It’s once again an Australia Time Friday! It’s FRIDAY!!!! (Yeah, I know, Friday in California… but I have a good excuse! Down the tech Rabbit Hole…)
I made a lambburger with a sprinkle of garlic and a slice of Havarti cheese on top. OMG so simple and so good! Side salad and a bunch of crinkle cut fries from the oven.
The minced lamb (about 1/2 pound or 450 grams) gets shaped into a “steak” about 1/3 to 1/2 inch thick. Fried about 4 minutes on a side. Flip it back to the first side, then: Sprinkle of garlic granules on the flip, then put a bit of cheese on top. Turn off the burner and let it coast to melted cheese.
The frozen fries go into the oven on a cookie sheet about 20 minutes before plating. 425 F. At plating, you just shovel them onto the plate.
The salad was a “bag-O-lettuce” salad with added olives and a sprinkle of Mexican Cheese Blend shreds on top.
Add a slice of Artisan Bread & Butter and pour a glass of your favorite, and it can’t be beat!
I sprinkle a bit of salt and pepper on the salad, the spouse doesn’t. I pepper the steak too, the spouse doesn’t. “Salt and Pepper to taste” rules.
The wine was once again the Little Penguin Merlot / Cabernet blend. As long as the Bargain Market Grocery Outlet has it at $5, I’m buying it! A wonderfully well made wine being “remaindered” at a discount store. Go figure. I’ve had $30 wines that were not as drinkable. IF I have to drink every bottle made by Little Penguin Winery, well, everybody needs a mission in life!
In Other News
Pelosi is trying to make a PERMANENT commission (where Friends Of Pelosi get six figures for being “available” on the committee no doubt) to decide if the POTUS is fit to serve. She says it will be 1/2 Dems and 1/2 Repubs AND “Doctors”… So, let me get this straight: 1/2 Democrats, 1/4 RHINO Never Trumpers, 1/4 Real Republicans, and some Mystery Meat “Doctors” like Fauci who are owned by the pissed off Big Pharma will collectively decide if MY VOTE COUNTS? Um, no. In fact, HELL NO!
Even if the intent is to dispose of Biden after he gets in and have the Socialist Wet Dream of POTUS Socialist Kamala admin in place.
The USA has decided to sell F35 fighters to Taiwan. The fighter nobody in the world can shoot down (even our best can’t do it…) Yeah, China has a problem with that. Watch this space and see if they try to invade Taiwan before the F35s arrive.
Musings from the Chiefio 
Never did care much for the krinkle cut fries. But the rest sounds like a winner!
And Pelousi is just too far gone to be able to play politics any longer. She telegraphs her move long before she makes them. I would not be surprised to see her own party revolt (they are revolting) and vote it down. While thousands of Airline employees are getting laid off, she admitted on TV, they were political pawns in the left’s power grab. She is denying them relief for the single reason it is the only leverage she has over Trump.
She has no leverage. Trump was negotiating deals while she was still praising racists.
We kind of randomly change the kind of fries in the freezer. “Shoestring” was a bit of a disaster if yu follow the “make them hard and crunch” directions. About 0 minutes is find.
Normally we use the regular fries stff, but Smart & Final had house brand crinkle cut on sale so we tried them. not bad, really. I cook them a bit lower, slower, and shorter to keep them soft for the spouse.
It’s the intersection of style and how you cook them that counts
No lamb here, but I did make green tomato pickles.
Pure water, white vinegar, Kosher salt, garlic, fresh dill, red pearl onions, golden pearl onions, and fresh chopped jalapenos in one of the two jars I made.
I also add a splish of garlic powder, onion powder, ground coriander, and celery seed because they absorb into the green tomatoes a little better than the fresh garlic and onion alone. They’re just a helper.
I’ve been tasting daily and they are coming along very well. The ‘hot’ version is working very well. They have some zip, but nothing that slaps you in the face.
Fresh (refrigerator) pickled veggies need about a week to hit peak flavor. They’re good for a month or two unless you go with the traditional canning method. But the fresh pickles (cukes or to-MAH-toes) have far superior crunch and flavor.
Next year I’m going to plant some cabbage and work on sauerkraut. I bought a jar of kraut – brand name, Bubbies – that is the best EVAH! on brats and hot dogs. It’s a whole ‘nother level. I’m going to try to clone it. Nine bucks a jar. Damn straight I’m going to try to clone it. I can’t afford it otherwise.
Kraut, from what I’ve seen, is very easy to make. Basically, shred cabbage and put it under water with a way for bubble to escape. Wait.
I’ve not tried it yet, but I’ve done other lactic acid fermentations (yogurt) and it IS easy.
I think there are more ways than that to skin the kraut cat, E.M.
I’m Czech on mom’s side and they have some kraut recipes, which I never paid attention to, that might fill the bill.
I’ll have to check with my remaining aunt and uncle. I also have a recipe book put together by the Czech community down in Texas, where mom’s family settled around 1900.
P.S. Shiner brewery down there in Texas was the local swill.
Glad you still like the Aussie lamb E M. And that u are still doing the Aussie weekly reminder post. You see it’s so peaceful and generally quiet here that I suspect almost everybody forgets about us.
At times I wonder whether that isn’t a good idea as we don’t want folks from elsewhere crashing our n peaceful scene.
Here is a list of the things which are peaceful :
No demos about BLM’s – they are USA stuff.
Hardly any anarchists stuffing around either.
No riots and no shooting at demos.
Hardly any police deaths in custody in recent years.
Hardly any Covid deaths now each day..
Pretty low Covid infections across the country ( In Victoria there were just 12 today and the state government is planning easing the Melbourne centered lockdown some more.)
Hardly any international flights and all inbound travellers in supervised quarantine for 2 weeks.
No elections due in the near future to create chaos.
Thus we have almost normal lives again here in South Australia, Western Australia, Northern Territory, Tasmania, Queensland & ACT. NSW is almost back to normal as well. Only Victoria has not made the grade yet but they are getting there.
And the economy is holding up generally with a healthy export surplus.
Of course some folks are complaining – especially if they are in the airline or international student & tourist sectors. But they rest of us could not give a tinker’s fart for their self centered bluster. Better to be sure than sorry. Sorry seems to be where most of the world is right now including the USA & the UK & Europe.
And we are very well aware that we are a whole lots better off and safer than just about anywhere else in the world right now.
And that is reflected is the number of Aussies who have flown home this year while the rest of the world agonises over Covid ~400,000. IA result of Australia being a safe refuge. And there are another ~30,000 currently waiting for a flight home. Why? Because arrivals are capped at 6,000 a week to ensure that the quarantine process is secure from breaches. And each week more add themselves to the list…They want to come home.It’s safer.
@H.R.:
I’ve had Shiner! Decent swill IIRC (or maybe in Texas heat anything is good! ;-)
Looks like lots of Czech style recipes on line. Seasonings added. You can make hot peppery kraut too… Looks rather overly complicated to me… Then again, I’m of the English / Amish “everything bland and ordinary” side of things… Here’s one that’s a “cheat” in that you start with canned kraut and just do the flavorings / seasoning. Might let you get started without taking on the whole lactic ferment thing up front:
https://www.food.com/recipe/uncle-emil-s-czech-style-sauerkraut-167274
This one looks more authentic to me. At least you start with cabbage ;-) BUT it has no fermentatin step, so IMHO isn’t really sauerkraut. Then again, it is called SWEET kraut, not sour, so…
https://catvusa.com/czech-recipes/czech-sweet-sauerkraut/
They have cppy / past blocked (Yeah, I could just screen shot it / edit that, but I don’t care enough).
Ingredients:
1 cabbage.
1-2 onions
1 raw potato ( I presume medium russet size and not small red or fingerling…)
1/2 Tbs caraway seed
2 tsp sugar
salt and vinegar to taste
3 Tbs oil or lard for frying
water as needed.
Slice the cabbage into strips. Chop the onion fine. Sautee onion in the fat / oil. Add the cabbage and mix. Pour in some boiling water (I presume to just cover). Add your salt, sugar, caraway, and vinegar to taste. Put a lid on it and let it braise 1/2 hour (maybe not water to cover. Braise is usually a little water in the bottom steaming the rest). Grate the potato and use it to thicken up the cooking water by simmering for a while.
So not sauerkraut, but sound good to me ;-)
Basic Kraut recipe:
https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/homemade-sauerkraut/
IIRC, “canning salt” is just salt without iodine as that can react with some canning stuff or shift some flavours a bit. I’ve never bothered and just use regular salt…
Basically you put shredded salted cabbage in a big salt and acid proof jug that has a floating lid (to keep out bugs and air) but that does let gas out. Now wait a few weeks…
@BillinOz:
I loved my time in Australia, and sent my Son there as a “student Ambassador” (Few weeks vacation with a group and you get some nice resume fodder for college applications).
I almost stayed. I was single and had a job available if I wanted it…
You have the advantage of a disbursed population and limited outside contacts points. A big advantage when thing are grim.
FWIW the Antifa / BLM crap is basically isolated to places with Soros owned District Attorney, Mayor and Governor. (So they don’t get prosecuted). Everywhere else here is pretty much nothing. Even in my town, they did ONE attempt that was quashed and nothing really since. Silicon Valley is NOT San Francisco… In Texas (that is huge… almost as big as your “station” ranches ;-0 ) only the city of Austin (that has become a Left Infiltration Zone) has had issues. Anywhere else in Texas you are likely to “wake up dead” trying that shit. So basically it’s about a half dozen major city core areas that are being trashed.
Oh, and they tried going to the suburbs / country a few times and got marched out of town… so seem to have decided it’s a bad idea. Heck, I’m only about 5 miles from our urban core (50 miles from San Francisco) and we’ve had nothing. I did load up a small pocket gun that rests in my pants pocket or on the dresser most of the time; expecting that if something bad happened I’d be ready. Yet the ‘troubles” never left the SF / Oakland (just across one bridge other side of he bay) metroplex core. Here, they tried ONCE very early on shutting down a freeway and breaking a couple of car windows and then nothing. I suspect they got picked up and stuck in jail thanks to video…
So there’s a HUGE area between San Francisco Bay Area about about Milwaukee / Chicago where basically nothing bad is happening. Then from Canada down to the gulf, modulo Austin… Pretty much anywhere in The South, it’s a dumb idea to try to abuse folks. The Polk County Florida Sheriff went on TV and said “Don’t try to break into peoples houses. Our Citizens own guns. I encourage them to use their guns. If you break into someone’s home, I expect them to blow you right back out the door.” or pretty close to that. Not much bad happening in Florida ;-) Especially in the more rural counties…
So it’s pretty easy to have a more or less normal life here, too. Just have to get away from large Democrat run cities.
I have found that Fries:
#1 – never are good in the microwave.
#2 – are not really good in the oven either. Color my arteries plugged, but fries are only good deep fried. And then the krinkle ones still suck.
My mother once decided she was going to teach us a lesson! She cut and fried 10 pounds of potatoes as french fries!
My sister and I took the leftovers out onto the patio (we were living in Lakeside then, a suburb of SD), and finished them off!
She never tried that again. To our disappointment!
But Microwave, oven, Pan fried or deep fried. Krinkles still are the worse. Shoestring the second worse. The best is with the peel still on them.
Just my IMHO
@HR – do you ship out? Your pickle recipe is to die for!
I will pay for a jar!
@billinoz – we never forget about you! We do envy you a bit. But then I am reminded of my bosses description of Oz. He came back and summed it up in one sentence.
Everything can kill you!
I have been working with him on and off for 11 years. And yea, that is what his tour guide said.
But Oz is still #1 on my bucket list!
@PhilJourdan:
I agree that deep fried are best. But…
Package directions on frozen can really SUCK. You can adjust the quality a lot by how you make them. For shoestrings, I had to cut the package time in half and drop the temperature about 50 F or they were litttle sring rocks. For the Crinkles, just dropping the temp about 20 F was enough to make them a lot like regular (but not as browned…)
For deep fried, the particular oil you use has a dramatic effect. Beef tallow is best. Lard is OK. Other oils so-so (though olive oil can be interesting). AVOID polyunsaturated soy, corn, etc.
Also, the best technique is to cook them about 1/2 way, then let them sit about 5 minutes. THEN put them back in the oil to finish. MUCH better product.
I use the oven for when I need them without fuss. (Setting up my fryer is a chore and sometimes I don’t have the space…) Cast iron on the stove is nice, but splatters and takes a burner. And sometimes I don’t have enough of a preferred oil on hand. Oven is better than none…
My personal favorite are pan fried potato disks. “Country fries”, but as about 1/4 inch thick disks. None of these giant wedges or similar. Just behind the disks are 1/4 inch to 1/3 inch square cross section long fries. I’m less fond of them mostly as you get a LOT of edge bits with pointy little ends that cook too hard ;-) A disk has no points ;-)
But from raw potatoes to finished platter of disks is a lot more work than Bag-O-Fries from the freezer and a lot longer than 18 minutes… and a lot more clean up on isle spatter… So I only get them when I have a lot of time AND ambition to deal with set-up, tear-down, clean-up ;-)
BTW, I, too, have never met a volume of Fries that was too big ;-) (Especially if salt and vinegar at to hand…)
When I was cooking for a family o 4, 2 of them growing kids, I mostly stayed in the kitchen eating my dinner from the plate on the counter as I continued to crank out batches of fries from the oil bath cooker. ( Electric skillet or Electric Wok – both do a great job of keeping temperature constant. 350 F for thick chunks or 375 F for thinner fries).
IMHO, the issue with crinkle cut is the increased area for “crunch” that ends up too much. By backing off on the temperature a little you can turn that down enough to be OK. Then the “double cook” makes sure the middles re fluffy and not soggy. But yeah, more picky and more of a pita than straight cut.
@philj re pickles – You can roll your own. Put those ingredients together in proportion to the flavors you like best and stick it in the ‘fridge. The flavors start to blend in 3 to 4 days.
I don’t measure anything when I cook and I followed a recipe just once – spinach gnocchi – back in1998. So that’s the best I can do on a How To for fresh pickles.
I did forget one ingredient. I put a pinch of sugar in, and I do mean a pinch. It makes the vinegar behave. It’s not there to add sweetness.
I like potato disks fried in lard with some salt and corn meal added near the end. And with some diced onion thrown in for good measure.
@philjourdan, thanks for the response to my comment. Yes I figure that many folks in worse off place would be envious & even annoyed. That’s one reason why I have been commenting a lot less recently. Another reason for the fewer comments is my reluctance to comment on USA internal politics.
Re the pandemic : We now feel pretty safe here.
How come ?
1: The borders are virtually closed to anyone except Australian nationals & Aussie permanent residents.( Very very few exceptions.) And everyone of those returning must do 2 weeks in quarantine in a hotel room in a supervised designated hotel. And everyone gets tested in that time twice. Persons who are positive stay in quarantine until they test negative twice.
The one big second wave ( in Victoria happened because of major failings in the quarantine process there. Why ? Because they used mostly young untrained casual employed ‘security guards’ from migrant backgrounds, to secure the hotels with returned travellers. That cock up has now generated over 700 deaths from Covid plus thousands of infections. Melbourne is still in a lock down and everyone wearing masks by law. But after 7 weeks new infection case numbers are now back around 10 a day from over 700 a day in Melbourne at the start. It’s gunna be eliminated I think in Melbourne again soon !
2: Yes we are all still practising social distancing with ‘strangers’. And using hand sanitiser lots each day as requested when we enter any business premises or shop or office. Some places ( medical clinics ) test everyone’s temperature on entry and ask if they feel feverish or have a cough. So the virus is being hammered in that way as well.
And curiously colds and flu’s seem to have disappeared here as well A good side effect ! :-)
Apart from that for all of Australia except Victoria, we have our normal lives again. Cafes, gyms, sporting clubs, dance venues, hotels, churches. Most sectors of the economy have re-opened and consumer confidence is building.
When Victoria has eliminated this bloody virus, we will be able to open the state borders with Victoria. And then life here will move back even more to being normal.
One major side effect to think about : We are far more national, Australian, focussed. Multi-culturalism as an ideology, and globalism have been dealt a huge hit. We look at the rest of the world and think we have buggered off this Covid virus. It can be done. And we know how we did it. But it looks like the rest of the world doesn’t want to do that, or can’t get their sh^t together enough to do it. And of course now we also know that CCP China is NOT our friend. Though our MSM tend not mention that too much
That’s pity for lots of people elsewhere in the world. But it’s their problem. Not ours.
So to folks reading this, take care. Covid is a very infectious disease. And mostly kills older folk. But even the younger folk can get hit badly. It’s better to eliminate it than tolerate it. And the only get out of jail card is an effective & safe vaccine. That’s something we can all hope comes soon.
E.M.S.
O/T maybe, but I worked with a chap from Germany who made sauerkraut by shredding cabbage into a jar and adding (diluted) lactic acid to cover. But then, he had a ready supply of concentrated lactic acid available in the factory warehouse. A bit of “evaporation” wasn’t noticed.
@Graeme No.3 re sauerkraut
Why do I get the funny feeling that sauerkraut is never O/T here? ;o)
It’s FOOD, baby! Food is never O/T on E.M.’s blog LOL!
Firearms and anything 1s and 0s are a close second, near as I’ve been able to make out [grin]
@H.R.
The company used the lactic acid to make a ‘detergent or surfactant’ (for use in toothpaste and margarine). I thought it would O/T because of the difficulties of getting lactic acid by a private citizen.
This was years ago, the Company went out of business (taken over) in the late 1990’s.
P.S. the bottom of the old stainless steel reactor developed leaks. Lactic acid attacks some grades of stainless steel. It reminds me of a formula for a paint stripper we got in the 70’s. It contained (among other nasties) lactic acid. The packaging information noted that the product was highly flammable, toxic, and corrosive and should only be stored or shipped in glass containers (not the mild or stainless drums we used). It didn’t take very long for even our salesmen to decide not to sell that product. I have occasionally wondered who in the USA would have used this product, but in view of the behaviour of the left wing there recently I realise that there probably people stupid enough to do so.
@Graeme No3 – You reminded me of a comic book my brothers and I bought years ago when we were all in single digits.
The Evil Genius baddie (can’t recall which super hero was featured in the comic) had developed a super acid which NOTHING COULD CONTAIN AND IT WOULD EAT THROUGH ANYTHING!!!!!!. A few drops would eat through the entire Earth!!! Nothing could stop it!!!!
So us dumb ol’ kids wondered… what the heck was that vial he was holding up made of, which contained some of that ultimate acid? Didn’t that acid eat through everything? Dumb kids, us. Dumb questions.
Anyhow, Dr. Evil’s acid was probably just plain ol’ lactic acid, from the sound of it ;o)
@H.R.:
You pegged me! My interests, in more or less order, are:
1) Food including the subset of Beer & Wine & Scotch or other Whiskey.
2) How Things Work. Anything. Mechanical, chemical, biological, nuclear, geological, financial, whatever. Education in Econ has me with a high money understanding.
3) Guns & Prepping (As it involves #1, #2, #3 and #5/6 ‘bigly’…)
4) Tech Stuff with emphasis on Unix / Linux and databases. Subset of #2 but I got paid for decades to do so kind of got deep skilz.
5) Languages, Cultures & Deep History (including geological history) which brings up…
6) Astronomical stuff, especially volcanoes and Rocks From Space doing resets on life & history…
Notice that Politics is not on the list at all, yet currently it is a major topic. My general attitude about it is summed up in: “Politics, from Poly meaning many and Ticks meaning blood sucking insect parasites. ” IFF I could, I would pay zero interest to Politics. It is mostly well connected assholes spewing what they spew. BUT…
Unfortunately, #5 makes it important to keep an eye on Politics to prevent the all too historically frequent wars and economic collapses; while #2 (of the Political Economy sort) has me well aware of how screwed up Politicians can make a government and a country and is a large part of why #3 is important… Mix in that at this very moment we are on the cusp of just such a collapse at the hands of a Chinese coordinated Communist / Socialist Insurgency and government / education infiltration and, well, like it or not it MUST be dealt with.
There’s a quasi #7 in Space & Star Trek, but CBS / Viacom has been busy curing me of my Trek interest. As Viktor Von Doomcock said: “Star Trek is dead, long live The Orville!” I’ve been slowly watching all the dozens of Fan Movies and find them better (at least they follow canon) than Star Trek Discovery (STD, and it is…) or Picard (A showcase of nostalgic old actors looking to be relevant again… in a show with a lousy plot vector and schitzo relationship with canon or logic…) both wallowing in a sea of misery, darkness, confusion, and wokeness. Give me The Orville any day…
BTW, I have some scale deposits on my dishwasher soap door (where it lets the soap in) that are causing it to bind. I’ve tried several different mixes of stuff (including sulphonic acid IIRC) with little improvement. I suspect calcium oxalate. Maybe I’ll get some lactic acid…
Somewhere in the garage is a 1 oz tube of HydroFluoric Acid. Got it for an etched glass experiment. Noted for eating through most any container (including glass…) except an already fluorinated plastic… Oh, and a drop or too can cause horrible pain and worse if on your skin… I’ve not been willing to put it in the dishwasher ;-)
At one time I had Aqua Regia (mixed nitric and hydrochloric acids ) that dissolves gold, platinum and IIRC silver… Also used mixed nitric / sulphuric acids to nitrate various things. The fumes caused an entire metal shelf above the beaker to corrode like crazy… Ah, those were the days. About 1/2 century ago when you could buy such things at the town pharmacist shop…
E.M.S.
Try citric acid or EDTA. If a lot of soap I would try alkali e.g. sodium carbonate + a chelating agent (something like sodium gluconate**, citrate).
**The chelating agent you use depends on the pH. Tartaric works well in acid, citric from mildly acidic to mildly alkaline. Gluconate in sodium hydroxide will derust steel withot corroding it but take care.
I spent 5 years using hydrofluoric acid and it was one of the 2 acids that scared me (the other was 90% formic which stung like mad instantly on touch). HF goes through the skin and attacks the bone, resulting in weeks of pain.
In general, most acids are handled fairly well by our chemical bodies. Yes hydrofluoric acid is one that isn’t. Crown ethers and alkalis worry me more. Crown ethers are chelators and ionophores. Our bodies were designed to handle acids much better than alkalis. That’s why, in general, potassium or sodium hydroxide; for instance, give worse chemical burns than similar acids. Our bodies make lactic acid during the normal course of metabolism. Normally, though, the kinetics of such is so fast that the concentration does not build to high (for the body) levels. When it does, you get cramps. Formic acid is one of the active ingredients in the stings of hymenoptera species (bees, ants, wasps).
@EM – Yea, old school! Before Microwave, or Krinkle cut.
And I agree the oil is key! Back in the early 90s, Mickey D used Peanut oil. As I bounced around the state on my way to meetings, I would stop off at a Mickey D for some fries. Just fries. But when they went health food nut, the fries lost all flavor.
So #1 is Oil!
#2 is Cut
#3 is salt to taste.
We may live to be 150, but we will not enjoy it!
Re: Krinkle cut – But I like them crunchy throughout. And yes, Krinkles tend to me mushy on the inside. Different votes for different folks!
@Jim2 – Ah, but we were talking Fries, not nirvana! :-)
@HR – you have merely moved the curve. Your isolation has inhibited both the cold and flu, but not eliminated it. Nor have you eliminated the Chinese Virus. You have postponed them. And now, even for the liberals, WHO agrees. Lockdowns do not prevent deaths. They cause deaths. Just from other means.
I said this 7 months ago. A virus has to run its course. Pretenses do not matter. I am sorry, but the viruses will remain. Until we get herd immunity. And that will not be when incompetent politicians decide it is.
@HR and Graeme #3 – Seriously? Acid that eats through anything?
Ok, I hate sauer kraut as a kid, love it as an adult. And still hate Liver to this day.
Acid that eats through anything? Yea, so love keeps it together. ;-)
philjourdan: :“@HR – you have merely moved the curve. Your isolation has inhibited both the cold and flu, but not eliminated it.”
??? You’ve lost me there, mate. I haven’t been isolating at all, though the bum shoulder has cut into my usual activities.
I’m working on deciding how I’m going to make a shave horse so I can work some raw wood with a draw knife and spoke shave. Just might try to make an English longbow.
