Dinner! 2012

[Franci]

Ham and Pea Soup, from Heston Blumental's at Home cookbook. The ham and vegetables broth is the major flavoring agent on this soup and it worked really well.

Lovely. I still have all the chopped up bones of jamon de bellota in the freezer. I'm afraid it is too powerful for this stock.

What do you guys think?

Fondant de Canard, roasted potatoes

Just my comfort food.

Sweetbread with ginger, onions, rhubarb, and radish

Like it very much. mm84321, do you do the "standard" preparation for sweetbread?

Tonight, I tried Frogprincess gallettes for my son and mom, who are not very keen on meat. I usually follow a recipe from jj Vongerichten which has eggs, so first time I made gallettes with no eggs and I found they are a little more difficult than normal crepes, but a little bit I got the hang of them. They enjoyed them with ham.

Then we had an onglet (no picture) and some fried artichokes with a mint chutney

I made also Prawncrackers Dong Po Pork, for tomorrow, but when my husband saw it, he wanted to try it

We ended up eating too much

[Kim Shook]

RRO – gorgeous squid! I thought at first they were lobster tails.

percyn – what is the coating on your oysters? It looks almost nubby? Great sandwiches! And dammit! You know that your lobster rolls always make me faint .

Stash – thanks for the stew pictures! That is some great looking stew! Where were the pictures taken?

Saturday our new CSA had a soup swap. Everyone had to make soup and bring a pot of it for tasting and 2 one-quart containers to swap. Mr. Kim and I made the Escarole & Bean soup with Italian Sausage:

It was absolutely delicious and ended up being fairly popular. There were a lot of good soups at the swap and I’ll be glad to get the recipes. My favorites were a sweet potato and caramelized red onion that could have subbed for a dessert soup, a great posole and one of the two Italian Wedding soups that were brought. One poor lady did something that I think we’ve all done. When you make a soup with pasta ahead of time and forget how the pasta will suck up all the available liquid? Her soup was like a porridge of giant meatballs and eency-weency little pasta stars – no liquid at all! That happens to me almost every time I make vegetable soup with vermicelli! I put the pasta in and think, “well, that can’t be enough” and add more. Then, when I go to heat it up the next day, I have to add TONS more stock!

I think that a CSA attracts a lot of vegetarians (logically), and the sausage in our soup kept them away, so we brought home almost half of what we took. There were no leftovers of the vegetarian soups.

My sister and niece were visiting this weekend from NOVA and Hampton, so we had dinner with them and my parents. I made a big salad and a casserole:

This was just the rice dish that I’d made for Valentine’s day with cranberries, almond and orange juice. I thought it would make a great casserole with chicken. It was ok. Nothing really wrong with it, just not terribly interesting. It makes a great side dish, but not a main. Odd, that. At the soup swap, they were serving Flour Garden Bakery baguettes and had some leftovers, so we took one and had that, too. Dessert was just a mix fix-up:

I had a pound cake mix in the pantry from Christmas time. I usually bake a couple of pumpkin pound cakes to add to the dessert trays I give out, but never got around to it this year. So I added some lemon zest and juice to the batter and topped it with a lemon 10X glaze.

[mm84321]

Like it very much. mm84321, do you do the "standard" preparation for sweetbread?

Thanks, Franci. These were soaked overnight, pressed, poached in white veal stock, chilled, then seasoned and floured and finished by browning and glazing in their own juices.

[C. sapidus]

Escarole & Bean soup with Italian Sausage

Kim, that sounds really good to me

Mexican here tonight. Mrs. C arrived home very late from work, which worked out because this was originally planned as a leisurely weekend meal.

Veal and sweet potatoes in pasilla-honey sauce – Dry-roasted garlic, toasted and soaked pasilla and ancho chiles, oregano, black pepper and cumin, all pureed in the Preethi. Brown the meat, strain and fry the chile paste, add stock, simmer with cubed sweet potatoes, sweeten with honey, and garnish with cilantro and white onion rings. Delicious!

Sauteed zucchini with garlic and lime – slowly-browned garlic slices, tossed with zucchini and cilantro, and then finished with a squeeze of lime. One of my favorites.

Cheater red rice – jasmine rice with peas, chicken stock, and a jar of enchilada sauce. Very popular.

[robirdstx]

More comfort food tonight:

Crispy Chicken Thigh, Braised Cabbage, and TJ's Basmati Rice Medley

[patrickamory]

C. sapidus, almost everything you make looks delicious to me. That veal! I love veal anyway, and I also love pasillas (see chili thread) - with honey it must have been over the top!

In the endless parade of beans that is my life these days, I made beans borrachos from a friend's family recipe. It starts with bacon and chicharrones, incorporates roasted peeled poblanos, then onions, garlic, tomatoes and a bottle of Negra Modelo:

[C. sapidus]

patrickamory – Thank you for those very kind words! I have been (heh) admiring your bean meals lately, and the beans borrachos look and sound divine.

robirdstx – nice job on the crispy chicken

[robirdstx]

robirdstx – nice job on the crispy chicken

Thanks Bruce. I'm going to "steal" your Cheater Red Rice for dinner on Wednesday to accompany my Pulled Pork Tacos.

[Borgstrom]

Tried the Momofuku short ribs again tonight: 48-hour SV short ribs with Maldon salt; dashi-braised daikon with pickled mustard seeds; pickled carrot; blanched scallion. This time I SV'd at 56C instead of the book's 60C -- definitely more pink than last time, but I might go down to 55C next time. This is actually one of the first times I've taken advantage of the cook/chill/hold/retherm benefit of SV. I made all of the components for the dish over the weekend, as I meant to have this on Sunday. Plans went awry before I started final assembly so I was able to keep chilled and retherm/assemble tonight in just 30 minutes -- all I had to do was deep-fry the short ribs for 2 min, blanch the scallion and reduce down the sauce a bit. Not bad for a Monday night, get-home-from-work-at-7pm meal! I gotta plan ahead like this more often!

[Kim Shook]

Bruce – I do cheater red rice a LOT – always with salsa and taco seasoning, though. Next time I’m going to try the enchilada sauce instead – that’s a great idea.

Patrick – those beans and rice look fantastic!

Dinner last night was Italian Wedding soup from our CSA soup swap this weekend:

This lady really did it right – everything was balanced, the meatballs were very tender and the stock was so flavorful!

[patrickamory]

Chicken with saffron, honey and tomatoes cooked in the tagine:

[C. sapidus]

patrickamory – That looks good, too!

Finishing up the chipotle and pasilla sauces from earlier this week

Pasilla-mushroom tacos - Shiitake mushrooms and cilantro, garnished with white onion and queso cotija

Chipotle steak tacos – Grilled strip steak, muy picante!

Fried plantains – I found some extremely black plantains, and they fried up nice and sweet. I’m not accusing anyone, but most of the plantains were gone before dinner *coughMrs.C.cough*

Lettuce not pictured, but enjoyed on the tacos. Flour tortillas, 'cuz that's what the boys like.

[harrysnapperorgans]

I made swedish-style meatballs in a sort of milky gravy, with buttery mashed potatoes and steamed brocolli.

It was soo good that no pictures were taken.

I put fresh nutmeg, allspice, mixed spice, white pepper and parsley in the meatballs, a very nice change from my usual Italian style meatballs.

[threestars]

Had this for dinner the other night. My bestfriend cooked it.

Crispy Pork Sisig

[Kim Shook]

Harry – I love Swedish meatballs and yours are the second ones I’ve heard mentioned recently. Usually after a couple of mentions, I am compelled to make something that I haven’t had in a while. I think meatballs need to go on the ‘to-do’ list soon!

threestars – I had to Google Pork Sisig. It sounds wonderful. How is it served? I mean, what sides – bread?

Tuesday night, I did the Bon Appetit fried chicken recipe from February issue:

I liked it a lot and so did everyone else, but I’m not sure that it is any better than my usual recipe – Shelly’s Fried Chicken. We also had a broccoli and cauliflower gratin:

Mashed potatoes and gravy:

Green beans:

And Sister Schubert rolls:

One of the best parts of not working is making real meals in the middle of the week and not having to wait until the weekend to cram everything in. I know that other folks manage to make special meals on work nights, but I've never been good at it!

[ScottyBoy]

Comfort fooooood!

[Shelby]

I wish I could pluck a chicken leg off of that plate.

[ScottyBoy]

First time host at my new place....over the top?

[lochaven]

C-sap.

Just like I like my flour tortillas, well cooked, brown spots, and no taste of raw dough....excellent!!

[gfweb]

Not at all, Scotty.

Show us your kitchen!

[ScottyBoy]

Well, not done yet but,

Counters coming in, viking range, dishwasher and one more rolling Boos table.

[Kim Shook]

Fantastic kitchen, Scotty! And I don't think that meal is over the top at ALL. For you. For me, on the other hand....well, I'd faint just thinking about getting all that stuff cooked. I can't WAIT to see the results!

[dcarch]

I am traveling and using someone's computer. Can't write much.

Nice kitchen.

How did you take that picture? On a helicopter?

dcarch

[patrickamory]

Kim incredibly sumptuous fried chicken. I use Laurie Colwin's method (and almost set the kitchen on fire the first time).

ScottyBoy beautiful ingredients shot. Are those squabs?

Tonight for my third tagine meal I combined elements of the last two with some of my bean cooking. I soaked RG white cannelinis for 6 hours, then substituted them for the chickpeas in the Algerian dersa dish. I added well dried, salted chicken thighs and sultanas for a chicken and bean tagine with raisins. The dish seemed to find favor with the guests, so I'll make it again soon. Unlike the chickpeas, the white cannelinis became intensely creamy and smooth in about 90 minutes.

And yes, my Rifi tagine really is that asymmetrical when lying flat!

[Franci]

Scottyboy, wow, your kitchen looks fabulous already, looking forward to see it when it's done.

What did you do with those fine ingredients?

Patrickamory, I could have your tagine, right now, for breakfast!

Yesterday night I made black quinoa and rice, with shredded duck confit legs and crispy skin, dressed with scallion and ginger oil. Well, I liked it much more than Ad hoc at home quinoa salad. I have leftover for tonight and I'm thinking of frying up differently.

Then I had a radis noir and thought to do a quick pickle with vietnamese fish sauce dressing. It worked really well.

And no picture for caramelized shrimps pork belly