Dinner! 2004

[M. Lucia]

possibility of snow=

Thick Split Pea Soup

for dessert Richard Donelly Cardamom Choc. Bar

I'm not one for chocolate, but I really enjoy these.

Good luck Percy!

Edited December 20, 2004 by M. Lucia (log)

[percyn]

Alsace Onion Tart - Wanted to try this out for an upcoming company potluck, based on a suggestion in the Holiday Potluck Lunch At Work thread. I used applewood smoked bacon and store bought pie shells (both large and smaller fillo shells) which worked out quite well. Very eary recipe (especially if you buy the crust).

[little ms foodie]

I love onion tarts! yum! I've never used filo, is it the same texture of pastry dough?

Dinner tonight.....HOLA!!

Guacamole with pomegranate seeds

Chicken enchiladas

Refried beans

Pacifico Beer

Felice Navidad!!

[percyn]

Good luck Percy!

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<Start a bit of topic rant>

Thanks...I did a little better...I guess...after another 50 minutes of trying to get reservations at Per Se, I was offered a table seating for 9pm or 10pm!! This is fine for me, but my wife cannot wait that long, so I had to go on the wait list again

Once last try....then I am flying to Paris

</end of topic rant>

[Jinmyo]

Brunoise of dai gai choy (Chinese mustard green) and cubed daikon kimchi soup with beef broth and lemongrass.

Thin rectangles of pillow and deep-fried tofu with sliced mushrooms in a ginger, black bean, and chile sauce.

Strip loin roasts, seared, glazed with bulgogi sauce; roasted rare, thinly sliced with wasabi mayonnaise.

Mixed grain (Lundberg Farm short grain brown rice, Korean sweet short grain brown rice, Thai white rice, barley).

Radish tail kimchi.

[NulloModo]

I am experimenting with LC pizza crust recipes again. Yesterday's was a little too fibrous and dense, but I am on the right track I think.

Anyway, the pizza on top of the experimental crust was Greek seasoned ground lamb, roasted eggplant, tomato sauce, feta cheese, and lots of oregano.

[Busboy]

Jinmayo is a hard act to follow.

Stephanie seared and then braised large bits of pork belly, with a stick of cinnamon thrown in amongst the carrots and onions and garlic chicken stock and wine. I'm very glad I married her. I made a pot of lentils with leeks and vast quantities of roasted garlic and more chicken stock and wine. Combined, they were a fairly spectacular dish, with the $9 bottle of wine we threw in being the only significant expense on a dinner that fed six.

Edited to add that we broiled some fresh sardines with garlic and olive oil and bay. You've gotta be in the mood for sardines, but if (as Pepe LePew would say) you like feesh, they're a tasty little treat.

Eating like a peasant. feeling like a king.

Edited December 20, 2004 by Busboy (log)

[reesek]

Stephanie seared and then braised large bits of pork belly, with a stick of cinnamon thrown in amongst the carrots and onions and garlic chicken stock and wine.  I'm very glad I married her. 

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i love that.

dinner was simple seared salmon with saffron sauce, baby potatoes (simply boiled at the request of the british bf.) a side of shredded brussels sprouts and roasted cauliflower was the highlight. salad of toasted pecans, dried cranberries, sliced apples, radicchio and laura chenel goat.

bonny doon le cigare volant to drink.

[Basilgirl]

Friday night: Sierra Nevadas

Saturday night: A 2.25 lb. sirloin roast rubbed all over with some fancy herb salt somebody brought me from Paris, stuck in the Set It and Forget It. Came out beautifully brown and extremely tender. As I was alone, I just sliced some very thin and stuck in on half a pita with some really good creamy "Sauce for Salade", gorgonzola and red onion. Heated it up in the microwave and had it with some extremely bad Pinot Noir. The rest will be used up this week for French dips.

Sunday night: Combined Marcella's (from Marcella Says) and Lidia's chicken saltimobocca recipes - Marcella calls for layering pancetta between thinly sliced chicken with the sage leaves, but the thought of barely cooked pancetta made me queasy, so I put a sage leaf on the chicken and then a layer of pancetta and cooked it pancetta side down first. Lots of sage leaves in the butter/olive oil I sauteed them in, white wine, chicken stock. Served with garlic mashed potatoes with scallions sauteed in olive oil and lots of salt and pepper. Oh! The first course was my attempt at something I had in a restaurant - fresh mozzarella bites wrapped in prosciutto, baked in the oven and topped with balsamic vinaigrette. What a disaster. The cheese melted all over the place. I guess at the restaurant they put them under a really hot broiler or a salamander or something. Anyway, I kind of pushed the cheese back into the prosciutto wrappers and waited for it to cool off and come back together. The boyfriend declared them delicious.

Tonight: It is FREEZING here in D.C. so it will be onion soup with lots of goopy cheese and a green salad with the leftover balsamic vinaigrette from last night.

No wonder I have high cholesterol.

[lovebenton0]

Saturday night:

We had such a big brunch early in the afternoon we did a gumbo and rice redux with sliced Asian pears, red grapes and bleu d'Auvergne Miramont for dessert.

Last night:

Seared and pan cooked chicken legs with sliced Spanish onions, lemon and black pepper, lemon thyme.

Golden pureed onion sauce made from pan juices served over rice and chicken.

Sweet potatoes mashed with apple cider, a bit of cider vinegar, cinnamon, plantains and pecans.

Later we split a big ol' trashy Snickers bar for dessert with lattes.

[Malawry]

Now that I'm not at work for a few weeks, I expect to be cooking a lot of the simple American food I love so much for dinners.

Last night, I made some old-fashioned chicken soup, which we slurped with a big salad topped with Italian meats and provolone. I added several spoons of olive salad to mine, for a muffaletta-type effect. I finished the last of some 2003 Linden Vineyards Riesling-Vidal with this.

Tonight, bratwurst on a bed of kraut/apple/bacon goodness. Hot hot hot coffee alongside--it was freezing out and this sounded so warming and satisfying to me. The wine from last night would have been great with this dinner, but I'd already killed the bottle.

[percyn]

I love onion tarts! yum! I've never used filo, is it the same texture of pastry dough?

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Wendy/lmf, this was my first time making this particular recipe, but I was surprised at how easy it turned out to be. I tend to season to taste and in this case, it would have used some more seasoning (nutmeg, salt and pepper).

The filo pastry gives it that flaky, crisper texture, though one has to be careful not to choke on a small flake that goes down the wrong way

Anyway, I plan to take these to the company potluck if I have time.

Cheers

P

[little ms foodie]

little MR. foodie made dinner tonight, one of my favorites!!

Chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes, green beans and sausage gravy.

We tried this fun little inexpensive red with it, nothing special but we got a laugh off the lable!

Assorted xmas cookies made by friends and family for dessert!

[hathor]

This dinner also belongs on the "Baby its cold outside" thread! Because it was really cold out last night!!

Pumpkin ravioli with butter and sage

Roasted chicken filled with oranges, rosemary and garlic

Roasted cauliflower (to welcome home the college son )

Baby arugula salad with oranges, shallots and toasted sunflower seeds.

And a wonderful Argentina Malbec that I've never seen or heard of before...husband brought it home. Delicious!

[Basilgirl]

French onion soup (Baby, It's Cold outside thread has my sorry-ass explanation)

Leafy green salad with prosciutto, gorgonzola, scallions & homemade balsamic vinaigrette

Boyfriend polished off most of a pecan pie. Oh, and some Reese's cups. It must be the holidays...

[The Hersch]

the thought of barely cooked pancetta made me queasy

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The thought of barely cooked pancetta makes me hungry. It needn't make you queasy. One of the very best ways to enjoy pancetta is utterly, gloriously, unctuously raw. Hm...almost lunchtime.

[Jinmyo]

Onion soup made with white, red, and Spanish onions and shiro miso (white miso paste), sake, with cubes of deep-fried silken tofu floating over slivered scallions.

Racks of lamb with a mushroom shoyu glaze, sprinkled with three kinds of mint leaves chopped and a light mustard dressing.

Rice noodles with an almond sauce (crushed almonds, powdered almonds, ngoc mam, mirin, roasted chiles, almond oil).

Oolong-steamed Shanghai bok choy with sesame oil and gomasio (roasted sesame salt).

Shrimp chips (tapioca flour, dried shrimp etc) as tuiles with chopped grilled shrimp atop and a few drops of chile oil and lime.

edit:

Spoolong.

edit:

Spilllling.

edit:

sPelling.

Edited December 21, 2004 by Jinmyo (log)

[Basilgirl]

the thought of barely cooked pancetta made me queasy

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The thought of barely cooked pancetta makes me hungry. It needn't make you queasy. One of the very best ways to enjoy pancetta is utterly, gloriously, unctuously raw. Hm...almost lunchtime.

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Sorry, I just dig on cooked swine

[Jason Perlow]

Tonight, we made Beef "Pseudoyaki" (click)

[The Hersch]

the thought of barely cooked pancetta made me queasy

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The thought of barely cooked pancetta makes me hungry. It needn't make you queasy. One of the very best ways to enjoy pancetta is utterly, gloriously, unctuously raw. Hm...almost lunchtime.

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Sorry, I just dig on cooked swine

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Well, this wasn't dinner, it was lunch, but after this little exchange I went home to a beautiful chunk of pancetta in my fridge. I also had a beautiful leftover soup of turnips, cannelllini beans, escarole, and onions. I heated up the soup, cut some slices of sourdough bread (the kind of dismaying LaBrea stuff that you can get in supermarkets in godforsaken towns in North Carolina for god's sake), and some nice thin slices of raw pancetta, and had the best lunch I've had in months, along with a glass of cheap pinot grigio. My Irish terrier Cassie got a couple of nibbles of pancetta, and she was very happy too.

[The Hersch]

My Irish terrier Cassie got a couple of nibbles of pancetta, and she was very happy too.

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Excuse me, I should say "Cassie, the Irish terrier who lives with me"....as she points out, I do not own her.

[lovebenton0]

Last night was an early and impromptu ("Dad, we want to come see you and Judith before we fly to Tucson for Christmas Wednesday. Can we come for Christmas dinner tomorrow night?" = phone call at 11:00PM from college daughters) Christmas dinner. Gotta love 'em!

So it was a what's on-hand dinner. I braised thick pork butt steaks rubbed in the morning with Five Spice/Kosher salt/brown sugar in beer and molasses (adapted from Molly Stevens) with Spanish onions, then a honey/fish sauce glaze and run under the broiler to carmelize.

Served the onions on the side tossed with some pan juices/minced garlic from the brussel sprouts.

Brussel sprouts, steamed a few minutes then pan cooked in butter/EVOO/lemon juice/garlic, tossed with Kosher salt and coarse ground black pepper.

A slight variation of the jalapeno glazed baby carrots/granny apple slices last week (by my DH's request -- and they were wonderful with the pork). I cooked the apples down to sauce this time and blended the glaze in that with butter and a drizzle of honey to coat the carrots.

Biscuits with butter.

Rice pudding with golden raisins, dried figs, candied ginger and coconut milk for dessert with cinnamon coffee.

And no time for pics.

[helenas]

Oolong-steamed Shanghai bok choy with sesame oil and gomasio (roasted sesame salt).

Jinmyo, did you add tea leaves to the steaming liquid? Anything else like ginger?

Is a tea flavor discernable in the greens? Thanks

[Susan in FL]

Dinners have been sounding and looking good! We have been on the go with holiday events and parties, an early Christmas celebration with my son, and getting ready for our trip. We're taking off for Europe today, so I wanted to wish all my fellow Dinner! posters safe and happy holidays. Hopefully I can return to more regular posting after we get home. Cheers!

[Jinmyo]

Oolong-steamed Shanghai bok choy with sesame oil and gomasio (roasted sesame salt).

Jinmyo, did you add tea leaves to the steaming liquid? Anything else like ginger?

Is a tea flavor discernable in the greens? Thanks

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Yes. Tons of oolong leaves, lots of scallion and ginger bits. If you keep the steamer sealed it really does impart the smoky flavour of oolong.