Dinner! 2003

[NeroW]

White bean soup with kale and roasted vegetables--excellent. Unidentified frozen white fish baked in foil with rosemary, lemon, and mushrooms--OK. Rice.

[Jinmyo]

Rib-eye steaks, black and blue rare, sliced thinly.

Horseradish with minced jalapeno, Dijon sauces.

Frites with fresh mayonaisse.

Thumb-sized plum tomatoes, split, blackend, tossed with arugala and radicchio, EVOO vinaigrette, pecorino.

Crostini with onion soup.

[SobaAddict70]

Monday: Chicken cacciatore, coconut rice with pigeon peas, beet and onion salad. Leftover tapenade and Italian bread. Iced green tea with ginger and honey. Oranges.

Tuesday: Broiled lamb chops w/spiced fruit chutney (I had made too much this time); couscous; cauliflower and turnip puree; steamed broccoli. Poland Spring. Clementines.

Tonight (from our wonderful Marriott cafeteria; ok I didn't cook it but this is what I'm eating): baked scrod; rice with lentils (!); roasted golden beets with lemon juice, EVOO and chives; green bean and carrot almondine (someone pls explain WHY WHY WHY these green beans HAVE to be crunchy so as to be in a nearly RAW state...); Snapple iced tea. The beets were actually the best part. *sigh*

SA

[Nick]

green bean and carrot almondine (someone pls explain WHY WHY WHY these green beans HAVE to be crunchy so as to be in a nearly RAW state...);

I ran into the same thing with green beans lately. I don't know who came up with this fad and why people are cooking(?) them this way, but heavily boiled canned green beans (other end of spectrum) would be no worse.

[Kim WB]

Busy week...so rather than what did I cook tonight, it was more a matter of what did I defrost?

For the kids, James Beard's recipe for doubled chicken stock...basically, make a strong stock, then add a whole small chicken, simmer it, cool and skim it, then use the poached chicken and some alphabets as the base, with lots of broth. The picky kid got just poached breast and some noodles. Also toasted some sliced White Pepperidge Farm Bread,( only had that or beefsteak rye) with butter and parmesan. I was looking for excitement, so defrosted some raw and cleaned shrimp, and made Tom Yam Kung, a hot and sour soup from Thailand, from the Madhur Jaffrey Step by step cooking book. Had lemongrass, but no cilantro. The lemongrass was old, a little shrively, but did the trick. I missed the cilantro. Chateau St. Jean Cinq Cepages, two glasses before, one during...hubby was a bit pissed that he got the dregs when he came home at 9 ...and some chicken broth.

Made iced chai tea with milk and sugar, so the whole meal did not exactly blend, but did the trick.

Edited January 30, 2003 by Kim WB (log)

[fimbul]

I had a pheasant and time to play, so I built a menu around that to surprise my SO when she came home from work.

Started with a few sips of pheasant broth seasoned with salt and cayenne, and garnished with finely diced orange pepper and chives.

Moved to confitted pheasant legs over mesclun (eked out with some fresh spinach) tossed with a tart grapefruit-garlic vinaigrette. Had a bottle of Orval beer alongside. Damn me if the Orval wasn't a great accompaniment. The confit was odd-seeming, at first, since I had adopted a recipe of Mark Bittman's for chicken confitted in olive oil, but it worked well enough.

Main course was sauteed pheasant breast over wild mushroom ragout with endives. Made a small pan sauce of shallots, reduced orange juice, and pheasant stock. Served this with a Lucien Albrecht Riesling, which, uh... didn't work, quite. It was all I had in the house that looked like it'd even have come close, though.

For dessert, I served sticks of parmesan with tiny glasses of Frangelico.

This was all, I must add, by no means our normal fare. I now see, however, that it was the inevitable consequence of being left home alone with nothing to distract me but a fridge full of food. Isn't monomania marvelous?

[FoodMan]

Monkfish Skewers:

Chunks of Monkfish seasoned with rosemary, olive oil, and garlic skewred with cubed sourdough bread and wrapped with bacon. I cooked the skewers in the oven, the fish was deliciously moist and firm. Served on top of some nice greens with lime/honey dressing.

FM

[Jinmyo]

FoodMan, excellent. Monkfish with rosemary is brilliant.

[Matthew Grant]

Last Saturday, continued with my experimentation with truffles and Label Anglais chicken:

Asparagus fried in butter with grated truffle and served on top of some lightly toasted bread with a sprinkling of chervil (courtesy of Heston Blumenthal on kitchen chemistry)

Roasted Chicken , Albufera sauce with truffles, fondant potatoes.

Orange Tart w/raspberry sorbet.

Albufera sauce was made with equal quantities of dark chicken stock and double cream with some Foie Gras butter whisked in, it occured to me that this dish had a particularly high fat content. Superb, even if I do say so myself

[JAZ]

Salmon with a reduction sauce of blood orange juice, Lillet (Blond), a splash of mandarin vodka, grape tomatoes and shallots, garnished with capers.

Mixed greens with toasted pecans, dressed with a blood orange, balsamic and mustard vinaigrette.

[FoodMan]

Albufera sauce was made with equal quantities of dark chicken stock and double cream with some Foie Gras butter whisked in, it occured to me that this dish had a particularly high fat content. Superb, even if I do say so myself 

Talk about decadent.....it does sound superb

FM

[torakris]

Was really rushed for time again, but had picked up some absolutely gorgeous swordfish steaks, so:

swordfish with a galangal, red chile, soy sauce (from Donna Hay and very good)

served over steamed baby bokchoy

jasmine rice

tomato salad

leftover raspberry almond bars (these are absolutely incredible by the way!)

[Jinmyo]

Butter.

With cream.

Oh, and some mashed Yukon Gold potatoes.

Roasted pork loin (marinated in shoyu, ginger, scallions, red wine vinegar; dried, rubbed with chipotle paste and cumin seeds; seared; basted with orange juice) sliced in one inch thick pieces then several times on the bias served atop the butter (and cream and potatoes) with

Sage and parsley sauce (made with sweated brunoise of mire poix in a chicken stock, pureed and strained, chopped herbs added at the end).

Roasted cremini mushrooms and sauteed Swiss card greens (the stems were sliced into julienne pieces and are pickling for another occassion) with sauteed lemon brunoise.

Roasted red pepper bisque with a small piece of braised pork belly.

[torakris]

Guess I am in a Japanese mood this week:

nikujaga (a very homestyle Japanese dish of beef, potatoes and onions)

nappa cabbage and aburage (thin deep fried tofu packets) simmered in a soy dashi broth with lots of ginger

tomato salad

Japanese rice

[helenas]

Potato Pierogi baked in sour cream.

Ed's shiitakes (half oyster mushrooms) with tarragon.

Tomato salsa.

[NeroW]

Cheese souffle with homemade tomato sauce and spinach salad.

[Suzanne F]

Faux pulled-pork on buttermilk biscuits (simmered country ribs in spiced chix stock until done, then shredded the meat and reduced the stock; sauced with a combination of bottled stuff and the stock)

Turnip greens cooked in the remainder of the stock, with scallion and garlic

Macaroni and cheese (frozen, from Seeds of Change: DON'T BOTHER trying it -- the mac had good texture, but very thin sauce with NO FLAVOR)

Pickled onions (sliced white onions in white vinegar/salt/sugar brine with oregano and allspice berries)

Salad with balsamic vinaigrette

Beer

[torakris]

The kids were screaming for pizza so :

no-cook tomato sauce, black olives and hand shredded mozarella for the kids

sauteed wild mushrooms (shiitake, shimeji, enoki) with shaved romano cheese and lots of black pepper for the adults

both were quite good

[gknl]

Udon in miso broth with tofu, broccolini, carrot, mushroom, and green onion.

Don't yell at me, but the miso was instant (yeah, yeah, like regular miso isn't instant because you just spoon it out of the tub, but I really am that lazy ) I bought at Costco.

I wish I could tell you the brand name, but there's no English except for the instructions and nutritional information. There are two packets; one with the miso paste and the other with dried seaweed, tofu, green onion, and seasoning. Not bad for just boiling water.

[SobaAddict70]

Friday: I was too lazy to cook dinner after having taken the day off....so:

Takeout Thai -- shrimp pad thai, tom kha gai and Thai iced coffee. I had some leftover (well actually, LOTS) of bhel puri mix, so topped the pad thai with some of that, plus a little lemon and some leftover fruit chatni.

not too shabby....

----------

Tonight -- penne with roasted tomato and roasted garlic sauce, fried bread crumbs. Poland Spring. Steamed tofu with honey and chopped crystallized ginger for dessert. (The tofu is a really easy dessert that I learned from a friend who used to live in Taiwan. Simply steam a block of silken tofu until heated thoroughly, then top with two or three T. of warmed honey. Serve plain, or with toppings -- like chopped ginger, sesame seeds, sweet bean paste, blanched almonds or other types of nuts, chopped red dates, etc.)

SA

[CathyL]

Braised veal shoulder with portobellos, served with egg noodles. Romaine/endive salad with mustard shallot vinaigrette.

To start: the Charlie Trotter's smoked salmon Awbrig kindly sent for the bread event, which didn't arrive until the day after. Of the two varieties - citrus and Darjeeling tea/ginger - we preferred the latter, although both were delicious. We ate the salmon with toasted baguette slices; not sure whether the baker was Jaybee or G. Johnson, but it was yummy.

[laura]

I wanted to try the chilled chicken from canada, I don't recall the name, I purchased it at Gourmet Garage. I roasted it with lemons and garlic , it was

very good quality, lots of chicken flavor. F:ingerling potatoes, with fennel gratin,

chicken stock base. Slices of brioche, pepper herb bread to soak up the gravy. Dessert : Slice of "James Beard" banana bread, 2nd version. ,scoop of vanilla ice cream, plated with caramel sauce. Question: is there a way to retrieve caramel that has reached the over caramelized stage. Mine did

and I kept doctoring it with sugar, lemon juice and cream. It was edible but it had a burnt undertone that was not pleasant. I probably should have thrown it away and started over.

[MissBistro]

Linguini sautéed with Matane shrimps and Tiger shrimps in a fresh diced tomato, onion, garlic, red & green pepper sauce.

[Belmont3]

Bowtie pasta w/ a sauce made with white wine, soy, brown sugar, garlic, lime juice, cilantro and chipolte chiles. Then throw in some julienned squash, cauliflower florets, mushrooms and red onion. Nothing special. For desert though....... Key Lime/Mascarpone Sorbet with a orange/key lime syrup.

[NeroW]

Baked penne with a wild mushroom ragu, frisee salad with lardons, Jell-O chocolate pudding. And some pineapple.