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**picobrew** · January 26, 2026, 09:03 AM

Smoked Ice
1/22/26 Ypsilanti, MI 9pm
Outside air -15F.
6hr Smoke Tube with Alder pellets.
4# of ice going in.
3.8# taken out.
First iced beverage at 8am - OJ Delicious!
(Not sure how to rearrange pics for the proper order.)

**Chef Heart** · January 26, 2026, 12:40 PM

I live in rural PNW territory, where the closest sushi restaurant is 1.5 hours away... so I make my own chirashi bowls. My 17 year old daughter typically likes my sushi rolls but this one was a bit too adulty for her taste. If you love sushi but don't want to blow the budget on it, these chirashi bowls can be made pretty cheap.

My Ingredients:

Swordfish - I blanched it for safety and then seared the outside... it ended up cooking through - tasty, just not raw.

Calamari - I thin sliced calamari steaks, blanched and seared them as well. This was my favorite part of the bowl because the inside stayed raw and had a real "sushi" texture to it, but I think that's what kicked my daughter out of the arena.

Tuna - I bought a small piece of raw tuna and seared it, for my daughters sake, using our Chef Heart "Chilowist Bakes" Everything bagel seasoning on the outside. It turned out great but had I known she wasn't going to eat it, I would have preferred it raw with some togarashi powder to make spicy tuna.

Atlantic Salmon: If you boil water or even use really hot tap water, you can pour it over the skin of the salmon, watch it bubble up, then peel it right off. Easy and kind of satisfying as well. Then I throw it in a baggie or bowl, cover it in rice wine vinegar and kosher salt. Toss it in the freezer for about twenty minutes. Take it out, rinse, and slice. My understanding is that bacteria doesn't grow on tuna so I never do this with the tuna, but salmon is susceptible. And instead of ruining my homemade sushi experience, I choose to give it this bath. It ceviche cooks the outside a little bit, but worth the precautionary step.

Sweet egg - Ok, I forgot to make the sweet egg which is just sweet scrambled eggs cut in rectangle shapes, but I am making another bowl today with the leftovers and that will have them. The sweetness really offsets the soy and wasabi nicely.

Imitation Crab Meat - I bought the sticks because I wanted to make some rolls with it as well. Shredded works good too. These are just meant to look good and are fun to eat. But in reality, they are just colored sticks of gelatin! lol

Veggies - I sliced carrots, English cucumbers. and pickled sushi ginger. Also made a cucumber salad with soy, chile oil, ginger powder, shallots, a little ranch, and a dousing of my everything bagel blend on top. This was my daughter's favorite part of the meal.

Sushi Rice - My brother recently bought me a Zojirushi Induction Rice Cooker. The most amazing rice cooker I have ever used. And it keeps the rice at 160 deg F for 99 hours, which is awesome. Anyhow, it caters to sushi rice and I always add a bit of sugar and rice wine vinegar to ensure I have plenty of flavor and stickiness.

Soy sauce & wasabi - Well, we Americans can't seem to eat sushi without a big dose of soy and wasabi, with some saki to wash it all down. In Japan, soy and wasabi are not common. But then again, they aren't getting their raw fish from Walmart either! lol
Wasabi in a tube is wasabi root and horseradish. I didn't realize this til I bought some expensive wabi root powder one time. It had none of the sinus-clearing properties of my favorite sushi wasabi's and didn't mix up like I thought it would. Found it good for making wasabi mashed potatoes though.

You can also add sprouts of various sorts to these bowls, real crab, shrimp, unagi, eel, etc. (That new packaged eel I found at IGA is really good but it was frozen and I wanted to get after it right away. But usually, unless I am craving something specific, I just go with what's at the store and reasonably priced. I actually purchased all of these proteins at Safeway. They often have good meat and seafood prices/ deals.

Official chirashi bowl definition: A chirashi bowl is a Japanese "scattered sushi" dish featuring a variety of fresh sashimi (raw fish), cooked ingredients like omelet, and garnishes artfully arranged over seasoned sushi rice in a bowl, offering a deconstructed, customizable sushi experience perfect for home or special occasions.

Attached Files

**Breslinbbq** · January 26, 2026, 05:51 PM

Snowy weather cooking. Ham and Bean soup and French Onion dip from scratch.

**TripleB** · January 27, 2026, 12:00 PM

A large Dutch oven filled with goodness.

Chicken n' Dumplings. The dumplings were soft, pillowy mounds of deliciousness. And underneath the dumplings is a rich, golden broth that is silky smooth with large torn pieces of chicken with celery and carrots.

This is my daughter's favorite meal and we had her and her boyfriend over for dinner last night.

**58limited** · January 27, 2026, 12:38 PM

Chicken Korma

**theroc** · January 27, 2026, 03:58 PM

Grilled picanha over oak live fire. Chimichurri and baked potato on the side.

**Mosca** · January 27, 2026, 05:39 PM

I took all the leftovers from my January Big Snow Storm Thanksgiving dinner: mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, turkey, beans, creamed corn, mushrooms, walnuts; and put it all into a pot with carrots and celery and made Thanksgiving dump soup.

**Michael_in_TX** · January 27, 2026, 08:32 PM

Clearly, it is soup weather. I like a good, thick soup and my go-to soup is Sam the Cooking Guy's Chicken Enchilada. It is impressively flavorful and comes together very quickly.

Normally I do this by grilling my own chicken thighs, but we've still got one more night of freezing weather, so I picked up a mesquite rotisserie chicken at HEB. (As it turns out, the temperature didn't get below 50 F until after sunset, so I probably could have grilled just fine.)

I actually had a bit of a surprise when I went to go shred the chicken. I bought the rotisserie chicken based on weight (I wanted a lot of chicken, I guess). When I opened it up I had a mild crisis of reason. How....what.....how are there four legs in here? Chickens only have....two!!

Picking up the mutant chicken, I quickly realized what I was dealing with. This wasn't a rotisserie chicken, it was four chicken leg quarters! I was briefly annoyed for a moment, then realized....wait...all dark meat? Yes, please. Thank you HEB.

As I said, the soup comes together extremely quickly. In some oil, sauté a diced yellow onion, two diced jalapeños, and one diced serrano in a pot until softened. Add in 3-4 cloves of minced garlic, let get fragrant.....

Then add in a tablespoon each of smoked paprika, garlic powder, and chipotle chile powder. Get everything mixed up then add in 32 oz of chicken stock, a can of Rotel, and a can of red enchilada sauce. Bring to a boil.

While it is heating up, mix one cup of white corn masa with two cups of water until well blended. When the soup is at a mild boil, pour and stir in the masa mixture. Stir until the soup thickens, about a minute. (The masa thickening trick is really snazzy, I think.) Finally, add in the shredded chicken. Let it heat through.

Taste. I usually add three strong pinches of kosher salt and a generous amount of ground black pepper.

All that is left is to plate it up. I like two large ladlefuls in a bowl, with some tortilla chips and a generous dollop of homemade guac (avocado mixed with lime juice and a bit of salt), some cheese, and a drizzle of El Yucateco.

A quick, easy, flavorful soup.

**Richard Chrz** · January 28, 2026, 06:10 PM

Pan seared - oven baked salmon. Made a batch of tabbouleh, and rancho gordo garbanzo and collard greens curry.

**texastweeter** · January 28, 2026, 07:06 PM

Rippers.

**RichieB** · January 28, 2026, 07:31 PM

I did something I have never done. Nancy asked for ribs. I pulled a rack of St. Louis out of the freezer. With the recent snow and temperatures in the single digits, I opted for the oven. I seasoned it last night with Meatheads Pork Rub/Brine. Wrapped in foil and in the oven at 275ish, 4 hours. The IT was 203. The oven off and back in wrapped. When ready to eat, I took the foil off. Set up to broil for about 4 minutes to get a crust.
Nancy said they were the best I ever made. Yes, taste Meatheads rub, moist and fall off the bone is an understatement. Getting from pan to cutting board was a challenge. My take is as good as they were, they had a different character. No smoke, of course, and I never wrap ribs. I'll do it again, but only is this type of weather as I am a wimp.

**BKYDBBQ** · January 28, 2026, 07:32 PM

The latest cold weather crock-pot meal...Sloppy Joe's and tater tots on white bread topped with provolone cheese ( I always go for the fancy bread)...

**Hedgehog BBQ** · January 29, 2026, 11:39 AM

meatloaf, green beans, mashed potatoes.

Attached Files

**ecowper** · January 29, 2026, 12:24 PM

Man, I forgot how much I like one pot (or close to it) meals cooked in a Saucier ..... Made Piccadillo for dinner last night. Very tasty, very cuban :-)