Kaimusailing

The cold spell, arctic outburst, polar vortex, whatever, left me with pork chops and other ingredients for another batch of bean soup. After surviving potential ice skating on the swimming ladder and interminable snow melt dripping on me in my moldy freezing bunk, it was time to cautiously figure out how to make the soup.
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I poached the two bone-in pork chops with a half pound each of northern beans and brown rice. I started with a pint of water and my usual poaching method. Bring to a boil, turn off the heat for 10 minutes, repeat until the beans are getting soft, figure about 2 ½ hours. The chops need to cook as well, until they are falling off the bone. This cooking procedure might sound tedious, but I spend my time with videos on YouTube, such as Italia Squisita, a cooking channel of course. No spices, salt, or pepper were added to my chops and beans.
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My previous bean soup used a discarded hambean cajun spice packet. This time I wanted my mole spice mix, chili powder, cumin, cocoa, p-nut butter, and fruit preserves. I have used orange marmalade and apricot preserves. This time I used the apricot. This recipe makes a couple quarts of soup, the spice amounts are about a tablespoon each. Some recipes use like a teaspoon of this and a teaspoon of that. This is more full bodied.
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It’s more like chili than soup. I put away 5 portions in the fridge although I’ve had a dinner and breakfast out of the batch. It’s better the next day and maybe more time makes that bold sauce mellow out.
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I had nothing else to eat and ended up with a ham sandwich with mayo. I had to go to Walmart for a bicycle tire and, oh by the way, more wine. They do not carry 700C bicycle tubes any more. I bought a patch kit. It’s almost too cold to ride the bike anyway.
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The bike patch lasted for one ten minute ride. It was too cold anyway. The next morning the tire was flat. I had ordered more inner tubes from Performance Cycle and when they arrive it will be mild enough to ride.
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In fact, the temps rose to 74 and the next day I celebrated by getting ingredients for a risotto, langustine tails, asparagus, and mushrooms. First I melted half a stick of Irish butter in a pot with a cup of instant brown rice. A cup of clam juice was added a bit at a time, keeping the rice bubbling. The langustine tails are from Chile, precooked and frozen. I let them swim in a pot of water to thaw and remove any excess salt. The asparagus was snapped in half to remove the woody end of the spear, then snapped into little risotto sized pieces.
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The cooking time of the instant rice is 10 minutes. The asparagus needs about that much time and the mushrooms a bit less. The langustinos just need to be warmed up. I added the asparagus to the rice and kept hydrating the rice a little at a time. The mushrooms had their stems removed and then thick sliced. In they went. After the ten minutes had passed the rice was tested, tasted, and the langustinos were added. The mixture was dusted with parsley flakes and spiced with a little garlic salt and onion powder. The total price for this gourmet meal was about $20.
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The warming got us up to 80 degrees. Nice enough to go for a bike ride, but the inner tubes were late, but they came all the way from California. I wondered about the mail service and other government services, what will happen with the president’s edict to slash funding. There will be a lot of complaining, others have more to complain about than I. The elections in 2 years will be interesting.
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My interest in langostinos brought me to a “viral” recipe from Trader Joe’s, out on the West Coast. It is a simple pasta dish with their lobster bisque as the sauce, some sauteed onions, fresh pasta, and langostino tails. On the back of my langostino tail package is a recipe for bisque, then I guess you just add pasta, and I guarantee it will be better than the viral recipe.
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I’ve had my eye out for wood storks, they nest and fledge out the new storks around this time of year. Yesterday I saw a white bird about a mile away in the marsh over near the St. Marys boat ramps, a stork nesting area. I am sure it is a wood stork. I got a glimpse of one flying overhead, distinct, long neck and legs, white with dark bill.
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Cap’n Webb Chiles was planning a voyage to Culebra from Hilton Head and I had a link to his sailboat’s tracking device. I wanted to see if he had turned it on and it showed a position off in the Atlantic, he was underway already. The weather has been so cold and blustery, but there he is, 83 years of age, on a 24 foot buoy racer, heading to the Caribbean. “Sail East until the butter melts, then sail South”.
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The bicycle tubes were delayed by the post office until after the weekend. I went to the local Publix market, somewhat upscale from the old Winn-Dixie, but pricier. I used the langostino bisque recipe as my shopping list along with more Black Box Pinot Noir, here at the same price as cheapo Walmart. The langostino tails were 50% more, but a different brand, maybe better quality. They had Simply Organic Smoked Paprika which had been suggested to me to try. I saw pappardelle pasta that looked good and got some. Cento tomato paste in a tube. A bottle of dry sherry, only one brand available. I put the langostino tails in my little fridge freezer along with a pinto of half and half, not in the freezer, just in the little fridge.
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My old buddy Tom from satellite TV days came into town and we had lunch at the Southern River Walk, one of my favorite restaurants and one of my favorite meals, chicken parm. Of course now I am critical of how they make it, they do a good job compared to most other pseudo Italian places in this neck of the woods, but they do not process the chicken cutlets. It’s just thick chicken breast pieces on a butter garlic hoagie roll, toasted, sauced properly and with the cheeses, guess I just better eat and enjoy it. Tom got the same. We both worked in Connecticut and ate the chicken parms up there.
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I wanted to show him Amelia Island and Fernandina Beach, so we went down that way. We stopped for ice cream at DeNucci’s, hope I spelled that right, he complained that they served too big of scoops. We drove along the beach and stopped at the city marina to check out the boats.
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He went out to take sunset photos and I returned to the boatyard and took a photo of a stranded sailboat and the almost setting sun. That is the image for this post.