One of the nice things about these Precipes is they give you an idea of what all my recipes would look like if I weren't actually blogging about them.

Case in point, these short ribs. Costco had boneless beef short ribs today, and it's another one of those cuts of meat that I done seen on the teevee, but had never cooked with. They were reasonably priced and looked good, so they came home with me.  I knew they were often braised, and I have a pretty successful Generic European Stew/Braise thing worked out, so I had my plan.

It's the usual semi-crazy holiday week, compounded by Cathy being in California. This does strange and peculiar things to my cooking schedule, but certain things have been accomplished, some I even planned to write about at the time before circumstances interfered.

Monday was gaming night, at Drew's, and I just brought the last of the Chinese BBQ Pork for sharing. People seemed to like it.

Me, September 28:

"Chinese barbecued pork is one of the greatest meat products or byproducts known to man. Even more so because I can't make it, and I can't even buy it that easily."

My kitchen, yesterday:

So last weekend, I went to Pei Wei Asian Diner with my parents. If you don't know Pei Wei, it's a counter-service Asian restaurant run by the PF Chang people, and while I would never, ever set foot in a PF Chang, I'm fine with Pei Wei. I should do a post on it at some point, in fact.

Anyway, we're standing there, perusing the sideways flat screens displaying the menus, chock full of noodle dishes and pan-Asian stir-fries, when a manager-looking dude comes up to us and asks how many of us there are, and if we've been there before.

See that? I saw that on Ruhlman's blog.

That's an immersion circiulator for the home. The first proper home-kitchen sous vide tool.

I'm a big fan of a lot of the prepared foods at Trader Joe's. It tends to strike a nice balance along the price, taste, and health axes. So when, a couple of weeks back, I found a twelve ounce bag of pork al pastor in their freezer case, I was pretty excited.

I love me some pork al pastor. A little smoky, a little spicy, a little crispy, a little fatty. It's one of my favorite toppings at Taqueria Los Ocampos. I've tried to make it myself, with some success, but it's a bit fussy. So if Trader Joe's managed to come up with a decent frozen version, it'd be very useful.

A few weeks ago, I told you what to do if you wanted a lamb curry, but only had about half an hour to make it. And that's all well and good.

As has been painfully obvious since I started Forkbastard, I am on a quest. A noble quest. A quest to stuff as many different things into taco shells as I can. OK, it's a noble, filthy-sounding quest. But a quest nonetheless.

This is not carne asada. At least, I'm pretty sure it's not. However, a few years ago, at a Lake St. taqueria that may not even exist anymore, I ordered one carne asada taco, and what I got was lightly seasoned, very very browned ground beef and onions, and it was delicious. So I've been trying to make it for a while.

I have been known, occasionally, to do what Sandra Lee would call "semi-home-made".

The thing is, one of the greatest of Sandra Lee's many great, great crimes is to take the concept of embellishing convenience foods with real ingredients and completely discredit it by being a horrible pile of fake person who uses the time she saves for hideous table decoration.