Day Four - dinner

The second half of the day was a crazy awesome-disaster rollercoaster. But we'll get to that shortly.

I love cabbage. I often make boiled dinner, but since potatoes are a no-no, I tossed some cabbage and carrots together and boiled them for forty minutes.

Cabbage ♥

So. While that was cooking, I grabbed the pastured butter out of the fridge. It was time to take a shot at making ghee.

Hello, dumb shadow.

What is ghee? It's clarified butter made from milk, typically used in Indian cooking. It boils the water and milk out, leaving the fat behind with a bold, nutty taste. You can use it to grease a pan, throw in a recipe, or put onto food.

So first I melted the butter. When I took the butter out of the package, the sweet creamy smell hit me like a ton of bricks. It was amazing.

After it melted, I simmered it until the water started boiling out of the fat.

About eight minutes into the boiling, the fat starts separating from the milk, and turns a golden brown while the milk solids turn a dark brown. That's when it's done.

Okay, so here's the part where I essentially fucked up and created chaos in my kitchen.

When making ghee, you need cheesecloth so you can pour and strain the fat into a cup to separate from the milk solids. I don't have cheesecloth. But I found online that you can substitute cheesecloth with a coffee filter, and my heart sang. I was sold.

Lol.

I made a makeshift strainer, using my handheld strainer with a coffee filter tucked inside. I poured some in. Saw no liquid coming out. Realized I had two coffee filters stuck together in the strainer.

Naturally I went to hold the ghee filter while removing the bottom filter. And before I knew it, I spilled burning ghee on my counter, my floor, and my gigantic foot.

Goodbye, you dumb hassle.

Because I'm stubborn and dumb, I ignored the pain in my foot and fixed the ghee situation, successfully straining it in a single filter. The ghee took forever to strain (drip. drip. drip.) but finally it finished and solidified. I managed to clean up the mess in my kitchen, but not before Freya came running in to see what all the fuss was about.

 You can't see it well but it's all over the floor where she's standing -__-

 But yeah. Here is the result-

Bravo.

With my foot finally washed, I sat down and ate lunch.

After lunch was done, I finally put up my new shelves!

I want to add more candles but for now, Buddha will do.

Dinner time finally rolled around and I started steaming up some cauliflower. Tonight's dinner - pan fry chuck shoulder steak, with guacamole and cauliflower.

Prettyyyy.

For my guacamole-

Two avocados
1/4 onion, shredded
1/4 cubed tomato
Lime juice
Kosher salt
Pepper
Paprika

This was my first time making guacamole since the last time I tried back in 2010. Back then I didn't realize avocados had to ripen, so imagine my frustration when I tried to mash rock hard green avocados. So tonight I was praying it would all turn out perfectly.

I shredded the onion and had it sit in lime juice and kosher salt. This softens the acidity of the onion. I halved two avocados and put one half aside, mashing the other three with my archaic masher.

I threw the mashed avocado in a bowl with the diced tomato and lime-onion. I added pepper and paprika and mixed it all. When it was well blended, I cubed the remaining avocado half and folded it in for texture, similar to Chili's guacamole (sans the yummy corn!).

I tentatively tasted it and it was DIVINE. This is another recipe that I will NEVER buy from the store (much like my mayo).

I set it aside and poured olive oil in a pan to heat up for the steaks, which I salted and peppered.

This is part two of my chaotic day. I didn't realize how hot the oil had gotten, so when I placed the first steak into the pan, hot oil flew EVERYWHERE and fried my face, neck, and shirt. I stood back and threw the second steak into the pan, extremely annoyed. But it wasn't for nothing, because the steaks ended up being cooked perfectly.

Evil beast pan.

Finally, dinner came together. I made the guacamole as a steak topping, but I put it on the side in case Seth didn't like it.

Much to my surprise and relief, Seth went CRAZY over the guacamole. It was very much like eating beef fajitas minus the tortillas. He kept looking back to see if there was more steak which made me a very happy girl. 

I brought the ghee to the table to try on a piece of cauliflower. I'm going to wholeheartedly admit I was NOT a fan of the robust nutty taste, but I'm definitely going to use it to replace olive oil here and there. 

That ends day four. Which means... tomorrow is day five! Today was my first day without a headache which made me a happy camper. I can't wait to munch on another fritatta. Cheers!