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You read that correctly, my Night Blooming Cereus blossomed tonight and my neighbours even came to watch it. It started swell in the early evening and by 8 the petals started to flare out and it was fully open by 11:30. When I get up tomorrow it will be hanging like a limp rag. The blossom is probably 8 inches in diameter.

Last night my wife wanted pork tenderloin. I decided to butterfly it and spread cream cheese on the inside followed by some powdered ranch dressing, thyme, basil, salt, purple crack and roasted garlic (I saw this on a website somewhere and thought it sounded good. On the Guru maybe). I rolled it up then laid out bacon strips on the butchers twine and tied it up. I put some butter pecan rub on the outside then into the KK at 350 degrees with a chunk of pecan and hickory. I pulled it at 145 degrees. It turned out amazing!!

Very nice. Mrs skreef brought a kitchen aide mixer to the marriage. My cheapie stand mixer went immediately to the shed. I married her for her mixer - LOL - j/k

What's black pepper? I use to have that in the cabinet, I just can't remember.

Wanted to something differently today so decided to make mac and cheese in the rice cooker. Turned out nice and tasty. Only had white cheese on hand so that is what I used, 2 different cheddars. For the ribs I just needed to sauce them and warm them up. Added some crispy onions and set the dish under the broiler for a couple of minutes. The sauce was one of those leftover sauces that I made but didn't label.

Purple Crack to the rescue!!!

Welcome home got the veggie spiral attachment and the meat grinder as a bonus . Was looking at the 50's style smeg but opted for this .made my pizza Dough with it last night so happy Outback kamado Bar and Grill

Anyone interested Outback kamado Bar and Grill

ck, thtat was a good one.

It was pretty limp this morning at breakfast.

I've been aware most of my life of the idea that the best "ground" meat is hand chopped, and I classified this as a bit over the top. While I'm no stranger to "over the top" (we grind our own flour, well worth it), I'd been blocking out this idea out of some misguided sense of self preservation. Nevertheless, I do have some amazing (Shapton Glass) sharpening stones for my knives. On Sunday, I bought a 3 1/2 rolled beef roast from one of my favorite butchers. A non-standard name, but the end they cut me was from near where rib eye steaks come from. I cleaned it up completely, removing all fat that wasn't marbling, saving 2 1/2 lbs of "steaks". These I cooked sous vide, then finished over coffee charcoal from Dennis, then sliced against the grain keeping the four distinct cuts in separate piles. It was a contender for the best steak of my life. Aside from the discarded fat and tissue, I salvaged bits of meat to make one hand chopped burger. It too was amazing. Remember that one simply needs a burger to hold together as it cooks; the juices congeal, so this takes less than one would think. In comparison, any grinder (even working with partially frozen chunks and a prechilled grinder) makes a massacre of the meat. Hand chopping has a lightness impossible to realize with any grinder. My protocol, moving forward, will be to plan for burgers and steaks, from one purchase of a hunk of beef. We were at a ranch party near Mariposa, CA two weeks ago where they served rib eye steaks to 80 people. How much reinforcement does it take for the idea to stick that ribeye steak is two cuts, and one is actually spectacularly better than the other? This was a big enough pile of meat served for anyone who wanted to get this idea straight. The dream scenario would be to rob this cut for steak night, and hand cut the rest into great burgers.

wow very nice picture

Wow nice picture! It’s a shame the blossom doesn’t last longer

I was thinking @bosco's apple roses would have been appropriate for a flower blooming party.

And it had nothing to do with red wine So Mrs skreef and myself got home a little earlier tonight at 6 pm. Figured we could go a little more gourmet compared to last night. Purple Shrimp Scampi featuring white wine, lemon mrytle, purple crack berries, lemon, butter, mushrooms, tomatoes and reasonably decent shrimp. Served on fresh angle hair pasta with a white wine/Romano sauce. Although the Pull Apart Pizza was good it doesn't hold a candle to this meal.

Year purple Crack has been a game changer as far as pepper goes looks great Outback kamado Bar and Grill

Nice Outback kamado Bar and Grill

A really great picture. Did you cook any appetizers for the neighbors while watching this event?

Amazing!

Those ribs look really good. That mac & cheese looks like it goes well with the ribs, looks like a yummy dinner give me. Great pictures

That looks like a fine meal.

Thanks. Unfortunately I have to work tomorrow. Going in right after delivery. I will take plenty of pics and post tomorrow night

looks real good yum yum

Yum I love Hawaiian pizza

Looks good to me.

Aussie, that must have tasted mighty good.

Had my best mate and his missus over for one of the preliminary finals for the AFL .http://www.afl.com.au/video/featured-programs/match-highlights.margaret wanted ribs so I got two racks trimmed them up and gave them some purple Crack and some Himalayan pink rock salt I then sprinkled on some twisted Qon they go good to go Outback kamado Bar and Grill

Over on the guru there is a copycat challenge in which you are supposed to pick a cook and copy it. There were a few things I have been wanting to try, but DerHusker's paella has been something I have wanted to try for a while. My mom wanted to make paella last Christmas- but she isn't quite as into cooking as I am so she wanted to take lots of shortcuts- which made me so interested in what I could do taking DerHusker's recipe and only slightly altering it. I did have to make a few changes due to ingredient limitations. So I gathered my veggies and most other non protein ingredients. the rice is calsparra rice, by the way. Which is considered authentic in addition to Bomba rice. Then I began chopping i didn't dice my tomatoes and I used plum tomatoes because I remembered a technique from a Catalonian stew. You take the plum tomatoes, and use a box grater to remove the pulp from the skins, then that is cooked down with the onions for a while and thought that would apply nicely here. Then I got to working on my saffron broth. This was taken word for word from DerHusker. Crushed up saffron in a glass measuring cup then boiled with some white wine then I got to working on the proteins. First, some shrimp including some insanely HUGE shrimp. I couldn't get any prawns, so I thought these would sub nicely. I included a picture with my finger in for scale because they were definitely the largest shrimp I have ever seen i pulled off the shells, threw in a hunk of butter, seasoned and let them cook a bitadded water to cover and now let it cook for a while to make a shrimp stock after a while, I strained out the shellsThen I started prepping some of the other ingredients and started heating the paella pan I did the rest of the cooking from here on on my KK. I seasoned some bone in chicken thighs with smoked paprika, garlic powder, and salt and pepper and then put some color on them with some EVOO after they had cooked a while, I added in some of the linguisa to cook as well then I removed the chicken and linguist and Began to cook the onions and red peppers. then after a few minutes I added the tomato pulpafter that cooked down I added the rice in the shape of a cross then added my shrimp and saffron broths and stirred together then I added the linguisa and submerged the thighs shut the lid for about 15 minutes and got the shellfish ready. Pulled out the clams and mussles. Went back out to my KK and this is now what it looked like- most of all that flavorful liquid was absorbed then I added some peas and the clams. on go the mussels I closed the dome for a few minutes before adding some more ingredients the monster shrimp, regular shrimp and calamari after that cooked a while I added the lemons the clams and mussels were taking forever to cook so I ended up putting them directly on the grate and they opened within a minute so it kinda ruined the picture but by this time my mouth was watering uncontrollably but did I get the socarrat? YES!!! And it was delicious too my great surprise, even with all the expensive ingredients the most amazing part was the rice. This was an absolutely fabulous meal. So glad I tried it!

Looks great. Here's a plug for Mastering the Art of Japanese Home Cooking by Masaharu Morimoto. For the most part easy authentic, with noted improvisations one can use as models. His teriyaki sauce is good bang-for-buck to make fresh. One could swap in a more interesting sugar, or add homemade Sicilian tomato paste, or a bit of good fish sauce, to vary the flavor. For chicken teriyaki, he fries the chicken bits golden, adds bits of sauce along with a bit of cornstarch/water slurry, in a few stages. I'm finding this sort of thing a very quick dinner, working alone away at my Manhattan apartment.