New Orleans.  They have come back to join us for A Team events.  And one time we called them while we were putting a meal together.

This group loves good food and wines.  We takes turns hosting and we rotate which courses a couple will prepare.  We have varying skills in cooking, we all shop well at specialty food shops.  The main thing is to have a lovely meal, wonderful wines, and catch up on every one's life.  We are busy people and don't see each other routinely.  Setting up our play dates sometimes takes several tries.

July 2 The A Team had a garden party.  We met at 1:00 and ate, drank, laughed, and had a great time for the five hours.  Below are some pictures of our fun day.  You might think there are a lot of wine glasses everywhere, and you would be correct.

The party begins.  Left Lew, middle Nancy, right Hank.  Lew is getting ready to open the champagne.  Hank is filling little dishes with his gazpacho.  Nancy is readying her corn and scallop amuse-bouche.  At the lower right hand corner is the sous vide machine.  That will be explained later.

The picture pretty much says it all.  Ready to toast The A Team. Also you can see the gazpacho ready for Hank to serve.

We are having some more Hank and Thom appetizers:  duck pate and a truffle chicken liver pate.

Main course sous vide boneless ribs in a red wine reduction sauce.  Lew and Nancy cooked them for 72 hours.  YUMMY!  I made the rice and spinach that was seasoned with  nutmeg.  Also I prepared the stuffed tomato.  The tomato had sauteed mushrooms, garlic, shallots, tomato pulp.  Then I added in panko and freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

                                                     Marty was posting on Facebook.

Nearly finished with this course.  I have moved on to the red wine.  I am a couple of glasses behind the others.

Thom with Corky in his lap.  Corky is 15 1/2 and is allowed to run the world.  Very sweet dog.

After this course we had a wonderful chocolate cake with a caramel ice cream.  I forgot to take pictures of it.  Maybe next time.

The A Team is important to each of us.  We are a type of family.  And like all families we are a little dis functional at times.  We all have quirks, we accept that.  We love each other.  And with that love we miss our other couple.  Karl and Deb you need to make them transfer you back to us.

SOUS VIDE: PORK CHOPS

Thursday we decided to cook pork chops with the sous vide contraption. For a refresher course on our first attempt click here. Marty was not going to be home that afternoon and I had to do some of the prep. The directions told us to brine the chops, which Marty did and then he left. I had to hook up the machine and preheat the water later that afternoon. Sounds easy doesn't it? Well I don't do machinery. So I was worried. Below are pictures of the steps and a little bit of explanation. Remember click on the picture to make them bigger.

The inside of our frig with the pork chops in the brine. Yes, that is Two Buck Chuck in the back.

As you can see, I did get it hooked up and no fire or breakers thrown. Cords in, cords out, cords in the water. Below I have pictures of the directions.

This is the first page of directions on setting up the machine and how to use it. The directions continue on for several pages. I was worried about setting temperatures and time. Press set twice, punch up or down the to set the temperature, press set again. Oh, and it has to be done within a certain time frame. Got it right the first time.

This is the back of the machine showing where the crock pot cord, sensor and the electrical cord to the wall plug in. This was simpler than I thought it would be. Each cord had a different size or different prong thingy. So you can't plug into the wrong place.

This is where the trouble began. Another page said to refer to this chart for time and temperature to cook. Since it was pork we wanted it to be at least medium. One recipe said 12 hours, another 4 hours, another 1 hour, and this chart is just dumb. We used the first line across. Remember we cook by height. The low temperature, meaning rare is much longer than the other temperatures. This told me to cook the meat 21 minutes. For the rare, it was over an hour. Confused? I was too.

Marty came home and vacuumed sealed the chops. Then we tried to decide how long to cook them. We decided about an hour, since we had cooked the steaks 48 minutes. Pork takes longer. And we could always finish them in a skillet if not done.

The Blow Torch King is browning the chops.

Here he is turning them over to brown the other side. Look at the one he has in the tongs. You can see how grey the meat is. Sort of like the color when you cook in a microwave.

And the finished product with peas and mushrooms, and buttered potatoes with garlic chives.

We were not happy with the chops. They were tender and tasted good, but they were over done. If I had cooked them this done in a skillet they wouldn't have been as tender. So that was one good thing. The machine did not hold the water within 3 degrees as advertised. At one point the water was 5 degrees too hot.

All the web sites say chicken cooked sous vide is incredible. Next week we will try chicken. Stay tuned.

SOUS VIDE

Marty's brother sent us an incredible belated Christmas gift. It is a machine to convert a rice cooker or crock pot to a sous vide machine. We finally tried it tonight.

Sous Vide takes way longer than regular cooking. It is supposed to make foods more tender and to enhance flavors.

A steak 7 minutes on the grill. Against 48 minutes by sous vide. Brisket, 12 hours on the grill, 36 sous vide.






The magic machine.














Tonight Marty is seasoning the steaks. They will take 48 minutes, based on their height. Right height, not weight.



















The water in the crock pot has reached the magic number. It is a little high for medium rare, but will drop when the steaks are dropped in.













And the second steak is dropped in.


















When sous vided, the steaks do not get that crispy browned look. So Marty got out his blow torch and browned them.








As a glass blower he does love flames.



















He loves that blow torch.















Here Marty is plating. By the way, I cooked the potatoes and asparagus. He did the steaks and mushroom wine sauce.












And the final product. The steaks were really tender and tasty. As to whether they are any better than grilling, we aren't sure. Sous Vide takes much longer, 7 minutes against 48, is that better? We plan to try chicken and pork chops next. We will continue researching this process for our readers.

That would be a Chimney Rock Cabernet we were drinking.

Stay tuned for pork chops and chicken breasts.