Dinner! 2012

[patrickamory]

Nice soup Blether.

Homemade curry paste and red curry of chicken and green beans. More details in the Hot Sour Salty Sweet thread.

[mgaretz]

Simple dinner tonight of grilled chicken-apple sausages and grilled vegetables (zuchinni and red peppers marinated in a black-currant balsamic vinaigrette).

[heidih]

black-currant balsamic vinaigrette

details please

[mgaretz]

black-currant balsamic vinaigrette

details please

My basic vinaigrette but made with a black currant balsamic vinegar instead of regular (and leaving out the raspberry flavoring):

2 ozs vegetable oil

4 ozs olive oil

2 ozs balsamic vinegar

1/4 tsp Italian seasoning blend – or herbs to taste

1 tbs cream sherry

1/4 tsp sea or kosher salt

1 clove of garlic – medium sized, minced

1 tbs Raspberry Syrup (sugar free or regular) or 1 tsp strawberry jam (or raspberry)

1 tbs honey

2 tbs mustard

More details here: http://markiscooking.com/?p=14

A viable alternate is to mix Wishbone Italian dressing with some extra balsamic if you are just using it as a marinade.

Edited June 30, 2012 by mgaretz (log)

[Kim Shook]

Some truly delicious looking cooking going on here.

dcarch – the crust on your pork belly is stupendous – I could almost taste it!

Stash – I had to Google ‘bottarga’. Sounds like the perfect mate to pasta and tomatoes. Does it ‘melt’ into the hot food like anchovies?

Bruce – I don’t think it’s possible for me to get tired of beautiful, just barely charred chicken. Gorgeous.

Scotty – your pork looks perfect – actually glistening!

Mike – never a need to apologize for American cheese on a burger. I love all kinds of cheeses on burgers, but my favorite is still American!

Norm - !!!! what a perfect, perfect meal. Just think, in a few weeks you can add an ear of corn and a slice of tomato !

Not sure how much I will be able to participate in the near future – crazy couple of weeks and no end in sight. Between painting projects, a HUGE storm this week with lots of yard damage and getting swarmed and stung by yellow jackets (I’m fine, but I’ve been in a Benadryl coma for most of the past week). And coming up family descending, hosting the 4^th of July, new windows and siding starting possibly as early as Monday and a trip to Florida later this month! So who knows what kind of ersatz cooking is going to be going on here!

I did end up doing a little cooking last night. Dinner was Toad in the Hole w/ onion gravy, mustard slaw and the first of the season marinated cucumbers:

I have nothing to compare it to, but we loved the Toad in the Hole and the gravy was delicious. It was recommended to me by Kouign Aman – thanks, KA!!! I had some great stock that I’d made and since the gravy is nothing but caramelized onions and beef stock, it was really fantastic. I know that making it with American breakfast links isn’t traditional, but I don’t care for English sausages, so that was going to happen anyway .

[rotuts]

Kim: that looks delicious! Im a big fan of GB breakfast sausage. What?, dont care for sawdust in your Sausage?

bangers probably have cornmeal in them. but I love bangers.

What do you think of Scrapple?

http://www.globalgourmet.com/food/sleuth/0998/scrapple.html/

thanks for your sharing!

[ScottyBoy]

155 for 18 hours is my go-to for pork belly now. Foie sauce and black lentils.

Tenderloin, rosemary potatoes, caesar salad and porcini cream.

[Nicolai]

As the wife is away and I have to feed myself, I thought a Moussaka would last me few days.

To gain the wife respect, I dropped the idea of going North Béchamel and instead South substituting Béchamel with Yogurt.

The Aubergines were baked in the oven with a dab of olive Oil.

The Potatoes par boiled and baked with a dab of Olive Oil.

The cheese was replaced with Feta cheese and the topping Parmesan.

I has to whisk in couple of eggs to get the Yogurt and Feta proper constitency.

I also added Potatoes and Carrot and all other Moussaka ingredients stay the same for mince meat, tomatoes...etc.

The funny part is that the dish tasted better the second day....but I am enjoying it!

Out of the oven

Later

Edited June 30, 2012 by Nicolai (log)

[Norm Matthews]

Thanks Kim. Your dinner looks scrumptious too.

Cassie and Charlie took the pick-up to her sisters house to help her, her husband and new baby finish moving to a new apartment. They are going to call when they start back. It is about a 45 minute trip back here. I plan to do some bok choy and KC Strip steaks on the grill outside. I have already baked some potatoes and made a salad to assemble when they get here. I'll pan fry polenta and add a tomato sauce and wine, onion and garlic reduction and top it with cheese. The store had some fresh peaches so they will be dessert. I hope it isn't dark by the time they get home. I think I'll run to the store and see about a nice red wine to go with dinner.

[robirdstx]

Back on the grill for dinner tonight.

Grilled Chicken Thighs, seasoned with Lawry's Seasoned Salt and granulated garlic, and Herbed White Beans (cannellini beans with tomato, onion, parsley, garlic, olive oil, red wine vinegar and black pepper)

Edited July 1, 2012 by robirdstx (log)

[C. sapidus]

Kim - Thank you for your kind words, and sorry to hear about the storm damage and Benadryl coma. Hang in there!

Patrick – Very nice!

This was one of those “Did you make plans for dinner?” “Nope, did you?” “Well, let’s see what we have” meals

Linguine Alfredo, green bean salad, sliced pineapple, and champagne mangos

[mm84321]

Nothing fancy. Pigeon roasted with peas.

[patrickamory]

Mmmm love alfredo.

And I'm afraid I love real British bangers too. When I go to London now, the sausages have become all upscale and don't include as much (or any) cornmeal.

[FrogPrincesse]

I have some catching up to do. Here are a few recent week-night meals, much less fancy than mm84321's version of non-fancy I am afraid (that pigeon looks amazing by the way).

Fattoush-inspired salad, Polish and Bourbon sausages.

Green goddess salad with lettuce, cucumber, avocado, and roasted torpedo onions.

Black gill rockcod with Moroccan spice marinade (chermoula), cucumber feta salad.

Delmonico steak, zucchini fritters.

Lemon roasted black pepper linguine with Babbo's basic tomato sauce and homemade whole milk ricotta.

[Norm Matthews]

A picture of dinner. Bok Choy and Kansas City strip on the grill, salad, baked potato, polenta, fresh cut fruit and a California Zinfandel.

[menuinprogress]

We've been getting fantastic scallops from our local seafood hook-up for years now, but this is the first time I've seen this variety:

We are in San Diego, and most of our fish and seafood comes from Baja California. We've had fantastic bay scallops and amazing "mano de leon" (lion's paw) scallops, but this is the first time we've encountered this variety.

In Spanish, they are called "Callo de Hacha". My attempt at translation makes that "callus of the hatchet" - not sure if that makes much sense...

They have a very interesting shape. In the picture above, they look almost like shrimp. Raw, though, they very much look like two small scallops connected together in the middle:

The flavor is also different from other scallops I've had - the taste goes more toward a clam. To me, it tastes like a fresh and clean version of my childhood memories of fried clams at Howard Johnson.

Hopefully we will get more opportunities to experiment with these intriguing scallops.

[mgaretz]

Tonight I made meatloaf. I make it with carrots, onions, celery and oatmeal. It's glazed with a ketchup/sugar mix. It looks burnt in the photo (and in person too) but didn't taste burnt.

[Blether]

Wow ! Plaudits due to everyone posting here, I think.

... And I'm afraid I love real British bangers too. When I go to London now, the sausages have become all upscale and don't include as much (or any) cornmeal.

It was always something called 'rusk' that went into British sausages - not cornmeal, I don't think. Cornmeal and other maize products seem very American to a Brit (in general, I mean, not absolutely).

Scotty - and putting the rosemary in the potatoes lets the diner vary the flavours with the meat just the same way, doesn't it ? Nice.

Edited July 1, 2012 by Blether (log)

[rotuts]

Meatloaf! Yum! and glazed to boot! think of the sandwiches later!

[Panaderia Canadiense]

In Spanish, they are called "Callo de Hacha". My attempt at translation makes that "callus of the hatchet" - not sure if that makes much sense...

In my experience, callo de hacha is probably better translated simply as "scallops" - the figurative translation is "axe head" which refers to the shape of the shells. Those look like the curved scallops typical of Ecuador's oceans....

[rotuts]

inspired to find out more about bangers ( and rusk ) I found this:

http://www.thepauperedchef.com/2010/03/homemade-british-bangers-and-the-search-for-rusk.html

still delicious !

[Mr Holloway]

Great looking meals everyone

We had some sweet and spicy cedar plank salmon, a striploin , corn and a baked potato

Shane

[patrickamory]

Wow, fascinating on the rusk, Blether and rotuts.

Really tasty looking Shane.

Norm, you truly serve a groaning board.

[mgaretz]

inspired to find out more about bangers ( and rusk ) I found this:

http://www.thepauper...h-for-rusk.html

still delicious !

Once when I went to London I was starving after getting off the plane, so I asked the cabby where I could get a good banger. He thought I meant a prostitute! When I explained what I meant he told me that they just called them sausages and had never heard of a banger. Later I learned that here in the US they have to call them bangers because they don't contain enough meat to legally be called a sausage. My first wife was British and she and my in-laws definitely called them bangers, so I am not sure of the general truth of the cabby's statement - but I did notice on the rest of that trip that all the restaurants just called them sausages and the word "banger" did not appear.

[rotuts]

Delicious! and the Irish make them too!