I was worried that without MSG, soy sauce and garlic that it was going to be a little bland but it turns out that enough curry powder fixed everything.

I grew up cooking. But what really stepped up my game was getting a cheap “three ingredient cookbook” and learning how very basic things can become amazing when combined. Now this cookbook had like “Italian sausage, pasta. Pasta sauce” as a recipe for spaghetti with meat sauce. Then I started making the things you make things from. Make the sausage from ground pork and seasonings. Make the pasta from semolina and water. Make the sauce from tinned tomatoes and other things.

All the things you cook with are eventually reduced down to some basic ingredients. I ended up making the things I made things from.

Now this does become a problem. 30 minute meals take two hours. When you are hungry you don’t have any food, just the things you make food from. But that’s a problem for another day.

Today’s meal was those Philly cheese steak tacos. If I had had money I could have gone and bought flour tortillas. But I had the stuff to make my own tortillas already on hand. And that is when you start developing textures and flavors you just can’t buy. That’s when you are cooking instead of wetting your drys and pouring things out of jars and bags. That’s when you really start to learn how to cook.

I mentioned it the other day, the first thing I ever made from scratch was a PB&J. Three ingredients. Each of those ingredients has about four ingredients. And except for the bread two of the second generation ingredients are shelf stable. Which means making things in advance that future you can enjoy with almost no work.

I have some commercial Italian seasoned chicken bits. I’ve got a stack of corn tortillas. I’m thinking of making some very unconventional chicken taquitos. Maybe a bruschetta to top it with.

Didn’t feel like making bread so lady night I prepped some tortilla dough for use today. Even though I have like a pound and a half of dough sitting in the fridge.

I prefer provolone. But I certainly wasn’t going to waste $2 plus $3 in gas on buying any.

I typically coon on 18/8 stainless fir typical pots and pans stuff. 50+ years old. Literally the stuff I grew up learning to cook on. I had to replace a few handles but otherwise the stuff looks brand new, despite countless decades of stuff getting burned in them when stuff did stick.

When something needs high sustained heat I have cast iron. Cast iron when properly seasoned is non stick but it’s heavy and you can’t quickly adjust the heat level. So not great for delicates like eggs.

I have a dedicated ceramic coated aluminum pan for eggs. Nothing but eggs. No metal utensils. No dishwasher. Just eggs. It gives instant feedback on temp changes, absolutely zero fat is needed to prevent eggs from sticking (but use it anyway for flavor). It’s light weight for quick flips and folds on omelets.

And I have a carbon steel wok that I also scramble eggs in when doing fried rice. Lots of oil needed because they do want to stick no matter how fast you move because of the high heat.

What’s going on in that sauce? Is it just the steamed drippings or was it given extra flavor?

I typically use olive oil only for crusty bread. Even the extra mild OO can deliver some flavor to the bread and it can over power highly processed ingredients like air bread and singles.

I converted to mayo a number of years ago. For some applications like earlier this week I still do olive oil but my default is mayo. It offers the best universal coverage and browning and crisping. And it’s just easier and cheaper to work with than butter.

Did you make the rice in advance?

The Super Giant Mega International Market That Is 80% Asian Stuff. The closest to me is Super G but when I lived in Virginia was a Grand Mart. Mine also has a smaller dedicated Indian market in the same shopping center that occasionally has good stuff too.

Dal makhani is black lentils and kidney beans in what is basically a chili type gravy sauce with coconut milk. This particular brand has some noticeable hint of bitter melon flavor. It’s got layers.

It really is. The Indian boil in a bag stuff pretty high up there on the quality scale for ultra processed.

Salt, soy sauce, sesame oil, MSG, red pepper flakes, minced ginger from this year’s crop.

Chicken was marinated in granulated garlic, soy sauce, sesame oil, rice wine vinegar, red pepper flakes and maybe things I forgot.

I don’t normally add bell peppers but I had one and the wife really liked that addition to brighten it up.

I’ve seen that one before and it always makes me sad.

Probably not expensive though tracking down the right kind can be a little tricky. More importantly, there is a group rule about no self-promotion.

We have 14 chickens. The odds of finding one that could cook were pretty good.

I’m not so sure about that. But maybe you know more than I do. What are the odds of a full recovery from an infected deltoid muscle at the shoulder joint resulting from bursitis? Right now I don’t have even a quarter the range of motion as John McCain.

And given that I’m a handyman this means I can’t work right now even when I’m not in pain.

Infected bursitis.