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ElainaA

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  1. ElainaA

    Dinner 2016 (Part 2)

    I continue my exploration of Lynne Rossetto Kasper's The Italian Country Table. (I do have a tendency to become obsessed with a cookbook. This particular obsession is making my very Italian husband very, very happy. ) Last night was "Baking Day Chicken" (in this book many recipes have less than clearly descriptive names) which is chicken thighs rubbed with herbs, garlic,onion, chopped endive and olive oil, allowed to sit in the refrigerator overnight then baked with sweet red pepper, tomato, olives and white wine. Chicken broth and more white wine added to the pan juices and cooked down for a sauce. Very good. Some potatoes simmered in white wine, water and herbs to go with it. And a salad. We just about always have a salad. Wednesday night: "Calamari Mixed Grill" - calamari, sweet red pepper (it was supposed to be yellow but the yellow peppers in my supermarket were almost green), red onion, garlic, parsley and hot pepper. It was supposed to be grilled but it was about 15 degrees F here last night so I took the alternative of a sauté pan. This was less successful. The pan was too small so the calamari didn't cook as quickly as it needed to - I should have done it in 2 batches - and got a bit rubbery. I think it also should have had more hot pepper. I made a spinach risotto to go with and, of course, a salad - this time just some greens (endive, radicchio and romaine) and red onion.
  2. @Anna N They look beautiful!
  3. Tere - What a plethora of riches! What you already have would be wonderful and your wish list is exciting. I have had no luck with fruit trees except for the 'gone wild' apples sprinkled across our land. When we first moved here we planted plums and sour cherries - all of which succumbed to some insect pest within a few years. I decided to concentrate on veggies and flowers with the exception of a prolific raspberry bed. Seed catalogs are especially seductive in winter. When it is 15 degrees F outside, windy and snowy, I may find myself transfixed by the lettuce pages in the catalog from Johnny's, muttering "I want all of these. I need them." Michael Pollen has a great essay in the Winter section of Second Nature titled "Made wild by pompous catalogs" on this. Personally, I think it's a perfect way to fight seasonal affective disorders.
  4. @Tere That sounds like a great garden! And you probably already know that in spite of those dates on the seeds envelopes, most seeds are viable for 2 -3 years or longer. So just put the excess away for the next year. Store them carefully though - one spring i went to check the seeds I had stored in the garage and found that, sadly, mice had found them first.
  5. My first thought was fruit - melon slices, pineapple spears, whatever looks good. Maybe with some dry sausage and/or prosciutto (to go with the melon). And cheese? Olives? I always get carried away with this type of assortment.
  6. ElainaA

    Dinner 2016 (Part 2)

    @Shelby Thank you! And, if you grow regular Beans (string beans - although aren't most varieties string-less there days?) you can grow beans for drying. It is actually easier because you don't have to worry about harvesting them before they get tough - you just leave them on the plant until the pods dry our. I'm trying Tongue of Fire this year as well as my favorite, coco noir.
  7. ElainaA

    Dinner 2016 (Part 2)

    I think they probably are. I wasn't sure because I have grown borlotti beans in the past and they looked like this: white and red rather than brown and red. Googling images, it seems borlotti are beans of many colors. http://www.italianfoodforever.com/2008/08/fresh-stewed-borlotti-beans/ Picture from Italian Food Forever The recipe on this site (where I got the picture) is very similar to the recipe I used. Add garlic and subtract celery and carrot.
  8. ElainaA

    Dinner 2016 (Part 2)

    Tonight: I am cooking my way through a Christmas present, Lynne Rossetto Kasper's The Italian Country Table. Bruschetta with seasoned ricotta, oven roasted tomatoes, red onion, parsley, olive oil and oregano (Sicilian Farmer's Bruschetta). Also what she calls "Tuscan Mountain Supper" - dried beans cooked with tomato, sage, onion, parsley and garlic served with a salad of bitter greens and red onion (in this case endive and radicchio and a little romaine just to cut the bitterness). I added a bit of cappicola to the salad - just because. The salad and beans are to be eaten together and that really worked - the salad cut the richness of the beans, the beans balanced the bitterness of the salad. The beans were, again, from my garden - seeds I got from Johnny's on clearance labeled "Italian shell beans". I'm not sure what variety the really are but they tasted really good. These are the beans I used (before cooking). They look a lot like pinto beans to me....
  9. @EsaK The recipe in the CI cookbook is good also. There is a picture of a loaf I made somewhere way up this thread. It does require about 30 sec- 1 minute of kneading (it is actually called "Almost No Knead Bread") and overnight proofing. The total active time in making it is under half an hour.
  10. ElainaA

    Dinner 2016 (Part 2)

    Barney (my husband) cooked tonight so I take no credit (except for the bread). Pasta with a soffritto of celery, onions and carrots, tomato, salami and ricotta. A salad with micro greens and bread baked today.
  11. @Anna N I'm so sorry your micro greens failed! I didn't think it was possible to plant them too thickly. Maybe over watering? Is it possible that the warmth from your lights combined with too much moisture could cause mold to grow? I'm really guessing here...... I plant very thickly as you can see here. The somewhat more open area in the center was caused by a rampaging kitten. You can see the hardware cloth guard that I need to keep him out in the background. These are ready to use - they will go into a salad tonight. This shows the container I use more clearly. Both are meant as plant saucers. I punched holes in the one containing the plants. And finally, the problem child - the reason I need the guard. As soon as I removed the guard to take the pictures, he was there.
  12. That's scary Shelby - it seems things like that can happen anywhere these days. I'm glad your husband's timing was safe. Your garden experience with cilantro sounds just like mine. And then you have volunteers coming up all over the garden the next year. I only grow it in containers outside the garden for that reason. And there is still only about a 2 weeks harvest period. I grew chamomile once to dry for tea and had the same thing happen. It was years before I stopped getting volunteers.
  13. @Anna N For microgreens nothing elaborate is needed since you only grow them for about 2 weeks. So, if you are now in possession of a more sophisticated lighting system you could find other additional ways to use it. It's easy to grow lettuce inside in a set up very like the microgreens although you would have to thin the seedlings out quite a bit. If you do not want to get into large planters (or buckets) or hydroponics you should stick with shallow rooted plants - you could grow a wonderful salad mix. Our house when we were first married was a converted three car garage. Beautifully converted by the same architect that did our current house but DARK. Anything I grew inside required lights. Fortunately, as part of his business, my husband has a metal shop so he built a three level stand with adjustable lighting for me. When we built this house one thing I insisted on was lots of light. So my microgreens are on a table near a window and do just fine. I still use the stand when I start my seeds for the outside garden as there isn't room for all the plants in the windows. The posts in this thread have me yearning to get started but I know better. If i start seeds before the end of March they will get too leggy and pot bound before I can put them out. Last year I lost all my peppers and 12 tomato plants to frost on May 23 - this year I will heed my mother's warning of years ago - "NEVER plant tomatoes out before Memorial Day."
  14. ElainaA

    Dinner 2016 (Part 2)

    Tonight: chicken curry and naan - both from an article in the NY Times last fall about Meera Sodhu. Her book seems to be out in the UK and will be published in the USA this summer. It is, however, easily available on Amazon - I just ordered it. I no longer have the entire article (just the page with recipes) but as I remember she grew up in northern England eating her mother's cooking, went to London for college and was appalled by the Indian food available in restaurants she could afford. Her book is focused on Anglo-Indian family cooking. I've made both the curry and the naan a couple of times and really like them. Along with the curry and bread there was a cucumber salad with yogurt and cumin and masala dal (made with yellow split peas) from Julie Sahni's Classical Indian Cooking. Last night: salmon baked with a topping of mustard and bread crumbs, roasted asparagus and roasted potatoes and garlic.
  15. I made naan tonight to go with a chicken curry (on the dinner thread) using Meera Sodha's recipe from a NY Times article from last fall. I've made this a couple of times now and really like it. It includes yogurt in the dough which i thinks adds a lot to the flavor.
  16. @Ann_T Such beautiful bread!
  17. @gfron1 I think I am one of those anonymous eyes that you are talking about - a purely home cook with no professional experience in restaurants (always excepting that stint waitressing while in grad school ). I would not be interested in this type of restaurant. When I find a recipe that looks interesting or crave some food from the past I want to make it myself. And, as many have commented here, I would have no faith in a chef's ability to make it just the way I want it. I go out to eat either for tried-and-true connivence (my favorite local pizza place or the restaurant that i KNOW makes really good Thai food) or to see what ideas a chef has. Give the OP's focus on millennials, I ran this idea past a genuine millennial in person of my daughter. She did not find it very interesting. She enjoys cooking which may differentiate her from the demographic that the OP seems to be focusing on (he seems to expect very little interest in cooking for oneself) (she did grow up in my house, after all). When she eats out, which is rarely although getting take out is more frequent, she says she wants to find a restaurant that does something she hasn't experienced before or something that (like me) she knows they will do well. The 24 hour waiting period was a real turnoff for her too.
  18. Baking today - First English muffins - my mother's recipe - no nooks and crannies here, these are pretty dense. I grew up on these and Iove them. Especially with raspberry jam. Then a loaf of CI's almost-no-knead bread. I have never made this before because it calls for beer - something we rarely have. But my daughter is a beer connoisseur and we had some left from her last visit home. I really like it. I might have to start buying beer. For those who make this - does the type of beer matter? Since neither my husband or I drink beer the remainder just goes down the sink so I would rather but something cheap. I'm afraid that what I poured down the sink today was not at all cheap.) Now if the recipe asked for wine there would be no problem.....
  19. ElainaA

    Dinner 2016 (Part 2)

    Another New York Times recipe - although rather adapted - for involtini - eggplant slices rolled around a stuffing and baked with tomato sauce and mozzarella. I used ricotta rather than feta for the stuffing (it is what I had) just upping the s&p a bit. The stuffing also included pine nuts, parsley, garlic, lemon zest, olive oil and raisins. I would omit the raisins next time - I thought it was a bit too sweet. I also made a quick tomato sauce rather than using plain canned tomatoes as the recipe said. The end result was really, really good. Served with salad and some bread I made today. Sorry the bread picture came out so dark. I am a better cook than I am a photographer.
  20. ElainaA

    Dinner 2016 (Part 2)

    Those sound like lovely meals - I'm so sorry that you couldn't taste them! I'd love to....... Last night's dinner - a bean, cabbage and sausage stew. The beans are cannellini that I grew and dried last summer. The local grocery was out of the locally made Italian sweet sausage that I normally use and I made what turned out to be a mistake and purchased the store brand (PriceChopper). It turned out to be very bland - one of the more tasteless sausages that I have eaten. I compensated with some extra spices and the end result was pretty good. It would have been better with good sausage though.
  21. Absolutely. My husband once gave me a mailbox for my birthday. Admittedly we were in process of building a new house in a very rural area so a mailbox on the road was a necessity. But for my birthday?! I must admit that 30 years later I have never allowed him to forget it. It has actually become a running family joke. At least I think of it as a joke. (And there wasn't even a nice surprise present inside after I unwrapped it.)
  22. There is a Sephardic dish called koshary - very similar to mujadara - of lentils cooked with lots of fried onions and some cumin and served over rice - garnished with crisp fried onions and served with yogurt. Fava beans are another good choice - they have been used since very ancient times.
  23. ElainaA

    Dinner 2016 (Part 2)

    @ElsieD That meal is beautiful. Please post more of what you make! One thing I love about this thread is the range from simple to elaborate - its all good. Tonight, for us, was simple - Roasted butternut squash and apple soup. There are apples cooked and pureed in the soup with roasted squash, onion, cayenne, nutmeg, chicken stock and cream and more raw apples as garnish. And a salad and biscuits.
  24. I must immediately make scalloped potatoes so I can make this . In my husband's family his grand father and his father made frittata for Sunday breakfasts. So, so does he. I have to decide whether I show him this post or pre-empt him next weekend.
  25. @KennethT Thanks - As a cook/gardener I need to know more about these plants.........
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