purplewiz
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Posts posted by purplewiz
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A very prosaic dinner tonight: sausage zucchini casserole and wilted spinach salad:
Not beautiful, but satisfying.
Marcia.
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Marcia, I've been meaning to tell you that I made your Calabacitas recipe you posted a few weeks back over the weekend, with some chicken enchiladas verdes. It was DYNAMITE ! Thank you so much for sharing that, its a keeper for sure, and I will absolutely be making it again.
I'm so glad to hear it worked well for you!
Marcia.
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I only know one former chef (although he would say cook, we banter about this!) who once made me one of my food fantasy meals (all in public, sheesh!).
I always make brownies when he's in town. He loves them.
If I were having serious chefs to dinner, I'd probably do what I do when I have anyone over to dinner: keep it simple. Grill meats, roast cauliflower, make a salad, use some interesting spices that I know work well with whatever I'm serving.
The dinner I worried about the most wasn't about the food...it was about the wine when we had a winemaker friend and his wife staying with us. I don't have an extensive wine cellar (it's a rack in the basement so I can call it a wine cellar!), but fortunately I had been putting down some pretty good cabernets over the years. He declared it quite drinkable and gave me some advice on the other wines I had.
Marcia.
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I couldn't find it in Recipe Gullet, and for the very life of me I have not been able to find the thread on it here through either search. It's been a long week.
I have a hardcopy of the recipe, it's from the New York Times on March 30, 2005. The title of the recipe is "Sauteed broccoli with toasted garlic, orange, and sesame". Unfortunately, the recipe is not available in the NY Times site without paying for the article.
Here's someone who did a riff on the original recipe, similar to what I do (right down to the jarred garlic) (shoot me if you must).
I'm not sure if it would be ok to put this into RecipeGullet - it seems to fall into one of those gray areas.
But it's really good.
Marcia.
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I couldn't think of a thing I wanted to cook for dinner tonight, so I decided to try a chicken satay recipe from this week's food section that looked pretty good:
The marinade was good, the technique was fine, the peanut sauce was lacking lots. But after I doctored it up it was quite tasty. Served alongside is the orange-oyster sauce broccoli that was making the rounds around here awhile ago (and it's still darned tasty).
SeaGal, you are by no means the only one whose dinners don't always turn out as planned...if I had a dime for every meal that needed help, I'd be eating out a LOT (on someone else's dime....
)Marcia.
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Seems like I'm posting steak dinners a lot. Probably because I'm cooking them a lot. I've got a lot of other stuff going on, chuck eye steaks have been on sale a lot, and they're fast to cook. And they are reasonably photogenic (which dinners like the night before last's curry are not).
This time the chuck eye was just rubbed with Penzey's Northwoods seasoning, and served with zucchini and mushroom kabobs which were marinated in balsamic vinegar, olive oil, garlic, and salt.
Marcia.
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We found some gorgeous yellowfin tuna over the weekend; some of us had it sashimi style; my sweetie wanted his pan-seared.
Sesame Crusted Pan Seared Yellowfin Tuna with Sesame Wasabi Dressing
That tuna is simply beautiful!
Marcia.
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Dinner report!
here are the eggplant slices. Baked in the oven instead of fried, which certainly makes them much less greasy. Then drizzled with a pomegranate/lemon juice/olive oil/garlic dressing..
Eggplants keep going on sale and I keep running out of good ideas for what to do with them, and then your blog comes along with this! What a great idea! I'll have to give it a whirl.
Thanks for the virtual adventure this week...I've been reading along but haven't had time to comment so I wanted to make sure to do so now!
Marcia.
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Today was the first day that felt like summer (we don't really have Spring around here, we have winter days interspersed with summer days, and when there are more summer days than winter, it's officially summer), so I cooked a very summery dinner:
Herb crusted chuck eye steaks done on the grill, finished with lavender salt, olive oil, and lemon, the first decent looking corn on the cob (and it was more than just decent looking, it was downright sweet and tender), and a pickle. Tossed salad on the side not shown.
(I had my new permanent crown installed on my tooth yesterday, and my, it did feel good to chew on *both* sides of my mouth!)
Marcia.
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Purplewiz, your Carne Adovada looks wonderful. New Mexican cuisine is very unfamiliar to me. Are there any flavorings other than chilies and garlic?
It's chiles, garlic, onion, cumin, chicken stock, vinegar, ground coriander, and salt. These are all pretty much staples in New Mexican/Border cuisine. The pork cubes slow cook in the sauce until they're falling apart.
Profiteroles with Vanilla Ice Cream and Chocolate Sauce
Those are so beautiful...gads, one would be so perfect just about now!
Pimento Cheese burger from the May 2007 issue of Cuisine at Home:
After seeing the recipe in the magazine, I wondered how they would be. Yours look absolutely fantastic!
Marcia.
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Chipotle cheddar and spam souffle from a couple nights ago. It got a little done on top (but then I think the crusts on souffles are among the best parts!), but the texture inside was just about perfect.
Sopa de ajo from "The Border Cookbook". The basic soup was good, but as it was simmering the chipotle chile the recipe called for was starting to overwhelm the garlic. I removed the chile and adjusted a few things, and came up with a soup we really liked.
New Mexico Carne Adovada, also from "The Border Cookbook". My camera just didn't capture the rich, dark, glorious red color of this chile sauce. It was my first time through this recipe and I made a few minor errors (like the chiles may have looked fully pureed, but there were more pieces than I prefer), but the flavor was outstanding.
Marcia.
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I've tried the horizontal cuts method. It's been my experience it only works well if you have a trained professional knife sharpener at your beck and call because unless the knife was just off a full sharpening, it never cut cleanly. I've always done the let the odd shapes fall where they may, they're close enough and no one is going to care as long as it tastes good method.
For really fine dice: I peel, remove the ends, slice it in half the long way, and then slice very very thin half rounds. Then one or two at a time I slice perpendicular to the layers, changing the angle of the knife as I cut around the crescent. I get a result I'm most pleased with and while it may take a bit longer, I can do it pretty quickly now.
Marcia.
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I thought of this topic when I ripped open the bag of frozen peas tonight....I just cooked them and tossed them with some cilantro mint pesto I also had in the freezer. The combination was delicious.
Marcia.
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Back to front: stirfried oyster mushrooms with ginger and soysauce, boiled zucchini with sesame dressing, and mackerel & leeks simmered in red miso.
Klary, could you please tell me what's in the sesame dressing? I love zucchini and I'm always looking for new ways to serve it, and that looks positively wonderful!
Marcia.
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Curry grilled chicken over sauteed garlic lemon spinach and peas with cilantro mint pesto:
It's only after I put the camera away that I realized that I forgot to put the dollop of yogurt on top. Added it later and it was good
.Marcia.
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I've been reading your blog and enjoying it very much - I'm sorry to see it come to an end. One of the many reasons I enjoyed it is that so many of the dishes you made are things that I have no idea what they would taste like, or even where I would start to find the ingredients around here. I love adventures like that, and thank you for sharing a week of your life with us.
Marcia.
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It's from Smithy's foodblog. I've been making it semi-regularly ever since it was posted - it's a great base for things like kabobs or stews and the like, or good on its own instead of mashed potatoes. And you can use all different kinds of cheeses in it. I especially like it when the eggplant is grilled - it adds a really nice smoky flavor.
Marcia.
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Grilled beef kabobs, served over creamed eggplant with a coriander-yogurt sauce on top:
Marcia.
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Cooked peas, butter, curry powder, feta cheese crumbles. Add some cooked cauliflower if you have some (or defrost/cook some). This dish has gone over like gangbusters at potlucks.
If you have some of Penzey's Ozark seasoning, it seems to be made to go with peas. Once again it's peas, butter, and Ozark seasoning to taste.
I'm also with the pea puree crowd. When I've served this people have looked at it like an exotic vegetable or something. Makes a nice bed/platform for grilled meats, too.
Marcia.
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The only thing I can think of that's taboo for breakfast for me is anything I can't choke down. The earlier the hour, the longer that list is. I am NOT a morning person.
My stomach is not good about accepting food early in the morning. When I was going to high school I ate breakfast about 6:30 am, and about the only thing that would sit well was was cereal. (If I didn't eat, I'd be ravenous by about 10 am...middle of classes.) It was simple and sweet. So that's why cereal became my breakfast of choice.
But if we're talking a late breakfast at 10:30am, or better yet, brunch at 12:30, I say bring it on!
Marcia.
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Purplewiz -- Those calabacitas look amazing -- would you share the recipe you came up with? I'm drooling!
Emily
I've entered the recipe (such as it is; lots of room to improvise!) into RecipeGullet: Calabacitas
Marcia.
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Calabacitas
Serves 4 as Side.
I put this recipe for calabacitas together from several I found in cookbooks and online, trying to recreate the version I had at a buffet in New Mexico. Calabacitas are a lot like potato salad: everyone has their own individual variation, and most are good. As such, measurements are VERY approximate.
- 3 zucchini or yellow crookneck squash, in 3/4" dice
- 1/2 onion, diced
- 2 T oil
- 2 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
- 1/2 c chopped green chiles, hot or mild
- 14-1/2 oz can of diced tomatoes, drained well
- 1/2 c frozen corn kernels
- 1 c grated cheddar cheese
- 1/2 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp oregano
- 1/4 tsp ground black pepper
- salt to taste
Preheat oven to 400F. Grease an 8" x 8" baking dish.
Heat a large skillet over medium heat. Add the oil, zucchini, and onion, and saute until squash is just barely softened. Add the garlic, cumin, and oregano, and saute another 30 seconds. Turn off the heat, stir in the corn, tomatoes, cheese, pepper, and salt.
Pour the mixture into the baking dish and bake for 20 minutes. Serve.
(You can use fresh tomatoes or frozen/canned chiles or canned corn or add more corn or garlic - it's very, very forgiving.)
There's a picture of the completed dish served here.
Keywords: Side, Vegetarian, Easy
( RG1964 )
- 3 zucchini or yellow crookneck squash, in 3/4" dice
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Pork adovada (topped with cheese) and calabacitas. I was trying to recreate the calabacitas I had recently in New Mexico, and I came very close.
Marcia.
! Those look amazing!
Cooking with Beer
in Cooking
Posted
Beer is the only thing I've found that made browned ground turkey taste like anything other than packing peanuts. After browning/cooking the ground turkey, I used to throw in a half a bottle of beer and then simmer until it was almost dry. The complex carbons in the beer made the ground turkey taste like something.
Then there's quick beer bread. 3 cups self-rising flour (you can substitute Bisquick), 3 tsp sugar, 1 bottle of beer. Grease loaf pan, pour the mess in, bake at 350F until a toothpick comes out clean (about an hour, give or take). (Ok, preheat your oven first.) (as opposed to last) (but I digress). Let cool, slice.
The variety of beer you use in this bread determines the final character. A lager like Corona will give you something light and without a strong beer flavor, perfect for an herb cheese bread (stir in a cup of grated cheese and 3 tbsp of your favorite dried herbs before baking). A stout gives a much heartier loaf, almost like a whole wheat in flavor.
Friends of mine also used to make a beer ham. One small canned ham or one of those half hams, one bottle of beer, a couple tbsp of brown sugar and a shake of ground cloves. Everything into the crockpot and cook all day. It made a very interesting sauce and the ham was a combination of salty, sweet, and bitter from the beer. (It'd probably work just fine with a better ham, but no one had a lot of money back then.)
Marcia.