Category: Food/Drink

Food/Drink

Premake Series Potato Gratin

Next in the premake series is potato gratin. This was alot more effort than I initially thought but I think it was worth it. I setup a workstation and to process everything and did some trials with different potatoes and different diameters. I tested different options and designs, I think the curled rose design was the nicest but it didn’t taste that well as the top would crisp up but the bottom was never that appealing. The best one was the gratin topped with caramelized onions and I will definitely making those again. I baked all of the samples in ramekins and then stored in the chest freezer. I found this to be a great option and I have used it many times when I don’t have time to make a side for dinner. I would throw this into the oven while I prepare the protein and the potatoes can hold well in the oven. Highly recommend. Also gives a fair bit of easy “class” to a meal.

Winter Grow Tent

For this winter I setup a automated grow tent to finish off my peppers and keeping my ficus/rosemary healthy. System was fully automated including watering and I went with a radiant heater to manage temperature (I find this much safer than trying to use a space heater). This let me harvest peppers deep into winter when there was snow on the ground. I think this system is great for extending the growing season.

Premake Series Pumpkin Soup

Next in the premake series is pumpkin soup. Similar to last time I made a large batch of pumpkin soup but this time I bought takeout containers and packed everything into them. They handled the freezer fairly well but microwaving didn’t heat evenly. Fortunately this is soup so a simple shake was able to mix it all through. Overall worked well but I feel like the french onion soup was something more worth to premake.

Espresso Martini

I recently got an espresso machine so now I have been hooked on making espresso martini’s at home. I am tuning the espresso for more crema (decreasing grind size and packing a bit harder). I also substitute simple syrup for chocolate liquor which pairs quite well with coffee.

Reverse Osmosis Monitoring System

I finally setup a monitoring system for my reverse osmosis system. I have 1 pressure sensor to track mainline water pressure, 2 flow meters to track usage and efficiency and 2 TDSsensor to track concentration. This was a pretty fun project and it was the first time I was working with a pulse based water flow meter, I had to calibrate it to match the measurements I was getting in reality. I even got a good video with the oscilloscope of the pulses while the system was running. Using this to set PMs so I am back flushing and replacing filters when efficiency starts to drop.

Premake Series French Onion Soup

I am “starting a new series” where I am testing new recipes that I can premake, freeze and then enjoy at a later date. The first candidate for this is french onion soup which takes a lot of time and effort to make but making 1 serving or 10 servings takes the same time. I premade about 4L of soup with homemade stock and then froze it in ramekins. Then when I am craving it I pull it out of the freezer and bake with a bit of gruyere. It maintains taste fairly well and I highly recommend.

Distillery Tour

I was on a tour of one of the oldest distilleries in Poland. It was an interesting setup where they had a plate distillation column for their high volume high proof production and a copper pot still for niche product distilling. It was cool to see the “back room” where they had their SCADA system and showed me some of their operation process when they load form a new fermentation tank. We talked about their CIP processes and product changeovers, it was great to talk with the actual technical team and definitely a lot of passion for their process. They mentioned that they have a dedicated flow meter that tracks how much product is produced and all of it has to be accounted for with the government and “every drop is tracked”.

Vineyard Tour & Equipment

I had a great opportunity to tour a small vineyard and was able to get technical with the owner. Most the equipment was all on triclamps so it was nice to see standardization across the world. It was also the first time I was able to see a tracking sheet used to monitor fermentation progress. It was cool to see how they track specific gravity and seeing it drop as fermentation progresses. Additionally you can see all of the additions done during fermentation and the chemical analysis when fermentation finished.

Wild Rosemary Bush in Bloom

I was on vacation in France and on a hike I was able to find a gorgeous rosemary bush just past bloom. It was over a meter in diameter and the “trunk” was over an inch thick. I put my head into the bush and it smelled amazing. Also rosemary flowers would make a cool garnish for a gin & tonic, they have a nice sweet scent but still carry the rosemary aroma.

Fondant Potatoes

These potatoes have a luxurious perception but are relatively easy to make and more importantly easy to make ahead and freeze quite well. I was a bit economical in my trimming but I still have enough surface area to brown the potatoes and I used a homemade broth to finish them off. Texture was velvety with nice crisp edges and have a phenomenal concentrated taste.