Dinner! 2003

[Jinmyo]

Jason, that's just lovely.

[davidthomas8779]

leftover smoked pork shoulder (I smoked 20 lbs a month ago and cryovacced most of it) cut up into 1" cubes and heated in a pan until warm, then cranked to high and added some cut up shanghai bok choy and stir fryed until the bok choy was cooked. Kids and wife also ate buttered frozen corn because they were in a corn mood.

[torakris]

Monday:

falafel rolled in lettuce leaves with cucumber-yogurt, chopped tomatoes, jalapeno peppers

feta salad with tomatoes, red onion, peppers, parsley

greek olive mix with spices

homemade pita bread

dessert:

rolled cake filled with raspberry cream (gift from a friend)

Kris, where did you get your pita recipe? I've been wanting to make them at home.

The recipe was form Flatbreads and Flavors by Duguid and Alford (of Hot Sour Sweet Salty fame), it really a wonderful book ann the recipe was so simple and tasted great.

[fimbul]

Wednesday night:

- Seared beef "tartare" on diced tomatoes and romaine

- green beans sauteed with scallions, sprinkled with ground sumac and ancho chile powder

- pan-roasted chicken legs with cilantro-habanero sauce

- julienned roasted red peppers with chives

This was a good, and very pretty, meal.

Thursday night:

- seared rack of lamb, briefly marinated in buttermilk, lemon juice, raz-al-hanout, and mint

- green and yellow squash with pureed tomato and chiles

- mushrooms sauteed with bacon and thyme

- a large salad of arugula and spinach with red grapes, red onions, diced cucumber, and a tomato-sherry vinaigrette.

Edited June 20, 2003 by fimbul (log)

[SobaAddict70]

coconut chatni

Soba, do you make this or buy it? I haven't seen it before.

it was homemade.

the simplest recipe is

1 c. grated fresh coconut

2 or 3 chiles, seeds removed and deribbed

handful (about 10 or so) mint leaves, washed and spun dry

5 coriander or curry leaves

Roast coconut until light brown. Combine all ingredients in a food processor and pulse until a paste forms. Or you can use a mortar and a pestle. (Me, I'm the lazy type. ) Use immediately or within 3 days.

the ingredients in the chatni are limited only by your tastes, availability of ingredients and your imagination. some versions use asafoetida, some add salt and roasted peanuts, others add urad dal and tamarind.

Soba

[Chad]

Thursday: Chipotle marinated grilled pork chops, broccoli with cheddar ("Trees with Cheese" to the kids), black beans & rice.

Tonight (Friday): Beats the hell out of me. My daughter's softball game isn't over unitl 8:00, so dinner will probably be quickie nachos eaten standing up in the kitchen.

Saturday: Roasted corn soup with smoked chile sauce, chicken & prosciutto quesadillas. Dunno about the veg yet. Could be julienned carrots & asparagus. That way I'd get to use my mandolin and stick blender in the same meal .

Chad

[Jinmyo]

Chad, which smoked chiles do you use in your sauce?

[hjshorter]

The recipe was from Flatbreads and Flavors by Duguid and Alford (of Hot Sour Sweet Salty fame), it really a wonderful book ann the recipe was so simple and tasted great.

Thanks Kris! I have HSSS, and have wondered about their other books. I see a trip to the library in my future...

[Chad]

Chad, which smoked chiles do you use in your sauce?

Canned chipotles in adobo, for the moment. I pluck a few chiles out and puree them alone for the smoked chile sauce. The rest of the peppers & adobo went toward the pork chop marinade/bbq sauce last night.

However, I just harvested the first of my cayennes last night, and a couple of others are ripening nicely. If the habaneros ever mature I'll be smoking, pickling, drying and whatever the hell else I can think of. I'm looking forward to trying my own smoked peppers in the sauce (which is really just pureed peppers, sour cream, lime juice and S&P, but it warms up the soup nicely).

Chad

[Jinmyo]

Tinned chipotles can be great.

I like chilhuacle negro for their fruit and tobacco profiles with a bit of chipotle, roasted and pureed with white onion, garlic, salt and white pepper, and Tequila. It lasts for up to two months. Dairy can be whipped in for applications.

Good luck with the habaneros. You might want to consider posting about the process and results in Cooking or General.

[torakris]

Friday night:

flounder with egg sacs oven grilled with soy sauce

boiled shrimp and vegetable gyoza with a soy-vinegar dressing and dots of sriracha for the adults

squid sashimi style with a "dressing made from avocado, wasabi and soy

Thai style salad with bibb lettuce, carrots, cucumbers, bean sprouts, harusame (Japanese cellophane noodles), mint, cilantro, peanuts and dressed with a nampla-lime sauce

Japanese rice

dessert:

Costco apple pie

[Jinmyo]

dessert:

Costco apple pie

After the rest of the menu, this strikes me as hilarious, Kristin.

[Suzanne F]

Weaning HWOE back onto real food after the bout of gastroenteritis earlier this week:

Linguine with clam sauce (the base of the sauce was some shrimp/fish stock from the freezer, plus dried oregano, basil, marjoram, garlic; simmered for an hour or so to get the good out of the herbs and reduce the liquid; plus a can of chopped clams) with a teaspoonful of evoo sprinkled over the top on serving.

Chopped spinach cooked with 1/2 tablespoon of butter and a pinch of nutmeg.

[suzilightning]

single for the weekend - john went up to spac to see the dead play

it is freaking raining STILL - cool and damp so i did what i had to do and made macaroni and cheese.

today is a party for a friends son's graduation - perhaps we will be able to grill but my assignment is for german potato salad, stuffed eggs and winner's circle pie(nonalcoholic since they are lds)

tomorrow more rain - i feel a roasted chicken with freshly picked sage coming on....

[torakris]

Saturday dinner:

roated chicken and bread salad from the Zuni Cafe cookbook, this was really good!

cucmber and avocado soup

dessert:

Costco Apple Pie

(Jin, does it sound better here? )

[Jinmyo]

Well, it makes more coherent sense, Kristin.

[Lesley C]

Oooooh I made the roasted chicken with bread salad last week and it was wonderful. Brined (ok salted) my chicken for two days prior to baking. Probably the best chicken ever! Major wow.

Judy Rogers's brining recipe for pork chops is also worth a try.

[hjshorter]

it was homemade.

the simplest recipe is

1 c. grated fresh coconut

2 or 3 chiles, seeds removed and deribbed

handful (about 10 or so) mint leaves, washed and spun dry

5 coriander or curry leaves

Thanks Soba. I will try this.

Tonight's repast:

Broiled (raining again or we would grill ) chicken marinated with lemon, garlic, cumin, ground coriander, oregano, and EVOO.

Glazed baby turnips

Steamed asparagus

Dessert: 1995 Vosne-Romanee, Domaine Jean Grivot. Our basement flooded, so we are drinking our way through a number of bottled we had stored down there.

[fifi]

I don't usually post to this thread but I have to today because, after a lot of attempts, I have finally arrived at the fricassee that I was looking for. I wanted a chicken fricassee that tastes like Brennan's turtle soup. I started with Emeril's beef fricassee (from Louisiana Real and Rustic, one of the most delicious recipes on the planet) because the method and direction seemed right. Then I added elements I have seen in the turtle soup recipe (that may not be the true one) and... finally... EUREKA! It might get tweaked but it is damn close. I am threatening to do it with pork next.

Served over white rice with endive salad with orange sections and a simple vinegrette.

Edited June 22, 2003 by fifi (log)

[paul o' vendange]

A variation on FL's "Double lamb rib chop with cassoulet" - lamb loin chops; "cassoulet" of white and pinto beans, haricot verts, yellow wax beans, soy beans; "quick" lamb sauce and rosemary oil. Delicious.

Started with a "napoleon" of phyllo (I usually want puff, but phyllo is so much easier - bought!), herbed three cheeses, ratatouille, and calamata tapenade, plate drizzled with balsamic glaze and basil oil.

As I work through the FL book, I am coming home to something. It was always my bent to try and be inventive in composing a plate, and I spent a lot of time thinking of a "sauce" to accompany the main dish, in this instance lamb; trying to "make something" spectacular out of the item by the use of a (usually) non-integral sauce (an example is a whitefish I make - plate a roast red pepper coulis, then a mound of spinach, the whitefish, and topped with deep fried [to "carbonized"] finely julienned leeks...) and inventive garnishes.

Chef Keller's use of integral, quick sauces, and his simply elegant plate composition is bring me to think more deeply about extracting the intrinsic quality of a food, trusting that, seeing where it can take me. Something about his cooking looks to me almost stark, yet in its simplicity, there is a softness, and invitation to enjoy the thing; it speaks volumes over the foams, towers, almost aggressively abstract plate composition I have seen elsewhere. I know this is nothing new, and I certainly don't mean to leap into the "foam/no-foam" fray, or related arguments, especially in a "what did you have for dinner" forum. But I think it is an interesting place to be, culinarily speaking. It's more and more where I want to go.

Edited June 22, 2003 by paul o' vendange (log)

[NeroW]

Grilled vegetable sandwiches: mushrooms, onions, red bell peppers, squashes, with tomato, arugula, and a basil Gouda.

Kettle Chips. Mesquite.

[jackal10]

Lunch; because of the dietary requirements of the various guest, no meat, no fish, no onions, no mushrooms, no carbohydrates

Marbled quail eggs in a seaweed nest

Fried flowers (egg white tempura of nasturtiums, rose petals sage leaves, parsley leaves, red kale etc from the garden) Dipping sauce

Iced Arugula soup and its foam (in shot glasses)

Samphire

Clear iced Borscht, sour cream,

Spinach roulade, pimento cheese filling (thanks eg), yellow pimento foam

Fava beans and peas, white and blue new potatos for those who could eat them

Elderflower sorbet, elderflower fritters

Courgete (zucchini) souffle, parmesan tuile

Summer pudding, strawberries (pepper, balsamic, Grand Marnier)

Chocolate fondant

Cheeses (Blue Vinny, Munster, Aged Emmental), (not touched)

Coffee

Indian sweets (brought by one of the guests)

Champagne

Ch Vieux Telegraph blanc 1998

Rolly Gasman Edelzwicker 2000

Rolly Gasman Gewurtztraminer Vendage Tardive 95

Edited June 22, 2003 by jackal10 (log)

[paul o' vendange]

Just had lunch with chicken breast supremes, sauce poivrade, and the above-beans and rosemary oil. Tonight, ribeye, bordelaise, frites.

[torakris]

Sunday dinner:

Had one of the best BBQ's ever, all from The Barbecue Bible by Steven Raichlen

pg 172 Romy's Ribs with Filipino seasonings, they were first marinated with orange, lemon, lime. lemongrass, giner and garlic then just before cooking they were rubbed with a spice rub or paprika,sichuan peppercorns, coriander, cumin, mustard, fennel, cayenne, brown sugar and salt. Unbelievably good!

pg 446 Mango Achar, sort of Malaysian style "coleslaw" with mango and cabbage in a dressing of coconut milk, white vinegar, sugar, nampla, ginger, garlic, and hot chiles, this combination of ingredients was just incredible and it may become my new "coleslaw"

pg 65 Grilled eggs with Vietnamese seasonings, raw egg were grilled for about 10 minutes, the quartered wrapped in a leaf of lettuce with some mint and then dipped into a nampla-lime sauce

cucumber and celery sticks with a miso-mayo dip

yaki onigiri (grilled rice balls)

dessert:

I had made tiramisu, but the kids all fell asleep so I am saving it for tonight.

[MatthewB]

Last night . . .

Grilled flank steak (marinated in lime juice, Thai fish sauce, soy sauce, garlic, peppers, etc.)

Thai cucumber & red onion salad w/ Thai table sauce dressing

Steamed jasmine rice

Fresh peaches w/ vanilla ice cream