C. sapidus

Everyone is making tons of beautiful and interesting food, but the two dishes that jumped out and said “eat me” (in a good way ) were johnnyd’s lamb and deensiebat’s swiss chard and goat cheese quiche. Okanagancook, welcome! Your Afghani meal looks delicious, and I hope you will share more of your cooking. Grilled chicken marinated with oyster sauce, soy sauce, garlic, sugar, and black pepper (gai yang), served with coconut rice and sweet chile sauce. Mrs. C prepared assorted vegetables, including what may be the last of this summer’s particularly glorious tomato crop.

Camarones enchipotlados (shrimp in chile sauce, a different version than that posted upthread): We pureed ancho, guajillo, and chipotle chiles with roasted garden tomatoes, garlic, freshly-ground allspice, and Mexican oregano, and then simmered the sauce until the fat separated. The shrimp were brined, briefly sauteed, and then cooked through with the sauce, swirling in butter to finish. Probably the best-textured shrimp I have ever made. Recipe adapted from Zarela’s Veracruz. Served with corn and arroz blanco, enhanced with roasted, home-grown Poblano chiles.

Grilled five-spice chicken thighs; bean sprout pork with corn; eternal cukes; and jasmine rice. Renovations are winding down (not done, though), so it is a great pleasure to be cooking again.

Those tomatoes look fabulous. So does the dinner. Are you cooking again in a newly renovated kitchen? ← Thank you, Donna! No, the kitchen (renovated four years ago) is one of the few un-renovated rooms in the house. All of our pantry space has been disrupted, and I threw in the towel after spending several days trying to find a 20-pound bag of rice. Since then, my cooking has been mostly limited to grilled meats and garden salads. Mrs. C handles chaos much better than I do, so she has been the main cook lately. She continued the tomato theme tonight, making scrumptious BLTs and a delicious gazpacho (I should have taken a picture).

Tonight’s dinner was all about fresh-from-the-garden tomatoes. Beautiful heirloom beefsteak tomatoes with salt and pepper; chayote sauteed with tomatoes, chiles, and garlic (sprinkled with feta cheese); and grilled chicken marinated with curry powder, hoisin sauce, soy sauce, oil, rice vinegar, and maybe a few other things (but no tomatoes).

Still renovating the house, so I am enjoying everyone’s lovely meals. Mrs. C made BLTs with heirloom beefsteak tomatoes from the garden, I whisked up Sriracha mayonnaise, and the extended family made a nearly two pounds of thick-cut bacon disappear. We also enjoyed homemade borscht, kindly provided by our Russian friends.

Our tomatoes have been spectacular this year, especially an heirloom beefsteak (can't remember which one, unfortunately). Not much time to cook this summer so I have been obsessed with tomato sandwiches. Thick slices of salted tomato, whatever cheese is available, whatever meat is available, lettuce if not scary, potato bread, and a dressing of mayonnaise, Sriracha, and fish sauce or Maggi sauce. Good for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

Mike, we have been very happy with the Ikea cabinets that we installed in the kitchen four years ago. Ikea uses the same cabinet hardware as many high-end (and high-priced) cabinet manufacturers. Kitchen pictures and reams of information scattered throughout my foodblog (particularly Post #149) and on Kitchen remodeling, see what others have recently done (click for Post #23). Good luck with your renovation!

Shelby: aww, thanks! Fourty-five plants must produce a staggering amount of tomatoes, because nine plants used to keep our family of five well-supplied. I particularly liked the look of your meal with ribs and stuffed peppers. Mmmm . . . DoctorTim: Thank you! I hope you do break out the spices, and I look forward to seeing your inviting Indian meals again. PercyN: Kohlapuri fish sounds delicious, thanks for the tip. We returned from a week at the Outer Banks (where we did a fair amount of cooking), and immediately started tearing up our house (again). The kitchen is mostly intact, but kitchen stuff is boxed up, walls are missing, and large chunks of the house are without water or electricity. Not sure when I will be rejoining Dinner!, but in the meantime I am definitely enjoying all of the gorgeous meals that everyone is posting. I am also delighted to see some to see some very talented cooks and photographers posting again.

Your reputation precedes you. If I knew you were cooking, I'd be tempted to crash the party myself. Donna, thank you very much. Trust me, the cooking was a mere sideshow. Flattery may not get you everywhere, but it will get you a recipe for Kolhapuri chicken (clicky). I hope you enjoy it, but you may wish to reduce the amount of chile powder. We did, and it was still pretty potent.

Crazy dinner, planned for five but thirteen showed up (including several 6-foot plus teenage boys). We made Kholkapuri chicken, a ton of rice, and whatever else we could throw together in desperation.

From the Compressed Gas Association:

EmilyR, thank you very much. You have pretty much described the recipe, which is extremely simple. If the eggplant might be bitter, salt and drain it before cooking. Cook the eggplant about 12 inches from the broiler until it has achieved the degree of crispiness and creaminess that you like, brushing with olive oil every once in a while. Maybe 20 minutes total? I prefer broiling to grilling, because broiling keeps all the olive oil from dripping out (this is probably not low-calorie ). I am away from my cookbooks for a few days, but I think the recipe is in Marcella's Italian Kitchen. Alinka, all of your food looks fabulous, but that borscht is calling to me. Kim, those skewers sound really good.

Thank you, Kim, you are too kind! Mrs. C made most of tonight’s dinner, so I grilled (broiled) eggplant a la Marcella, with garlic, rosemary, pepper, and lots of olive oil.

Prawn and menuinprogress, those are gorgeous steaks, but beef rendang and fish-fragrant eggplant would make a pretty ultimate meal for me. A simple meal with a remarkably high ratio of enjoyment to effort: Thai grilled chicken (gai yang), jasmine rice, sweet chile sauce, and a salad plate of lettuce, eternal cucumbers, mint, cilantro, lime wedges, and various basils from the garden. The chicken was marinated with oyster sauce, chopped lemongrass, garlic, soy sauce, sugar, salt, and black pepper. Wrapping a lettuce leaf around the chicken, herbs, cucumber, rice, and sweet chile sauce yielded a glorious medley of flavors and textures. Sticky rice (and perhaps green papaya salad) would have been traditional accompaniments for the chicken, but the necessary planning and foresight were sadly lacking.

You chose well. Bricklayer’s eggs (huevos al albanil) with shaved parmesan cheese, Mexican oregano, and Cholula hot sauce, served on a toasted multigrain English muffin. Pasilla chiles definitely make my list of favorite things. ← how do you make those?They look delicious! ← nikkib, thank you very much. Google is failing me, but the recipe is from Diana Kennedy’s wonderful tome The Art of Mexican Cooking. I can send you a PM if you like, but here is the general idea. Toast pasilla and guajillo chiles (8 chiles for 5 eggs) and soak in boiling water until soft. Add soaked chiles to a blender with a few cloves of garlic, a similar amount of chopped white onion, and just enough water to release the blades. Blend until reasonably smooth. Heat oil or lard in a frying pan, add sauce and salt, and reduce the sauce over high heat until nearly all of the water is gone (extra water will make your tortillas soggy). Reduce the heat, stir in eggs and salt, and cook until done. Serve on tortillas with your choice of toppings (chopped white onion, queso fresco / queso anejo / shaved parmesan cheese, hot salsa, and /or my favorite – crumbled Mexican oregano). I hope you like it.

PercyN, mmm, spicy shrimp and fried rice, one of my favorites. Did you buy your dandelion greens, or were they home-grown? Father’s Day in the kitchen with 50 Great Curries of India . . . Chicken and cashews in black spices: Grated coconut, garlic, ginger, coriander, cumin, red chiles, cloves, cinnamon, cashews, and onions, browned in a dry skillet, pureed in the Preethi, and then fried. I should have browned more aggressively; even so, I discovered a new favorite kitchen fragrance. The family loved the chicken. Lemon rice: Turmeric rice, cooled and then stir-fried with green chile, mustard seed, soaked cashews, curry leaves, and lemon juice. Another great option for leftover rice. Green chutney: We forgot to get cilantro at the store, so I made this with mint, green chile, lemon juice, sugar, cumin, and cashews. Grilled yellow squash, courtesy of Mrs. C.

Unscrew two thumb screws, open two latches, and everything comes apart easily. You can run the parts through the dishwasher or wipe everything down with a kitchen cleaner. Not my favorite activity in the world, but way better than cleaning stubborn oily gunk from kitchen cabinets.

We have been very happy with Vent-A-Hood (click). Ours does a nice job of controlling grease from a 6-burner BlueStar rangetop. I can't remember the price, but I think it was in the ballpark of your preferred limit. Vent-A-Hood controls grease with centrifugal force rather than a filter, so their hoods provide more exhaust for the same number of CFMs compared with most competing models. Not sure about availability of remote blowers, but the filterless design is relatively quiet. Good luck on your project.

The family would state unequivocally that I cook (too) slowly. Truth is that I can produce a meal quickly when necessary, especially on those relatively rare occasions when I repeat a dish. Breakneck speed can be exhilarating, but lingering slowly over each step provides a much deeper satisfaction. This is also true for other pleasurable activities.

Another half-arsed edible garden for us this year: four tomato plants; three chiles; and lots of basil. I plan to sow arugula seeds in late summer. Mrs. C is growing rhubarb and delicious strawberries in a plastic horse trough. Chives in a pot, and two dwarf citrus trees indoors. Lots of brambles in the woods -- Mrs. C brought in a handful of sweet berries tonight. Meanwhile, I am scheming to make a series of four-foot-wide raised beds for vegetables. First, I need to convince Mrs. C to tolerate my chopping down a ridiculously large Norway spruce that some, um, non-gardener planted in the dead-South corner of the back yard long before we moved in.

I see much camarones a la diabla in your future. To use up the rest, Rick Bayless has a jones for various chipotle salsas, especially with tomatillos. Chipotle ice cream?

Don't think I haven't been tempted. But no, the price would be too high. Ahh, a beautiful flower, and I miss the smell -- we left Abe behind at the old house. Our dining room table: a vase of flowers; a couple of potholders; a map; information about an upcoming Boy Scout camping trip; and a box of TableTopics cards. These have questions like "How is your family different from other families and does it bother you?", "Would you go to school if it were your choice?" and an eGullet-friendly question: "What would be on the menu for your ultimate birthday dinner?" These cards have triggered some fascinating family conversations. Just before dinner, most of the shite on the dining room table gets transferred to a sideboard at the far end of the dining room.

Donna, thanks for sharing that dish. It sounds like old-school (pre-New World chiles) Thai cooking. Chicken gaprow / krapao / kaprow / grapao / kapow with Thai basil. Yard-long beans parboiled and stir-fried with garlic, fermented soybean paste, and fish sauce (Mrs. C did a great job stir-frying the beans). Jasmine rice, jazzed up with a smidge of brown sugar and salt.

Improvised sorta-Mexican dinner tonight: I coated flank steak with a paste of roasted ancho chiles, roasted garlic, Mexican oregano, cumin, and cider vinegar. We grilled the steak to medium-rare, sliced thinly, and served with steamed store-bought corn tortillas. Sides and fixings included fried plantains with tangy Mexican sour cream, fried onions, and guacamole with roasted garlic, jalapeno, and lime juice. Mrs. C loved the guacamole, so I will make it again with roasted garlic. I was planning to make Jaymes’ salsa, but elder son picked out a two-pack of Chi-Chi’s salsa so that’s what we had. Quoth elder son: “I could drink that stuff.” To introduce the culture clash element that has been sadly missing from our meals of late, I marinated a tuna steak with soy sauce, black soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil, chile oil, and a little sugar. I grilled the tuna steak very rare for Mrs. C, who was craving seafood. Younger son had some, too. I spent the afternoon wrestling with recalcitrant gutters, so no energy left for pictures.