Dinner! 2012

[robirdstx]

Last night, we had Tangy Pan Fried Tilapia. The fish was smeared with Dijon mustard and then coated with Zatarain's Fish Fry mix and fried in peanut oil.

For a side we had Zucchini and Red Bell Peppers. These are a couple of my first photos using my new light box. ;-)

[David Ross]

Burger night

Fresh ground chuck,3 cheese,grilled onion/mushrooms,tomato,an egg and bacon

The corn is incredible considering the weather we have had

Shane

If only I had that for dinner tonight.

[weinoo]

Cavatappi, assorted raw heirloom and cherry tomatoes, basil, feta, olive oil and parmsean...

[mm84321]

Ratatouille cooked "Brittany style" in butter

Artichoke Poivrade stuffed with crab and langoustine

[C. sapidus]

BLAT, courtesy of Mrs. C

[mmille24]

Trying to eat a bit healthy, so just Snow Pea Tips for me tonight w/ some warm sake.

[pastameshugana]

Keith - the egg-yolk ravioli looks amazing!

[rarerollingobject]

Pan fried scallops and morcilla (Spanish black pudding, lots of paprika), topped with panko.

[weinoo]

Interesting combo there, RRO.

[ScottyBoy]

mm84321- Liked when you broke down the process in that bean and tuna dish.

Edited August 13, 2012 by ScottyBoy (log)

[Norm Matthews]

Son and his GF are coming back from Las Vegas after several days out there visiting his mom's side of the family. It will be late when they get back but I'll have something for them if they are hungry. If not, we will have it tomorrow. I have a pork shoulder roast slow cooking in the oven in a dutch oven with some onions, celery and garlic. When done I'll use pan juices and a gastric made with bourbon, caramelized sugar, cherries, vanilla, and vinegar. I'll be doing the gastrique instead of a BBQ sauce. We will have some stuffed mushrooms and yellow rice cooked with coconut milk and mimosas made with orange sorbet.

[Paul Bacino]

My Next__ All American Meal

Cold Home-Made Meat Loaf/ TJ Whole Wheat Bread/ Dukes Meyo-- Boar head pickles and Lays Chips

[Douglas]

I tried pea soup with shrimp and champagne as an appetizer yesterday:

[Norm Matthews]

Quick shot of some of the food mentioned above. I had a quick meal before I left for the airport to pick up the kids. I had not finished the stuffed mushrooms yet nor opened the sparkling wine for the mimosas yet.

[rod rock]

@Norm it looks nice, especially mushrooms! This seems wonderful combination.

[Norm Matthews]

Thanks. I usually use the smoker instead of the oven for pork and BBQ seasonings instead of this gastrique. The coconut rice suggestion from an Indonesian friend seemed like a good combination. It was a nice alternative. The mushrooms were good but I think the store bought sorbet was a little better in the champagne than what I made without an ice cream maker. Cassie liked the two combined together in the wine.

ps The Strawberry Hill Bakery down the freeway a bit was having a two for one sale so we had povitica bread for dessert. Povitica is a Croatian nut bread.

Edited August 16, 2012 by Norm Matthews (log)

[Kim Shook]

Mark – I’ve been gone so long that I neglected to say thank you for posting the meat loaf glaze info. I really appreciate it and actually printed it out to try soon.

Well, it’s been more than a month since I’ve posted and I can’t possibly mention every single thing that has made me hungry here on this thread as I caught up today. Such gorgeous, delectable-looking food. I can’t come here and not marvel at the talent and creativity that my fellow eG’ers show. I’ve managed to make very few meals since I last posted. What with travelling (Florida, Northern VA and Pittsburgh), house ‘stuff’ and family visits, I’ve hardly had time to come and read, much less participate. I have missed it, though and am hoping that by sitting down today and getting some things posted, I’ll get back in the groove! Some of the cooking below wasn’t strictly mine (though I did assist), but it was home cooking.

Our stay in Florida began in Jacksonville and our friends there are as food-obsessed as we are! So we ate out a lot (they managed to find some really good restaurants in Jax – not easy – including a taquería that I’d give a LOT to have here at home), but she’s a great cook, so we ate in for a couple of meals.

For dinner we had requested her meat loaf - one of our favorites:

Served with mashed potato casserole:

Plated with peas and brioche that we brought all the way from Can Can (a local French restaurant/bakery) in Richmond:

Perfect, moist slice of meatloaf:

After visiting with our friends on the weekend, we drove down to Sarasota to visit my dad and stepmom. They (oddly) have a (golf course) house and a (beach) condo within 5 miles of one another. They use the condo as a ‘guest room’ (and I have NO problem with that), which is where we stayed. We lunched alone one day on leftover’s from Stephanie’s meatloaf:

Cold meatloaf sandwiches w/ BBQ chips. And a fabulous view

I did do a couple of meals in between Florida and Pittsburgh - Spaghetti Bolognese w/ Italian sausage and salad:

Totally out of season, but I was in the MOOD!

And Chicken Parm, sautéed spinach and sweet peppers and pasta:

Our Pittsburgh trip was a quick long weekend to meet friends. Oldtimers here will remember Racheld, the gifted southern cook and writer that used to post here. I was lucky enough to get to know her through private emails back and forth and a couple of Christmases ago, Mr. Kim gave me the gift of a visit to meet her in person. We had a fabulous time and got to know her and her family very well. So, for our second get-together, we decided to meet in Pittsburg. Another fabulous time – (we LOVED the city and are planning on going back sometime to explore). We ate out most meals, but the best meal of the trip was the feast that we shared in Rachel and her husband’s hotel room. The centerpiece of the meal was his incomparable ham:

I know that he cooks it on the grill and not a smoker, but it has an intensity that screams smoker. The best ham that either of us has ever tasted. It continued with Rachel’s fabulous ‘things in dishes’:

A braunschweiger- based pâté, the best ‘pammina cheese’ ever and sliced tomatoes from their garden (properly peeled, of course, Rachel being a properly raised Southern girl). We ended up spending the entire afternoon and evening talking and eating and coming back for more and more and more. Delectable.

Sunday night we had a lovely snack when we got home, compliments of Rachel’s s daughter. She’d sent an assortment of cheeses, Irish breakfast bread, fig spread and sour cherry spread for us. Everything was delicious:

The cheese selection included Saint Andre Triple Crème Brie, Stilton, 20 month aged English Cheddar, Campo D’Montalban, Gorgonzola and Limburger. We nibbled all of the cheeses with some “caraway salt sticks” that we’d gotten at an Italian market in Pittsburgh’s Strip district:

They are like a thick, chewy breadstick with a tongue-shocking blast of salt. Perfect coming-home-exhausted-and-slightly-sorry-to-be-back food!

More of MY meals :

Spicy chicken and peppers, tomatoes, marinated cucumbers and corn.

Ham, cucumbers, corn and a white bread and tomato sandwich!

A much-anticipated and extraordinarily disappointing meal! We got a little pork loin roast at the farmer’s market (VERY expensive) and I did it on my Cusinart rotisserie. It looked perfect:

And was utterly tasteless and tough. No better than grocery store pork. That’ll learn us to shop for pork anywhere but our favorite butcher shop! I also made Tony Bourdain’s Gratin Dauphinois, which ALWAYS works for me. It was gorgeous:

But the potatoes were a bit crunchy, which has never happened to me with this recipe. Sigh. Plated with broccoli, corn and cheese rolls:

The only thing that was successful was the swoony, rich, dark pork gravy:

I found some cheepo pork neck bones at the store and made pork stock to do my gravy with. Fantastic. As a matter of fact, I made enough to freeze to use the next time we have some good, Belmont Butchery pork to go with it.

Just last night, we started with salad (not much has changed for me, huh?):

My plate w/ ham, tomatoes on bread, green beans:

And Mr. Kim’s with the addition of yellow squash:

[mm84321]

Lamb, pommes darphin, sauce vierge.

[C. sapidus]

Kim, welcome back!

Thai tonight

Green curry beef with eggplant: thinly-sliced sirloin, Thai and Japanese eggplants, Anaheim, Serrano, and Thai chiles, and Thai basil; served with jasmine rice

Salad with Thai emeralds dressing: lettuce, tomatoes, and Thai eggplant in the salad; cilantro, garlic, chiles, brown sugar, fish sauce, and lime juice in the dressing

[nickrey]

Quick dinner. Left over Beef Burgundy thickened with potato starch, made into pie.

[avaserfi]

Scalloped Potatoes

[mm84321]

This is Scottish blue lobster. They are poached for 2.5 minutes in a court bouillon, then shocked in ice.

The tails are studded with lemon verbena leaves.

Small potatoes are skinned in a towel with coarse salt, browned in oil, then cooked gently in foaming butter.

Chanterelles are sauteed in salted butter.

After two minutes, the potatoes go in, along with sliced dried apricots.

The lobster is gently reheated in a sauce of Noilly Prat

The dish is garnished with fried verbena leaves.

[C. sapidus]

mm84321 – Thanks for taking the time to document how you made that gorgeous lobster.

Prawns steamed with garlic and Thai chiles: Thai chiles and 10 cloves of garlic mashed in the mortar, mixed into a sauce with fermented soybean paste and fish sauce, spread over the prawns with another 10 cloves of slivered garlic, and then steamed for about 8 minutes. Recipe adapted from Dancing Shrimp, and very popular with the family. Thai scampi?

Stir-fried Napa cabbage with garlic and fermented soybean paste: plus chicken stock and a little brown sugar. Simple and satisfying.

Coconut rice: made with chicken stock, salt, and sugar. This complemented the shrimp and its garlicky-spicy sauce beautifully.

[heidih]

This is Scottish blue lobster. They are poached for 2.5 minutes in a court bouillon, then shocked in ice.

The tails are studded with lemon verbena leaves.

Small potatoes are skinned in a towel with coarse salt, browned in oil, then cooked gently in foaming butter.

Chanterelles are sauteed in salted butter.

After two minutes, the potatoes go in, along with sliced dried apricots.

The lobster is gently reheated in a sauce of Noilly Prat

The dish is garnished with fried verbena leaves.

Almost killed the lemon verbena I bought last month but it is coming back. It now has a purpose. Even if the prep is not the same the idea of fired leaves with shellfish and delicate potato sounds like a winner. Maybe young oyster mushrooms if chanterelles are not looking good.

[Keith_W]

mm84321, I have always loved your posts in this thread ... but your pics showing the process makes me love them even more. Skinning little potatoes by rubbing them with salt, and then frying them ... it would never have occurred to me to do that! I imagine that the rough surface and the salt would make them crisp up really nicely?