Posts

Posted on

Starting my bone broth

I’ve blanched and roasted my bones!

To start, I put the bones in filtered water. My tap water needs it; old pipes. Then I boiled it and let it go for a few minutes. Finally, I drained and rinsed the bones. The idea isn’t to cook them, just to eliminate some of the impurities.

Then I put them in my air fryer on the roast setting at 400F for forty-five minutes. I did remove the marrow on the second batch and save it after a few minutes of cooking so it wouldn’t cook away. Sadly, I didn’t do that on the first batch here. Sigh.

Nice and golden brown!!! Now it’s ready for the Instant Pot pressure cooker. That’ll have to wait a bit, though, I’ve a friend in town, and hopefully, we can meet up for a cup of coffee or something!

After two batches of bones in my air fryer, here’s the beef tallow I collected. I’m amused because it’s in an old jar of caramel from “the bad old days.” Off to the right, you can see a container that has pork fat from a pork belly cook!

I have run some errands now, so the rest of the cook is on hold.

Posted on

Bone broth, here we come!

Tomorrow, we make bone broth. This evening, I picked up some marrow bones, about four and a half pounds. They are a bit pricey, but this was a spur-of-the-moment decision. I am making some assumptions as well. The first is that the local sticker means the beef was locally raised. The second is that the 100% grass-fed information means they were grass-fed and grass-finished.

I don’t have any bones leftover from my regular meals as I tend to buy boneless beef. That may change as this would be unsustainable. But it’s an experiment for me.

Further, I won’t use veggies in the mix as I’m on a carnivore WOE (way of eating).

Tomorrow, I’ll roast these for a bit in my air fryer. Then, I’ll get to work with my Instant Pot.

My ultimate plan is to use the bone broth created with this to cook the chuck roast I have in the fridge.

Hopefully, I’ll have more about this tomorrow: success or failure.

Posted on

What’s in my fridge?

I told you I was eating a carnivore way of eating. I keep beef, butter, bacon, eggs, and a bit of water in there. What, no eggs? Darn it. I’ll have to see to that tomorrow.

The top and middle shelves have chuck roast I bought this morning dry-brining with Redmond’s Smoke Salt. The bottom shelf has an untrimmed Tri-Tip that’s been dry-brining since Thursday.

Posted on

Fixing Lizzie…

Lizzie is my Lelit Elizabeth Dual Boiler Espresso Machine. It’s a nice toy, but mine is a bit broken.

There’s a lot to love. Sadly, my steam boiler stopped working not long ago, and I managed to figure out what had happened.

For the longest time, it seemed as if hot water was being bled out of the steam boiler. I thought I’d fixed the problem previously, and yes, I had solved one problem. But as it turned out, there was another problem.

That part of the steam boiler is the fill probe. It lets the device know that the steam boiler has been refilled. Somehow, mine was not sealing, and that probe would rise up due to the pressure in the boiler. I’d push it back down. Eventually, it must have worn out the lining, and then it just released all the pressure.

I needed a new one. But trying to figure out what the part was called was a bit annoying. The technical drawings for the machine done by the manufacturer were hard to read and probably meant for technicians. And worse, the actual part doesn’t appear on the diagrams!!!

Luckily, I found another site with an article on cleaning the probe. That at least gave me a start on finding the part number. Of course, the site with the article didn’t also sell parts or give the SKU.

But, using the name of the part, I found it on the site I would have to purchase the part from. Except, naturally enough, it said the part was for a different machine by the same manufacturer.

That’s what the part, when removed, looks like. That isn’t my hand, though. That’s from the article.

Okay, now what? I think I know what the part is called. I know what it does. I even have the SKU. But will it fit?

A quick search of the SKU and the manufacturer’s name turned up a YouTube video…and yes, it featured an Elizabeth.

Thankfully, the part was in stock and cheaper than I’d figured. So now all I have to do is wait a bit, and hopefully, my Lizzie will be as good as new.

Posted on

Bad meditations…

Here’s an example of one of the meditations I facilitate at work. I’m no meditation master, or even trained, but it is fun, and I enjoy it. I just do my best to remind people that if they really like it, they should go find a real teacher.

Posted on

What’s been going on…

Well, I’m back from yet another trip. This time, I took a short journey to Seattle to visit with a friend. As a bonus, another friend was also in town, and I met someone I’ve only known online. You can’t do better than that.

But this blog has been dying for some time now; quite a long time. I’ve been deciding on whether I want to continue it, scrap it, revamp it, or continue ignoring it.

So, I thought I’d mention the various bits and pieces of my life that seem to be dominating these days.

  • Back surgery in May of 2022
  • Carnivore diet since September 2022
  • Bilateral knee replacement in January 2023
  • 7500+ mile road trip in June 2023
  • A quick trip to Seattle just this past week, September 2023

The back surgery was unexpected and was needed as I had a herniated disc between L4 and L5 that was causing drop-foot. I was losing control of my legs as the nerve was being pinched off. Thank you, Dr. Noh, a bit of emergency surgery fixed me right up. The hardest part wasn’t the surgery or the PT. The hardest part was the six weeks I wasn’t allowed to do much of anything: bend over, lift over ten pounds, walk for more than a total of thirty minutes, or even twist.

The results were great, especially the change in my attitude about health. I’d been low(ish) carb for years but gained a fair bit of weight. I decided to lose weight and get strict about carbs again. The weight started coming off, but honestly, I hated figuring out my macros for each meal. And then my weight loss stalled. I ended up moving to a carnivore diet in September 2022. I lost more weight and, within a few months, had a great waist-to-height ratio of 1:2. My BMI is also normal for the first time in decades.

This is good because while recovering from the back surgery and doing more and more, I discovered that my knees, a problem since my twenties, had finally given up the ghost. I had bilateral knee replacement surgery in late January 2023 and started another recovery journey. It was worth it. But that isn’t to say it wasn’t painful or that now, eight months later, I’m completely recovered. I can do much more than before surgery, but I still have aches and pains. It’s not arthritis anymore, the carnivore diet seems to have cleared that up, and it’s inflammation from continued healing. I’m told, and I believe them, that it will be up to a year and maybe some more before I’m entirely recovered…whatever that means.

So, of course, a few months after surgery, I went with my buddy Barry on a 7500-mile road trip. We took in Idaho, Utah, and Arizona, including Bryce Canyon, Zion National Park, the Grand Canyon, Saguaro National Park, and good friends along the way. Next, we went through some of New Mexico, missing the old nuclear testing areas. And then there was Texas, more Texas, and yes, more Texas. We made it to San Antonio, saw the Alamo, and walked the RiverWalk. Next, we drove to Houston for baseball, New Orleans for music, Tuscaloosa for friends, and Juneteenth. Nashville, Chattanooga, and Owensboro made the list, the latter with the Bluegrass Hall of Fame and RompFest! We then went off to Omaha for steak and one of the final games of the College World Series! Heading north, we saw the Crazy Horse Monument clouded in mist and Mount Rushmore in the clear. Finally heading back west, we took in the Custer Battlefield Monument and learned that the graves of the Native Americans killed that day have finally been marked and honored. The end of the trip included Several days in Yellowstone and some Fourth of July celebrations back in Idaho.

All of that travel meant that I needed to go to Seattle, with the excuse of seeing the Mariners play Houston! It wasn’t completely successful, but I did keep score. And that is something I documented learning here on this blog using a tutorial from this site:

https://swingleydev.com/baseball/tutorial.php

During all of this, I continued to facilitate ten-minute meditation sessions at work, though held online. I may also start posting some of those here, though there are much better ones out there!

Enough for now.

Posted on

Travel time…

It’s time to travel again after a very stressful, yet fruitful, year. My last vacation was a bike ride on the Katy Trail with great friends back in September, 2021. My 2022 was the beginning of a medical journey that continues even now.

In May of 2022 I required emergency back surgery for a ruptured disc. The surgery was super successful, but it required 6 weeks of doing next to nothing, followed by rigorous PT. During that time I discovered that my knees had finally given up the ghost.

In January, 2023 I had bilateral knee replacement surgery. That led to another extended period of leave, rest, and more rigorous PT. Indeed, I just had my last session at the end of May.

And now it’s June, 2023 and I’m finally able to travel. I’m sitting in Danel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL) and waiting for my plane to board.

That might even be my plane!

I’m off to Boise, Idaho to see my friends, Barry, Melanie, maybe Justin, Jan, and others (hard to know exactly who right now). Then it’s an epic road trip. More on that later, but it will start, more or less, with Bryce Canyon!