laurel

Dinner for 8 last Wednesday: Citrus Cashew Salad: Kabocha Squash Soup: Mushroom and Red Pepper Negimaki: Side Dishes: Ginger Glazed Carrots; Roasted Brussels Sprouts, Broccoli, and Cauliflower; Spaghetti Squash:

I'm planning to see the Typing Explosion at CHAC ( http://www.capitolhillarts.com/events.html#Residencies ), so I might check it when I do...

Using one of my Christmas gift cookbooks for a dinner for 4 on Tuesday: Steamed Eggplants with Spicy Sauce: Haricots Verts in Ginger Sauce: Boiled Aromatic Peanuts: Plate of Cold Dishes: Dry-fried Bitter Melon: Steamed Fish with Chili and Sichuan Pepper:

Last Friday, Huo Guo for 5 with: Turnip Greens, Bean Sprouts, and Kelp: Napa Cabbage and Watercress: Chinese Mustard Greens and Tofu: Baby Bok Choy, Shiitake and Enoki Mushrooms: Lamb: Beef: Squid and Scallops: Oysters, Shrimp, and Rex Sole (With Roe):

I have yet been unsuccessful duplicating the okra at Malay Satay Hut... It's cut in large pieces, soft, but not quite mushy, and the seeds are crunchy and have a fish-egg like bursting texture. The salty/pungent flavor of the belachan (shrimp paste) sauce its in is great with the bitter/vegetal flavor of the okra. The best way I've made it is whole, in a curry with scallops and tomatoes:

Dinner for myself last night: Stir-fried Celery with Roasted Eel:

A few things 1. My cooking is very random and focused on doing simple things with whatever ingredients I happen to have or happen to look good. I'd like to pay more attention to techniques and traditional flavor combinations. 2. Get the basic equipment and setup for making hard and aged cheese (like a press, and a mini-fridge to maintain something approximating 50 deg for aging). 3 .Get better at timing and doing things efficiently so I don't have to come home early from work to cook for guests (or make them sit and wait for too long). 4. Find out why people stop accepting my dinner invitations after two or three times and fix it

I make butter from cream cultured with "Piima" culture. Making the butter takes about 10-20 minutes of stirring with a wooden spoon. I think the culture does something to it to make it turn into butter much faster. Making the next batch of cultured cream si even easier, I just leave a few tablespoons in the jar, add fresh cream, and leave it out in the covered jar until it's sour enough (a few days depending on the temparature), then put it in the fridge.

Sounds like it might be Saigon Gourmet, at 5th and King?

SethG: As you can probably tell from my random stuff-that-I-have-and-stuff-that-looks-good-in-the-store menus, I don't think too much about pairings and what goes well together. I will say that I think the lobster souffle went fine with the maguro. Lobster reminds me of ama-ebi (sweet/raw shrimp)... Last night, a simple dinner for 2: Sage, Onion, and Cheddar Omelet: curlywurlyfi: I've never roasted lemons, but it sounds great.. I'll have to try it sometime.

A Szechuan place I like has "black mushrooms with cabbage", which is big black mushrooms braised (i think) in a thick sauce, over baby bok choy.

Photographic documentation: Killing the Lobster: Lobster Scraps: Simmering the Stock: Reducing Lobster Jus: Lobster Souffle:

Past week or so: Tuesday, dinner for 2: Grilled Endive with Pear, Roasted Squash Seeds, and Roquefort.: Pan-seared Salmon with Spinach and Acorn Squash: Wednesday, Joe made dinner while I started the lobster souffle for Friday: Salad with Red Pepper and Satsuma: Albacore and Salmon Sashimi: Friday, culturally ambiguous New Year themed dinner for 6: Black Eyed Peas and Collard Greens Grilled Mochi Lobster Souffle: Mushroom Souffle: Tuna Sashimi: Stuffed Squash: Kinpira Gobo (Burdock Root): Blueberries with Red Wine Zabaglione: Tonight, dinner for 2: Green Salad: Lobster and Kabocha Squash Soup:

I tried making the lobster souffle (using the recipe I, the Child/Pepin one) for Friday's dinner (started on Wednesday). The killing of the lobsters was definitely an experience... I'll definitely need to get a big cleaver before trying something similar again, and I was surprised that the half lobsters crawled around for a few minutes... I didn't have any chicken stock, but I did have good homemade vegetable stock, so I used that instead. I did add the mystery tomatoes at the same time as the tomato paste, and I think the jus turned out pretty well. In all, it took me about 3 hours to prepare the jus and the lobsters (the first step), then another 2 hours for the souffle and final steps (including the baking time, and while preparing oher stuff for dinner), so it was quite time consuming, Overall, I think the results were pretty good. My test subjects seemed to enjoy it (especially since they got pretty large portions, since I was expecting 8 for dinner, and it turned out to be 6 including 2 vegetarians), which they better have, since this is probably the most expensive dinners I've ever cooked :) There was quite a bit of sauce left over. I think I'll call it lobster bisque so I can eat it straight for lunch :)

I think a good way to do this would be to get a CSA subscription from a local farm and a good reference/recipe book. (warning, if you don't cook much, or don't cook vegetables much, it'll probably be too much food)

Sunday, dinner for 2: Pan-seared Steak with Caramelized Onion Sauce and Roasted Broccoli and Cauliflower:

Do you have any recommendations for uniquely Hakka dishes to order at Dong Kong Lau?

Camera fixed Dinner for two: Joe made spinach crowns with peanut sauce, which we had as a kind of working appetizer while preparing: Sauteed Spinach with Feta Cheese: Braised Chard with Smoked Salmon: Yellow and Red Make Orange:

Got a cookbook, Land of Plenty by Fuschia Dunlop (now I need to go to Vancouver this weekend to get some Szechuan Peppercorns...), and a very nice copper mixing bowl.

Stuff I made to give: almonds cooked in olive oil with crispy sage, sweet and spicy pecans (toasted pecans coated with brown sugar and spices), feta cheese marinated in herbed olive oil, lactic cheese (fresh, soft cow's milk cheese), cultured butter

Not quite dinner. Brunch for 7: Really liquid Brie with apples and crackers Satsuma oranges Steel cut oatmeal cooked in whey with a cinnamon stick, with dried fruit (bananas, apricots, and figs) for sprinkling Sauteed apples (butter, apples, cinnamon, nutmeg) Salad (escarole, arugula, gala apples, toasted pecans) Spinach souffle Caramelized onion and smoked salmon frittata White bean and winter greens soup

Stir fry, tofu and random vegetables Mussels, steamed in white wine.

Joe and I went to Lark yesterday. I also liked the tableware (now I want to get a Staub soup bowl to keep my oatmeal warm in the morning...). We started with a very nice cauliflower soup, then had a roasted eel on potato salad. It looked like an oversized unari nigiri; a rectangular slice of roasted eel on top of a stack of tiny cubes of potato. It was good, but I didn't really think it was spectacular. Next, we got the brown butter sunchokes with apples. The contrasting textures and flavors of the sunchokes and apples went well together. My favorite dish was the monkfish with black trumpet mushrooms and baby turnips. The tender monkfish was seared to just golden brown and crisp around the edges, and set on a pile of mushrooms and pleasantly bitter turnip greens in a creamy, intensly mushroomy sauce, surrounded by tiny baby turnips. Finally, we had a nice little wedge of Corsu Vecciu (even though Joe claimed he was all cheesed out because he ate probably a quarter pound of Humboldt Fog at work). Overall, excellent!

I saw a sign at City Market at Olive and Bellevue that was advertising deep fried turkeys for Christmas...

Sounds like you had a wonderful time! I'm paging through the 362 page book of recipes right now (and coincidentally, I'm eating leftover kale and beans I made from a recipe in one of Paula's books).