Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/3.2, 1/125 sec, ISO5000 “Double Cheese” Cedar Park, 2019
こんばんは。How’s it going?
Tonight we had a wonderful fondue dinner at home. We have a family Valentine’s tradition to eat fondue, but because of Mariko’s schedule yesterday, we had to delay it for a night. But we definitely can’t miss our annual fondue dinner!
As always, we have two pots of cheese, one with wine for Mariko and I, and the other with no alcohol for the kiddos. Every year they try the “adult” fondue, and scrunch up their faces at the taste. “Horrible” was heard this time around. But eventually, I think they will prefer the wine and cheese fondue. Until that day, it’s all for Mariko and me!
The ingredients for dipping were simple this year, with a yummy chicken/spinach sausage, potato, broccoli, carrots, and homemade baguette cubes. It was a yummy dinner!
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/3.2, 1/105 sec, ISO6400 “Bread and Broccoli” Cedar Park, 2019
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/5.6, 1/90 sec, ISO6400 “Chicken DInner” Cedar Park, 2019
こんばんは。How’s it going?
Just a photo tonight of our dinner: deep fried chicken in a sweet sauce, with homemade tartar sauce, shredded cabbage, and potato salad. As you can imagine, it was very, very good! ☺
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/2.5, 1/125 sec, ISO2000 “Chili Gohan” Cedar Park, 2019
こんばんは。How’s it going?
Today was a great day because I got to make a big batch of chili. 🌶 We’ve tried a few chili recipes over the years, but the ones we like always have dried Guajillo peppers in it. These give the chili a deep red color and a wonderful flavor. Just be careful because the red color will easily stain clothes!
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/2.8, 1/125 sec, ISO2500 “Peppers” Cedar Park, 2019
Anyways, I usually buy a dozen Guajillo peppers at our local market, then boil them for about 15 minutes to rehydrate them. Next, I put them in our Cuisinart food processor with maybe half a cup of the water, then process until almost smooth. Adding this chili paste to the pot makes it “real” to me. Chili just isn’t the same without it! And I love to make chili because it means I get to pull out our largest Le Creuset pot. Yay!
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/2.8, 1/125 sec, ISO2000 “Processed Peppers” Cedar Park, 2019
With each pot of chili I make, I will adjust with different ingredients, sometimes out of necessity. For instance, this time I didn’t have the can of tomato paste I normally add, so I used some pasta sauce we had in the fridge. And I didn’t have the usual dark beer that the recipe calls for, and I didn’t want to use the IPA we had), so I just used more of the water I boiled the chiles in. I also added a bit of white vinegar and shoyu (soy sauce) to the mix, which is new.
I have to say, it turned out really good! And we have enough to last us a few days. 😄
Bay and I had the chili over steamed rice, with cheese, raw jalapeño, raw habañero (for me), sour cream, and a bit of hot sauce. And a runny egg, of course! Because we put it over rice, we call it “Chili-Gohan”, with the word Gohan being Japanese for rice or meal. Makes sense, doesn’t it?
I had tacos today for lunch since the taco trailer was outside the office. In the photo, you can see one taco al pastor on corn tortillas, and a sirloin steak taco with flour tortilla. Both with raw onion and cilantro, plus jalapeño and habañero salsa. It was muy delicioso!
Sometimes when I make a big batch of carnitas, I’ll take a poll from the family on whether they would prefer burritos or tacos for dinner. The vote usually swings 3-1 in burrito’s favor, which makes it a tiny bit more complicated because I have to find extra-large tortillas and that can sometimes be a challenge. It’s easy to find taco-sized tortillas, and 12-inch as well, but we want the larger (at least 16″) size which the supermarket might not stock.
Speaking of burritos, we love to visit Freebirds for our quick burrito fix. I usually will get a “monster” size for $9.60 which I can share with my wife, or save half for another meal. There’s one lady who works at our local Freebirds who really makes awesome burritos. She adds plenty of meat, a good amount of any other ingredients you ask for, and has great skill at mashing it all together nicely without the tortilla tearing. She treats us well! Actually, watching them compress all the burrito fillings while wrapping it in the tortilla is fascinating and something we try to emulate at home. Fun with food!
At any rate, I prefer burritos over tacos, but that’s such a tiny difference. It’s like I give a burrito 5 stars, and tacos 4.8.
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/2.8, 1/125 sec, ISO4000 “Katsu and Sashimi” Cedar Park, 2019
こんばんは。How’s it going?
A friend of ours brought back fresh hamachi (yellowtail) from Hawaii and my wife, along with several other lucky people, received some nice cuts. She prepared some sashimi for us, and also cooked some of the fish in a wonderful miso soup. It was delicious!
But that’s not all, because she also prepared tonkatsu (breaded and fried pork cutlet), served with cabbage and tonkatsu sauce. We also like to have it with karashi (hot mustard). It was pretty nice to have both karashi and wasabi (for the sashimi) out on the table. What a yummy meal!
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/2.8, 1/125 sec, ISO3200 “Katsu” Cedar Park, 2019
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/3.2, 1/20 sec, ISO800 “Salmon Dinner” Cedar Park, 2017
こんばんは。How’s it going?
It seems I have a recurring theme going on my blog: a food photo and a sketch photo. 😀
I think the salmon dinner photo is self-explanatory. Yummy of course, and healthy too. Or maybe all that butter it was cooked in isn’t the healthiest, but it was sure tasty!
And tonight’s sketch is something new in that I tried a little bit of shading. It was fun, and I think I’ll do some more. Maybe less line-work and more shading? And I need to figure out hair. 😜
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/3.2, 1/60 sec, ISO640 “2017.10.04 Sketch” Cedar Park, 2017
To see all the sketches I’ve been working on, you can check out the Flickr album “My Sketching Journey”, or my Instagram account barron.sketches which I created just for posting sketches, watercolors, and stationery items.
