I'm gonna be real with y'all, I'm having some struggles.  That much was pretty clear after like 5 minutes of thinking about it (usually is!).  I'll be alright, butttttt the usual protocol is to blog a little more often when I notice this kind of thing, so here we are.

Thanksgiving was pretty chill this year.  Last time around I prepped a veritable feast, with marinated skirt steak, teriyaki roast quail, stuffed jalapenos, roast brussel sprouts, and a mushroom/bacon thing too I think.  This year I took it "easier" in a way and harder in a way and "just" made some shoyu tonkotsu ramen.  Been a long while since last time so it was a good opportunity.

Ramen turned out ok, definitely not my best, but I think every time I learn a little bit more that I can tweak.  I made a few changes for the broth this time -- one was doing a pre-roast of the bones instead of the soak-and-blanch that I usually do.  I don't really think I could discern that much of a difference that could be attributed to that, so I get the feeling that it's mainly a matter of preference and I think the bone roast is actually easier; it's less active time and generally requires less cleaning and easier to just do it all in a big batch.

Another big changeup was that I immersion-blended the broth after straining it.  Becomes =almost= weirdly-too emulsified, takes on an almost-milky look (if you did it in a countertop blender you'd probably only want to blend a small portion).  After freezing the broth, the difference here was actually pretty apparent -- the emulsion wasn't =completely= stable and there was still a top layer of fat sitting on top, but the rest of the broth was significantly whiter in color due to the fats being emulsified better.  Normally I get a bigger layer of fat on top and then all the broth on the bottom, which isn't necessarily like a huge deal, you just boil it all together anyways and it's not that much of a difference (added bonus, it's easier to control the amount of fat in the final product if you'd like), but I'd like to think that the better emulsion is generally what I want to shoot for here.

Did notice that the broth was in general a little less intense / thick / aromatic.  Part of this is probably just that I was a little stingy on the tare...I was doing a new serving method where I add the tare directly to the broth instead of trying to measure everything into individual bowls, which I think also was a good success (but of course only works if you're making the same soup for everyone).  But I also think the broth itself maybe just needed to either reduce more, or I needed to just use a higher ratio of pork bones to end-product.  I mean, it's not the worst to err on the side of less bones -- stretches the broth out more and you have to pay less in the end -- but I think I =was= using less than the recommended amount, so that's a change I'll have to keep in mind for next time.

For this batch of broth I =could= actually just play around with reducing it a little more and in theory that should have the same effect, so I might try that next time.  Like if I serve for 3 people I could take my 2 containers of 2 servings each and then reduce the 4 servings down to 3.  It'll be a little hard to kinda measure that precisely but I guess it doesn't necessarily have to be precise either.

While we're on the subject of cooking, I've been making some more attempts at understanding saag/palaak paneer a little more, as well.  I'm definitely still iterating on my technique there, and kind of pleased with my results so far.  I've found that some of my previous attempts, while tasty, have definitely been missing out on a level of richness / flavor compared to versions I've tasted.  One other issue is that in order to get the spinach/veggies to really blend smoothly I end up having to end up adding a bunch of water, otherwise my stick blender just can't handle it.  One of the downsides of not having a proper countertop blender, but I also just don't like dealing with those...

Anyways, I think I'm going back to erring on the side of adding not as much water and just living with a little bit coarser of a consistency as opposed to something that's as smooth.  In addition I'm kinda moving from pure palaak paneer (spinach only) to more of a saag (leafy greens mixture, esp mustard greens).  This past time I used fresh mustard greens and it really added a different note to the flavor (as you would expect), one that I kinda liked.  The other thing I'd like to try (besides just continually amping up all the spices, which I've already done) is to just use a really big chunk of butter to make the tadka or flavor / oil base for it (which I'm now doing as a separate step), but unfortunately we were completely out of butter today, so that will have to wait until next time.

Which...who know, may not actually be in that long of a time?  With the struggles I mentioned at the beginning of this post, one thing I sometimes try to do when I'm in a bad place and need to kick some good habits into gear is to try and eat a little lighter and a little healthier, and vegetarian meals generally fit into that picture.  I'll have to think of some nice meals that I can do over the next week or two that align with that -- probably be sticking to more brown rice (which we've already been doing anyways), but I'll have to think about dishes as well.  I can make mapo tofu vegetarian, but it's not really that light of a dish.....maybe something more just like mushroom stir fries, or chinese chives with tofu or something.  I'll have to figure it out.

Looks like I'm going to bed late again, mreh.  I did "eh" today.  The cooking and all went okay, I finished another letter (started on one of the last ones, too), even did a small bit of work on Rhythm Quest (though maybe not quite enough).  I did some online shopping, handled OHC and my Monthlies release, and probably the biggest win of the day was just sitting down and realizing that I'm in not a great spot.

I won't drill into it in too much detail, but a lot of it had to do with feelings I'd already been aware of for the past few days.  Little bit of depression here, loneliness there, hopelessness in some amount as well.  But up until now I had kind of just been running on "survival mode" in that regard, like I knew I wasn't doing well but I was trying to just see if I could make it day to day and just keep on walking forward despite those pains, because I didn't really know what to do about them.  Now it's more like, okay let's actually try and get things back on track.  Nothing =huge= or drastic, just like little things here and there.  It's a mindset thing.

Well, wish me luck, I guess?  I should be showing up here a little more often in the coming days...