Slower, cheaper, less useful…
I tested myself this morning. Twice! Neither test was positive. It appears that I’m COVID-19 free after two weeks and two days.
I’m still not feeling great. I would now describe it as recovering from an illness rather than being ill.
I do hope to regain some energy this week. I also hope to avoid any rebound or relapse which, Paxlovid or not, I’m told is a thing.
When you are waiting for the mail, it’s important to maintain your nutrition. It’s be a pure shame to have the mail arrive and not be able to do anything with it because you’ve neglected your metabolism.
That won’t happen here.
Yesterday, I went to Sam’s Club with the idea of getting a whole strip loin, as I did with my home aging project.
They didn’t have any in stock. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. It seems to be just the time of day.
But they did have a lot of already packaged NY Strip steaks and better, they were a dollar off their regular price per pound. To top off the deal, most of them looked really nice. I managed to score a couple of packs that were cut well and didn’t have a lot of sirloin mixed in.
But, as I said, it was time to eat.
Here’s the one I cooked just prior to cooking. I’ve coated it lightly in beef tallow and inserted my Ninja’s temperature probe. I put a ruler up next to the steak to show that this one is about an inch and a quarter thick. That’s pretty darn good for them.
And here’s the finished product.
It was delickous.
I’m sitting around waiting for the postal delivery of my new Valeton GP-200LT I’ve been lucky in finding accessories I already own including the expression pedal I wrote about yesterday. Today, I found my two control footswitch. That means I can use both on this wee beastie.
It turns out that besides the GP-200LT, I’ve got some guitar strings coming in as well. Yay! I did just restring my Squire Strat, but I’m due for some changes across the gamut of my guitars, including my classical.
And on top of the strings, or rather, let’s not hope directly on top of them, I’ve got more salt!
I love Redmond’s Cherry Smoked Salt.
They go out of their way to hook you by giving out a lot of “points” when you spend money. I’ve got two bags of this coming in and paid less than fifty percent of the cost after my last purchase. This stuff is the real deal though, and worth it without a discount. They do have other flavors of their smoked salt, this just happens to be my fave.
For those who don’t know, I play guitar. I’ve been playing a long, long time and honestly, I’m not that good. I’ve never put the time into it to be more than a home hobby. But I enjoy it and that’s the important thing, at least for me.
I’ve been wanting something that would allow me to practice easily, especially over my headphones in order to save my neighbor’s ears. I haven’t purchased any new things besides strings recently, so I thought it might be time to have a little fun.
I’ve just ordered a Valeton GP-200LT. I really enjoyed the YT demo of this device from Andertons.
As you’ll note, this isn’t necessarily a pro model as it’d doesn’t have XLR outputs, though you can use TRS cables for balanced output. I’m not gigging, so…yeah, not an issue at the moment.
Why do I want this?
Well, it’s a modeler so I can get a variety of amps and cabinets, as well as lots of pedals. Further, it has a basic drum machine built in; good for my timing. Just as importantly for me, it has a looper as well. I have a variety of things that have some combination of these tools, but nothing that combines them all seamlessly. This seems to do that.
They have a more pro model, the GP-200, which has the balanced XLR outputs and an expression pedal. I wanted to keep this under $300. They also have a new version out, the GP-200JR, which is similar to this, has XLR, and an expression pedal built in. It’s a wee bit pricier, but doesn’t have a MIDI in and out. Am I going to use MIDI? My guess is no, but I have a couple things laying around that might be fun to try.
So what about that expression pedal. In all honestly, I haven’t really ever used one. Bob don’t Wah. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to use one, just that I never really have…EVEN THOUGH I OWN ONE.
Yes, I have an expression pedal that should work with this. Yay!
It’s not expensive. But I’m going to guess I don’t need an expensive one.
Further the GP-200LT is small enough to be used on my desktop if I want to tweak things easily. Have a pedal would add inches to the device and, well….you can see where that one is going.
Who knows, maybe I’ll start making actual music and post it here where no one has to listen to it.
Omigosh, I’m almost out of bone broth.
I’ve been hitting the stuff rather hard lately, what with my COVID-19 and all. Feeling a bit better this morning, I headed out on my electric scooter for more bones. This time I went for about four pounds of bones. I found that in my last batch, using three and a half pounds, that I had more room and could make a few cups more.
The first image shows the bones I’m using, including those from my recent bone-in NY Strips! I decided to change pots though and that’s shown in the second image. That pot is actually the inside of Instant Pot (eight quart model). The third image shows the mess that rises when blanching the bones for a couple of minutes.
And finally, all the bones are layed out in my Ninja air crisper ready for a twenty-five roast browning before it’s time for the pressure cooker.
I got a nice jar of Beef Tallow from this step.
This jar will go in the fridge with a couple of others. I have a lot of tallow from my recent cooks. I may give this one away as I really have more than I need.
My Instant Pot is just about done and I’m hoping this batch turns out as well as the last which turned out just about perfect. I’ll know how it tastes shortly. I’ll know if it gels tomorrow morning.
Yikes! It’s another day, and I’m still under the weather with COVID-19.
This morning I woke up at 4:30 a.m. as usual and prepared to do some work as it’s the first of the month. I could breathe, which was nice. My nasal congestion seems to have cleared up and took my sinus headache with it. Thank goodness.
But now it appears I’m getting a bit of my sore throat back, something I lost early last week. This darn virus won’t give up.
My vitals are all good, BP, pulse, SpO2, and temperature are all normal.
To top it off, I still don’t really have any energy. I wanted to get out for more bones to make another batch of bone broth as I’m running low, but that’ll have to wait till tomorrow.
All the best!
Previously, I bought excellent bone broth from a source that provided broth made from local, regeneratively raised beef. I like it and would have no problem buying more. But I’m also cheap. At almost $11 for a sixteen-ounce portion, it’s pricey. I have no trouble supporting local businesses and want these folks to succeed. But I am cheap. Mind you, I still buy ground beef from them at a very fair price. I think their bone broth price is fair, too. It’s just that I can’t butcher cattle or store bulk beef. I can, however, make bone broth.
I’ve discovered, as I’ve noted, that I can make a single batch of bone broth with somewhere in the neighborhood of 3.5 lbs. of bones. I’ve been buying locally sourced, regeneratively raised beef bones at $5.99 a pound.
Yes, that sounds expensive, too, and there are much less expensive bones around I could use. I also save the bones from my bone-in steaks, but currently, I’m using more bone broth than bone-in steaks.
In my last batch, which was darn near perfect, I made eleven cups of broth for $21.48 and my time.
21.48 / 11 * 2 = 3.90545454545455
There’s the math. Instead of $11 for a sixteen-ounce serving, I can make $3.91 if I round up a wee bit or $3.90 if I don’t.
And this way, besides the savings, I know exactly what I’ve put into the mix. That’s a win-win situation in my books!
As mentioned, I’m home dry aging a strip loin in my fridge using UMAI Dry Age bags. The color of the meat has changed in just the past couple of days.
The first image, dated October 28th, shows that the meat has darkened, but there’s still plenty of red, meaty color.
The second image, from today, has wholly darkened and looks more like wood than meat.
Normal.
There’s still a month to go to add up to thirty-five days. That’s scheduled for December 1st. Of course, I may go for a full forty-five days.
I’m really looking forward to seeing what’s left.
Part of overdoing stuff during my recovery was buying bones for more bone broth. Once again, I got my bones at Whole Foods.
This time, I did my best to determine how much I could make in one batch and still have tasty broth. I went for about 3.5 lbs. of bones, which was just about right.
Here are the bones in a pot ready for blanching.
After bringing this to a boil, I let it simmer for a few minutes to draw out the impurities, and sure enough, it created a pretty ugly scum. That draws out everything you don’t want in your broth, which can taint the flavor. I didn’t cook it for too long though, as I wanted to be sure I kept all the tallow I could.
After that step, I put all the bones in my Ninja Air Crisper on the roast setting for about twenty-five minutes. I wanted to get them to a golden brown. As I’m still foggy with COVID-19, I didn’t get more images of all this.
After roasting, I kept the tallow, almost half a jarful! Yay!
Then it was into my Instant Pot. It took about eleven or twelve cups of water to cover the bones. I’ve got the eight-quart model, and it was filled to almost the mid-fill line.
I set the pressure cooker for two and a half hours and let it go. I’ve overcooked a batch once, and it never gelled. I was hoping this batch would gel.