Dinner! 2012

[lochaven]

C.s that trout looks perfect with the beans, bacon and nuts. Lots of flavors -- one can pick and choose with each bite.

Anna N -- that would also be most appropriate for a room-temp lunch -- of course, a small portion would be appropriate, maybe.

[Paul Bacino]

Kayb,

I used a BelGioioso Cheese called .. Crescenz-Stacchino!!

From Wiki--Stracchino also known as crescenza is a type of Italian cow’s-milk cheese, typical of Lombardy, Piedmont, and Veneto. It is eaten very young, has no rind and a very soft, creamy texture and normally a mild and delicate flavour. It is normally square in form.

This is the first time I found this cheese in the USA-- I loved it when we were in Monferrato Italy a couple yrs ago.

It has a tendencey to melt easy ...if you use it I would wait till about the last 10 min to add!!

Otherwise use -- Mozzarella / Parmesan / Asiago/ Romano/ Rigotta

I don't mind eating the other skin, some people think it bitter.

Cheers

Paully

Edited February 1, 2012 by Paul Bacino (log)

[Anna N]

Haven't cooked in awhile, but it's a funny thing - take a look back in the 500's (of this thread) and then go to the past few dozen pages. Man, everyone on this thread has stepped up the game! Not that it was bad before, but this is turning into a truly visually stunning thread!

And Anna N, at what temp and how long did you sous vide that chuck? My sous vide setup is getting a little lonely ...

This one was done at 56C for 12 hours and in my opinion was perfect. Very, very tender and still beefy. This is the "chuck eye" - got mine at Wegman's in Buffalo. It is not a cut I can find locally.

I bought 3 of them and this one is the last. I am about to re-package it and put into the SV. When it is done I will chill it, freeze it and know that in 30 minutes I can have it on the table or sliced ready for sandwiches/salads. Love this way of cooking.

[mm84321]

Mousseline of Frog Legs.

[FrogPrincesse]

Are these frog legs?

Edited to add: Nevermind. Just saw your description which was included between your pictures.

Edited February 1, 2012 by FrogPrincesse (log)

[mm84321]

Are these frog legs?

Edited to add: Nevermind. Just saw your description which was included between your pictures.

Indeed. I take it you are a fan?

[FrogPrincesse]

How did you guess?

Would love to have more details on this dish, please!

[Anna N]

Simple Asian-style shrimp salad made very quickly with bagged cole slaw mix (no apologies!). It was very, very good.

[Franci]

I haven't had frog legs in ages...

Welcome to the new entries

I've seen many nice meals lately. Scottyboy, I could have a whole bowl of fish skin chips. Nice.

Didn't have time to take pictures in the last days. Yesterday night we had wonton soup. Here it has been very cold and it was really nice a steaming hot bowl of wontons.

Tonight I was lazy, which traslated in emergency food: duck breast.

Duck breast with glazed carrot and some bitter vegetables. I could have put together a sauce quickly but older son wanted to play hide and seek

[mm84321]

How did you guess?

Would love to have more details on this dish, please!

Sure.

So basically you sweat shallots in some butter and then add in the legs along with some Riesling and let simmer, covered, for 10 minutes or so. Drain and reduce the cooking liquid by half. Then, butter some ramekins and pipe in a mousse made of perch fish and place the frog meat inside, and cover with the mousse. Bake the mousselines in a bain marie at 400ºF for 15 minutes. Add some cream and butter to the reduced cooking liquid, and season to taste. Unmold the mousseline onto plates, surround with spinach cooked in butter, and pour the sauce on top and around. Top with some diced tomato and a sprig of chervil.

It is a dish by Marc Haeberlin of L'Auberge de l'Ill.

[mm84321]

Duck looks cooked perfectly.

[sigma]

Franci, nobody in here makes more appealing food than you.

[FrogPrincesse]

How did you guess?

Would love to have more details on this dish, please!

Sure.

So basically you sweat shallots in some butter and then add in the legs along with some Riesling and let simmer, covered, for 10 minutes or so. Drain and reduce the cooking liquid by half. Then, butter some ramekins and pipe in a mousse made of perch fish and place the frog meat inside, and cover with the mousse. Bake the mousselines in a bain marie at 400ºF for 15 minutes. Add some cream and butter to the reduced cooking liquid, and season to taste. Unmold the mousseline onto plates, surround with spinach cooked in butter, and pour the sauce on top and around. Top with some diced tomato and a sprig of chervil.

It is a dish by Marc Haeberlin of L'Auberge de l'Ill.

Thanks. That sounds and looks delightful.

[C. sapidus]

nikkib, kayb, and lochaven - your kind words are greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Stir-fried beef with red curry and everything else cluttering up the vegetable drawer – Napa cabbage, yard-long beans, sliced Poblano chiles, and half an onion - flavored with garlic, Thai bird chiles, red chiles, Thai basil, and fish sauce.

Served with coconut rice and salad.

[Franci]

Duck looks cooked perfectly.

mm84321, thanks. I got great training at cooking duck breast at the FCI all the rest (or almost) got down the drain but I enjoy duck a lot and usually do an ok job at cooking it.

Franci, nobody in here makes more appealing food than you.

Wow. Happy you find my food appealing. Here I can point at a lot of people which food is more appealing to me

Tonight I made pork belly with leftover red cabbage (frozen from Christmas) and escarole.

I mixed Heston Blumenthal at home recipe with the braised pork belly of ad hoc at home...maybe pan should had been a little hotter so I wouldn't have lost a couple "squares" of fat in the pan. It was good but enough to justify my addictional effort

[ScottyBoy]

My roommate keeps requesting home style stuff that I've never made... Chicken tetrazinni last night.

[Keith_W]

My attempt at salt baked fish after drawing inspiration from mm84321's post a page back. As you can see, mine is nowhere near as pretty. The salt crust is 60:40 salt and flour, wet with enough water to bind. I used baby Snapper. I deboned the fish by making a cut from the neck to the tail on both sides of the fish, and pulling the spine out intact. The cavity of the fish was stuffed with lemon and thyme. 10 mins in a 180C oven, and the thermometer registered 50C internally ... pulled it out and ate it. Delicious!

[mm84321]

Looks great, Keith. Next time try whipping egg whites and incorporating the salt into that. It makes a very pleasant crust.

Today:

Lobster and carrots with a lobster/curry jus

Veal with salsify

Not so happy with how the second plate turned out, but it was delicious, nonetheless.

[Norm Matthews]

Last night I wanted to make a fish stew. (not very easy when you live in north central small town Kansas) Kids wanted tacos. We had tacos. Today I made a compromise. I made my fish stew with fish broth, red wine, tomatoes, onions, garlic, green peppers, shrimp shells, clam broth and scallop broth. I baked the scallops and clams and made Louisiana boiled shrimp. For myself, I put some rice in a bowl, added the individual fish and ladled the fish stock over. I let the kids follow suit or have the shrimp, scallops and clams without the broth, as they chose.

I also made some sourdough French bread. I made two short loaves instead of one long one. I also added and egg and some oil and adjusted the flour accordingly.

Edited February 3, 2012 by Norm Matthews (log)

[sigma]

Franci, nobody in here makes more appealing food than you.

Wow. Happy you find my food appealing. Here I can point at a lot of people which food is more appealing to me

It's obviously made with love for people you care about. That is why it is compelling.

[SobaAddict70]

Scotty -- you'd have fooled me. That looks textbook perfect. and fyi, I haven't had tetrazzini (either chicken or turkey) in over 20 years.

keith -- simple is best, with fish.

mm84321 -- 2nd plate looks great regardless.

Norm -- if I didn't have a refrigerator full of vegetable leftovers, I'd probably put seafood stew on the menu tomorrow.

tonight:

Penne with cauliflower, adapted from this blog post by Mark Bittman.

Not bad, for what is essentially a Marcella Hazan recipe.

[nikkib]

Looks great norm!

[ChrisTaylor]

It's Friday evening and the first week of the school term. Dinner means a few (decent) BBQed sausages, hot English mustard and a few booze-heavy cocktails.

[Anna N]

Slow cooker butter chicken from Recipes that Rock 2012 served with a tiny hunk of store-bought naan bread:

[Kim Shook]

My name is Kim Shook and some of you folks look familiar to me. Did we used to know one another??? Seriously – I know that I’ve been MIA for a while now. One thing and another – holidays especially crazy this year, my folks moved to Richmond and have had some health issues and needed lots of attention and work has just been impossible. That last problem, though, is GONE!! I’ve joined the ranks of the retired. Early (I’m 52) and possibly (hope not) temporarily. But thrilled and happy and intent on enjoying it for as long as I can make it last.

I’ve done very little real cooking in the last couple of months, other than Christmas, but I’m ready to dive back in. I’ll be focusing on more frugal cooking now and that should be interesting since I need to keep things lower in carbs for Mr. Kim.

While I haven’t been posting, I have been reading and the food that y’all have been making is just astonishing. Also inspiring – I kind of lost interest for a bit there and threads like this one kept me going. I could not possibly go back and comment on everything that I’ve loved and wanted to copy and wondered about in the last 2 months, so I’ll just dive in and go on from here.

I have been taking pictures of the few meals that I’ve cooked since Christmas. New Year day dinner always looks the same at our house:

Ham, black eyed peas, collards, scalloped tomatoes and cornbread.

The scalloped tomatoes:

More recent meals:

Meatloaf:

Green beans, cheese potatoes and more cheddar/chive beer bread:

Leftover meatloaf sandwich -

I put the meatloaf on a toasted slice of the beer bread and topped it with some onion rings.

A chicken pasta dish – recipe given to me by a good friend and coworker:

Pesto chicken and mozzarella. You serve it on pasta and then top it with sautéed tomatoes in a balsamic sauce:

I found these eency weency pear-shaped tomatoes – about the size of the tip of my pinkie finger – that tasted wonderful. Finished dish with grated Locatelli:

Great dish! Even leftover it was moist and delicious.

I didn’t make this one, but HAD to show it – From a local BBQ café:

The Hog Dog – a delicious and HUGE (that’s a hoagie roll, NOT a hot dog roll) sandwich. A large, natural casing dog, wrapped in bacon and deep fried. Topped with their house smoked BBQ, sauce and a fantastic slaw.

A Sunday dinner with my parents - Roast beef, mashed potato w/ herbed cream cheese casserole, Brussels sprouts and Marlene’s Yorkshire puds. My cute little one-rib prime rib roast:

Marlene suggested that I basically treat it like a thick steak – sear in a skillet and then roast it at 325 degrees convection. It was so small that I roasted it in my convection/toaster oven and it turned out great:

Puds:

Plated:

With gravy:

Dessert was just pumpkin muffins from a mix, fixed up with a 10X glaze and some of my cinnamon pecans on top:

Got an urge for shrimp tacos:

They ended up being shrimp tostadas, because I suck at frying tortillas in a taco shape. Just jumbo shrimp dusted with Zatarain’s seasoned fish fry, topped with slaw made with Green Goddess dressing and lime juice. I also made an avocado cream to go with it. Sides were black beans and corn with salsa and Penzey’s taco seasoning and chips:

Last night was Chicken & Dumplings and Slaw:

It hasn’t ever gotten cold enough this winter for real seasonal food, so I just said the hell with it and made some anyway!

Tonight was an old favorite with a twist:

Hoisin braised short ribs, rice, yellow squash and green beans. The twist was that I did the ribs in a slow cooker. They turned out perfect and I didn’t have to have the oven on for 5 hours!