Dinner! 2003

[SethG]

Thursday night:

Salmon fillet sauteed in a "potato case," served over a tomato coulis;

roasted asparagus (I'm really loving how easy this is to make); and

leeks braised in chicken stock with thyme.

[dumpling]

Thursday

Roast Chicken and Orzo- white meat chicken, orzo, peas, carrots cooked in cream of chicken soup with salt, pepper and sherry.

plated topped by a potato latke, then cranberry and carrot relish.

Apple and walnut strudel

[torakris]

Thursday dinner:

a large ceasar salad with topped with blackened (the seasoning not burned! ) chicken breasts and a loaf of bread with butter.

[laurel]

Salmon fillet sauteed in a "potato case," served over a tomato coulis;

Potato case? What's that?

[pmathus]

Thursday dinner: two hardboiled eggs and three cans of budweiser.

[torakris]

Friday dinner:

fusilli with broccoli rabe and tomato sauce

rustic bread from Costco

dessert:

Costco apple pie

[Malawry]

Pan-fried catfish with furikake and ginger-soy beurre blanc

Spicy stir-fried tat soi

Brown rice

[dumpling]

Friday

TURKEY!

Pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving:

Roast Turkey with Rosemary and Sage(Big gorgeous 16 pounder!)

Candied Yams

Green Bean in garlic butter sauce

Stuffing

Gravy

Leftover Potato Latkes

Cranberry Apple Pie

[SethG]

Salmon fillet sauteed in a "potato case," served over a tomato coulis;

Potato case? What's that?

This was a Jacques Pepin recipe, in which you butterfly a salmon fillet (so that it's thin) and cover each side with dill and serveral overlapping slices of potato. Then you saute until the potatoes are browned on each side. I had a little trouble getting the hang of the technique but by the third one I was a pro. It's very tasty.

Now, Laurel, tell me: curried conch?

Friday night's dinner was improvised-- I didn't have time to shop. It was my wife's birthday, but she had to spend it with our newborn son (no problem) and our almost two-year-old, who's sick with a virus and an ear infection and very needy. Whenever I spoke with the wife today, it sounded as if The Exorcist was playing on TV in the background.

So I rushed home. And made some hamburgers and a Jeffrey Steingarten potato gratin that totally rocked.

And I made a Jacques Torres chocolate souffle to try to do something special for my poor wife. I fear working with chocolate, but this was very easy. Isn't a souffle a miracle? You gotta love the French for that kind of stuff.

[cheeseandchocolate]

Friday dinner:

Mujadara (we've been eating a lot of this lately...mmmm!)

Braised cabbage with apples and cider vinegar (one of my winter favorites)

Roasted delicata squash, brushed with olive oil and sprinkled with fleur de sel

And 70% dark chocolate, with a glass of milk

SethG, where did you get the Steingarten recipe? And the Torres one too?

[Verjuice]

I made dessert first. (Dried) Figs stuffed with gianduja and almonds, then dipped in extra-bittersweet chocolate, and drizzled with orange milk chocolate. I was on a sugar high and dinner was mostly a blur:

- Sable with caramelized onions, Kefalotyri, horseradish cream. Five squash soup.

-For greens, I had some lackluster frisee and a bowl of edamame, however the winner in that department was the tooth-aching sweet pistachio marzipan.

[SethG]

SethG, where did you get the Steingarten recipe? And the Torres one too?

Steingarten has a chapter on potato gratin in It must Have Been Something I Ate.

And the Torres chocolate souffle is from Dessert Circus. I bet there's a thousand good chocolate souffles in a thousand different cookbooks, though.

[liamsaunt]

Friday dinner:

Roast rack of lamb

crispy herbed spaetzle

winter squash puree

brussels sprouts with brown butter and garlic

red wine (cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, merlot blend)

[suzilightning]

Friday night's dinner was improvised-- I didn't have time to shop. It was my wife's birthday, but she had to spend it with our newborn son (no problem) and our almost two-year-old, who's sick with a virus and an ear infection and very needy. Whenever I spoke with the wife today, it sounded as if The Exorcist was playing on TV in the background.

So I rushed home. And made some hamburgers and a Jeffrey Steingarten potato gratin that totally rocked.

And I made a Jacques Torres chocolate souffle to try to do something special for my poor wife. I fear working with chocolate, but this was very easy. Isn't a souffle a miracle? You gotta love the French for that kind of stuff.

you are a wonderful, sweet man

saturday -

the coq au vin (inspired by varmit's bistro question) is within 20 minutes of service with a baguette and some haricots verte

dessert is something i'm trying to see if johnnybird likes it: graham cracker crust, thin sliced apples sauteed with spices, cooled, then combined with a quart of vanilla toffuti and mounded in the shell and refrozen

tomorrow will be david rosengarten's recipe for crab imperial again - with enough leftover so we can have it for lunch monday. john keeps telling me all the people he works with love to see what he comes in with...

[torakris]

Saturday dinner:

chicken parmagiano and orzo casserole

chickepea, celery and blue cheese salad

table rolls

a 20 minute busy day dinner

[peanutgirl]

Smoked chicken,your basic home made macaroni salad, & a green salad. Of course only the chicken is pictured.

[Jinmyo]

Nice smoked chicken.

Smoked is the only way that I really like chicken breasts.

And I love the somewhat leathery skin. Great for wrapping rice and such.

[Jason Perlow]

A deboned broiled crawfish and rice stuffed chicken from Poche's (pronounced po-shays) in Louisiana, served with pan roasted and caramelized brussels sprouts and roasted potatoes.

[gus_tatory]

wow--nice pictures... i like the idea of that rice-stuffed chicken: what do they have in their stuffing besides the obvious?

[Jason Perlow]

wow--nice pictures... i like the idea of that rice-stuffed chicken: what do they have in their stuffing besides the obvious?

Deboned chicken stuffed with a rice dressing consisting of fresh crawfish tails, our own special sauce, onions, bell peppers, celery, garlic and chives. USDA approved.

   

Ingredients   

(Deboned Chicken, Cooked Rice, Onions, Cream Of Mushroom Soup, Margarine, Celery, Bell Peppers, Water, Seasoning [salt, Red Pepper, Black Pepper, MSG, Paprika], Flour, Pomarola Sauce, Crawfish Base, Chicken Base, Parsley Flakes, Crawfish)

[SethG]

Saturday night:

Mediterranean fish stew/soup with rouille on baguette croutons.

[torakris]

Had a huge BBQ lunch at my in-laws house for my son Hide's 3rd birthday, thus was not hungry when it came to dinner.

The husband and kids had retort bag curry and I nibbled on a slice of bread and the last table roll while sipping a Pepsi.

Dessert was a small bag of Sour Patch Kids

[SethG]

Sunday night:

buttermilk fried chicken.

And broccoli.

And instant couscous.

[project]

Made about 7 quarts of 'rustic' style Chicken Casserole.

In a 12 quart pot, added 2 bay leaves, 4 ounces washed fresh

curly parsley and stalks, 1 T dried thyme, and 2 ounces peeled

fresh cloves of garlic, lightly crushed.

Used 2 Perdue Oven Stuffer Roasters. One as purchased was

7.91 pounds, and the other was 7.97 pounds.

Set aside liver for kitty cat. Cut chicken into pieces.

Removed fat from tail and kept it. Removed and discarded

loose materials from inside of back. Removed and discarded

'red stuff' (?) under membranes and on either side of backbone

near tail.

Heavily peppered chicken pieces.

Browned chicken pieces a few at a time outdoors in steel wok

with chicken fat and cooking oil, wok set over 170,000

BTU/hour propane burner running at about 40% full power. Added

browned pieces to 12 quart pot.

Added to 12 quart pot, 4 C of dry white Chardonnay wine and

water to cover pot contents. Got about 11 quarts.

On stove, over moderate heat, brought to simmer and simmered

for 15 minutes.

For each chicken piece, removed edible meat, cut to bite size,

and placed in 5 quart bowl. Placed rest -- skin, bones,

cartilage -- in another 5 quart bowl. Got 5 pounds 1 ounce of

edible chicken pieces.

Poured broth through a strainer into an 8 quart pot. Removed

fat from broth; got about 1 C of fat; discarded fat. Got

about 6 quarts of broth.

Rinsed out 12 quart pot.

Prepared 1 pound bite sized pieces of fresh celery, 1 pound

bite sized pieces of fresh peeled carrot, 2 pound pieces of

yellow globe onion, and 24 ounce package fresh white

mushrooms, rinsed, sliced. Onion pieces were cut as

'trapezoids': Used large yellow globe onions, with about 1

pound of onion each, after peeling. Regarded root end as

south pole and cut through at Arctic circle and Antarctic

circle and discarded pole pieces. Cut through equator. Made

cut on line of longitude and peeled. Made more cuts on lines

of longitude to get trapezoidal pieces.

Combined these vegetables and broth in 12 quart pot. Simmered

until onions tender and mushrooms shrank.

Poured contents of 12 quart pot through strainer into 8 quart

pot, dumping strainer contents, when full, into a colander set

in a bowl.

Dumped stock in 8 quart pot through strainer lined with clean

cotton handkerchief into 12 quart pot. Dumped stock in 12

quart pot through strainer lined with another clean cotton

handkerchief into 8 quart pot.

Got about 6 1/2 quarts of stock.

Brought stock to simmer and skimmed. Reduced stock rapidly to

3 C. Resulting stock was dark, strongly flavored, and had

enough gelatine to gel at room temperature.

In a 5 quart pot, made a roux of 1 C butter and 1 C flour. As

soon as roux ready, with no delay (delay here can hurt the

action of the roux), dumped 3 C of reduced stock into roux and

whipped until smooth. Added 3 C hot milk and whipped until

smooth. Added 2 C whipping cream and whipped until smooth.

Over low heat, simmered. Added 2 T salt and 2 T fresh lemon

juice.

Dumped sauce into 8 quart pot. Added vegetables and meat in

alternating layers and pressed down with cooking spoon to

submerge solids.

Got about 7 quarts. Over low heat, with stirring about each

15 minutes, heated through to 180 F.

Ate 30 ounces and set rest in refrigerator for meals next

week. Intend to reheat portions in microwave and have with

toast and chilled Chardonnay.

Cut liver into pieces. Poached in water. Removed liver and

placed in porcelain dish. Reduced poaching liquid and added

to dish. Let cool. Placed in kitty cat food area. Kitty cat

seems to like the liver.

Notes: Sauce good. Due to only 15 minutes of simmering,

chicken not overcooked. In final dish, onions too prominent.

For one, pieces were too large; with such large onions, should

have also cut through on Tropic of Capricorn and Tropic of

Cancer and, thus, made trapezoids comparable in size to carrot

slices. But, this quantity of onions, carrots, and celery

likely helped make the sauce good. Might stew half the

onions, carrots, and celery in the broth and discard these

vegetables. Then stew the other half along with the mushrooms

and keep those vegetables for the final assembly. Sauce had

enough salt and lemon juice, but final dish did not -- try

another 1 or 2 T of salt and lemon juice.

Next time intend to add 1 pound of frozen fresh tiny peas, if

only for more color, poached in water (and then discard the

poaching water as it seems to have not such a good flavor).

[Priscilla]

Last evening a take on Marcella Hazan's polpette pizzaiola, something of a staple in our house from one of her first two books ... for some reason it didn't make the cut when years later they were revised and reissued as a single volume. A shame, really -- yet more evidence of the essentiality of the originals.

ANYways, instead of all beef it was 1/3 each ground chicken, lamb, & beef, on account of the nice man at the Middle Eastern market having all those freshly ground in the case there. Nice patties, passed through dried breadcrumbs, browned on each side, into the shallow casserole, each getting its slice of tomato, s & p, sage leaf before being bunged into the oven for a while, joining the pan of Jim Dixon-Amanda Hesseresque roasted cauliflower in progress (little garlic tossed in with the olive oil for the cauli), then the final dressage of a slice of whole-milk mozzarella and an anchovy fillet, returned to the oven until meltage was achieved.

Hadn't prepared the roasted cauliflower for quite a while -- beautiful fresh cauliflower at the Middle Eastern market brought it to mind, and it was so good, as pretty much everybody knows already.

Lovely redleaf salad with nutty delicious Ligurian olive oil.

Skinny ficelle-like baguette, saltylicious Tillamook butter.

CA wine with the novelty name Bocce -- a little thin, but drinkable.