Dinner! 2004

[Behemoth]

Another dinner party! Okay, I promise I will not always suck up so much bandwith, but this came out really nicely.

Roasted fennel wrapped in Serrano ham and Phyllo:

Joao Pires 2002 Muscat White Wine (portugal --awesome stuff)

Mussels in saffron broth. I refuse to take photos of my food while guests are around, so here they are hanging out in my vast refrigerated space aka the patio:

Sharecropper's Oregon Pinot Noir

Roast sirloin of pork (I boned it myself and carved out the filet for later -- I felt like such a badass!), with vinegar glazed pearl onions, mashed celeriac and potatos and sauteed tatsoi with garlic. (mashed celeraic just looks like beige, and tatsoi was last minute, but here's the rest: )

(about 30 minutes from doneness...I had split the slab o' loin in half, put some shallots, garlic, rosmary and thyme on one half, laid the other over it and very inexpertly tied it. It looked pretty "rustic".)

3 cheeses. The favorite was a Delice de Bourgogne...

Sinister Hand Oregon Syrah-Grenache.

And finally, a rare foray into baking. Flourless espresso chocolate cake, topped with black mission figs. Espresso with, of course.

Yeah, had to share some of my german gummi bears later that evening, too

Edited October 17, 2004 by Behemoth (log)

[Susan in FL]

Susan - How is it that you have never been enticed to do a foodblog ? ;)

I am on the list... Thank you for the compliments and for asking!

Behemoth, beautiful and looks delicious.

[percyn]

Behemoth,

Everything looks great (I can almost taste it in my mind and it is gooood) !! A vintage port might be a fine accompaniment with that expresso/fig cake. I'll make you a deal...you bring the cake, I will bring a '85 Dow.

[suzilightning]

as they say in poughkeepsie - oh dear! oh my! oh golly gosh!

percyn and behemoth i soooo want that food and susan - please stop posting the food porn - i can only take so much

just got my numbers into hawkcount - while baking 3 meatloaves( 2 go directly into the freezer for later in the season). the dinger just dinged to let me know to pull the last meatloaf out, add asparagus spears and the leeks to the butternut squash, white turnip and parsnip dish and check on the duckskin i'm trying out in the oven(it has released more fat and is crisping nicely). i turned the oven off and everything will be done in about 20 minutes with residual heat.

wine, hmmmmmmm....

johnnybird is down the shore at our condo so i'm solo tonight. think a 2001 foppiano petite sirah might just do the trick. open and let breathe...in...out...in...out...

now to call johnnybird and see how he made out cooking the tail of a filet

[Behemoth]

Behemoth,

            Everything looks great (I can almost taste it in my mind and it is gooood) !! A vintage port might be a fine accompaniment with that expresso/fig cake. I'll make you a deal...you bring the cake, I will bring a '85 Dow. 

←

Thanks! It was fun to make. And as much as I love port, what I really want is a bowl of that Guiness turkey chili...

The Sinister Hand was recommended by my wine store guy for the cake. It ended up being a very nice match, though port would have been even better, I think.

[hillvalley]

I spent the day making a pot of chicken stock and put it to fantastic use in a roasted cauliflower and garlic soup.

Wait until the dining companion gets here. I may have garlic breath when he arrives but with one spoonful he will understand why.

Edited October 17, 2004 by hillvalley (log)

[Suzanne F]

Suzanne's Tad Friendly. "He Who Only Eats."

(makes salads too, though.)

←

Jinmyo, how could you be so mean???

Correct about the salad, though. And he also makes the absolute best oatmeal (dryish, thick, and chunky; not a bit of slime or glue the way he does it. ) But he makes the tea too weak for my taste.

Soemone else thought it meant "Husband Without Equal", and while I have had no others to compare him against, I think that's about right, too.

[Susan in FL]

Dinner tonight was just so-so... Pomegranate-glazed cornish hens and roasted root vegetables. (We decided to have a seasonal dinner according to the calendar, rather than our weather.) It was good, but it would have been better if had a grilled dinner, or something more appropriate to our beautiful, still summer-like weather.

The Gallo Reserve Cabernet was real good!

[snowangel]

Dinner tonight was just so-so... Pomegranate-glazed cornish hens and roasted root vegetables.  (We decided to have a seasonal dinner according to the calendar, rather than our weather.)  It was good, but it would have been better if had a grilled dinner, or something more appropriate to our beautiful, still summer-like weather.

The Gallo Reserve Cabernet was real good!

←

For some reason, this morning, after church, Paul said, let's stop by the market on the way home, and you can get a chuck roast. I need pot roast. I had plenty of potatos, carrots, onions in the larder. Also great salad fixings. Little did I realize that shortly after I put the thing in the oven to braise, and set the carrots to roast, that it would start snowing.

So, our meal was not only calendar, but weather appropriate. When I returned home from an extravagant yarn-buying trip with my mother, the house was perfumed (serious yarn purchases are another sign that the Weather Has Turned).

[Basilgirl]

Outrageously good & simple pot roast from Marcella's new book, "Marcella Says" - Dijon, garlic, red wine vinegar, anchovies and a little water, braised for 3 or so hours. Garlic mashed potatoes with scallions sauteed in butter & Pecorino, fennel braised in chicken stock.

Yum.

[Jinmyo]

  Jinmyo, how could you be so mean???           

But this means in turn, Suzanne, that you are winsome. And who would not want to be winsome?

The beginnings of autumnal meals:

Braised veal heart and sirloin tip in a tomato sauce with mushrooms and crostini.

Sautéed Chinese long beans with balsamico and toasted walnuts.

Spinach and cheese ravioloni (BIG ravioli) with a roasted garlic and lime sauce.

Farfalle with a (peeled) portobello mushroom and port sauce.

Scalloped onions with buttermilk and Shropshire blue cheese and more crostini.

[halland]

Pizza in 6 Courses

Ok, there are only 4 photos here, but the pizzas were:

Marinara

Margherita

Caramelized Onion and Ricotta Salata

Pepperoni (no photo)

Watercress with Pancetta and Ricotta Salata

Margherita (no photo)

Hal

[FoodMan]

Friday dinner:

Pork loin with apples. Seared the loin and then deglazed with pretty good apple juice, and tossed in some choped apples and onions, and finished braising/roasting in the oven.

Mashed steamed sweet potatoes flavored with maple syrup and cinnamon. All was blended with butter and milk.

Chocolate crepes for dessert

Saturday:

mainly leftovers and a simple roast chicken.

Sunday:

I'm not sure why, but I had this urge to make pasta. Since I had some leftover roast chicken in the fridge, I was sure something could be concoted.

So I made a batch of pasta and cut it into tagliattelle (Tortellini's were a little too much work). I cooked it and tossed it with leftover chopped roast chicken, fresh sage and oregano, garlic, olive oil and a healthy dose of Parmiggiano. Of course like Mario teaches us everything was finished with some cooking water, it's amazing how many people ask if the pasta has a lot of cream or butter and are shocked to learn that it's just the starchy cooking water and cheese that has this effect. In short, it was fabulous and so satisfying.

Dessert was chcolate again (not sure why, we have been craving that a lot lately). I remembered that I had some of of Fergus Hendersson's "Treacle Tart" nut crust dough in the freezer, so I defrosted earlier and blind baked three individual tarts. I then filled with a chocolate tart filling from Jamie Oliver's first book and baked it. It was absolutely the best chocolate tart I've ever had, and it looked like it came out of a Paris sweet shop instead of my kitchen. I so wished my stupid camera was functional (hopefully soon it will be).

Elie

[Jake]

Sunday night after a cold, damp day: braised veal shanks in demi-glace based sauce over polenta and carrots. A bottle of lovely Bordeaux, opened by accident...oops, must read label before grabbing and opening! All very warm and satisfying.

[SiseFromm]

Rich, gelatenous veal stock and a batch of demi. My freezer is stocked now with the components to put together pretty much any sauce. I've got stocks of veal, chicken, lamb, and fish fumet, not to mention that dark sticky demi. I'm ready to rock!

[tejon]

Last night was vegetable koftas in coconut sauce, basmati rice, chapatis, and raita. Black tea for the grownups, juice for the smaller folk.

[bloviatrix]

Tonight was one of those "finish things in fridge before they go bad" meals. In particular, I picked up some chicken-apple sausages at the butcher last week that needed to be used. Feeling somewhat inspired by this thread, but lacking any long grain rice, I decided to improvise.

So, tonight's experiment was chicken sausage-israeli couscous bog. Carmelized an onion, then browned the sausage, toasted the couscous, added chicken stock and let it simmer. It was actually quite tasty.

Edited October 19, 2004 by bloviatrix (log)

[Susan in FL]

I am so happy about this dinner, and this is one of the things for which I thank eG! I had never even heard of Larb before eG. I think I made Larb tonight. I made two recipes from Hot Sour Salty Sweet. At least I should say these were the recipes I used as my main guide. From what I've read and seen in photos here, this seems to be Larb. It was the recipe on page 78, Luang Prabang Fusion Salad. I read several other recipes, too, and each one was different, but I would say the one I followed the most was this one, using pork. Now I know why this is so popular. It was delicious!

The same is true about the Pad Thai recipe on page 124, which I made a little soupier than the recipe; although, while I will definitely make Larb again, I'm not so sure about the Pad Thai. I might would rather go to a Thai restaurant.

First up was edamame and coarse salt, with Brancott Sauvignon Blanc. Edamame and Sauvignon Blanc is one of my favorite things.

Then the Larb, with a Hogue Riesling.

With the rest of the Riesling, the Pad Thai.

Except for the edamame, this was certainly new territory for me. Thanks, All.

[Behemoth]

Susan,

It all looks really beautiful, as always. If you want to give it another shot, maybe try the Pad Thai recipe from eCGI? As far as I can tell, it is really similar to the one in the David Thompson cookbook, which has always worked really well for me. (Much better than restuarant!).

Last night I made kind of a chili with some of the leftover pork. (Chili was on the mind thanks to percyn's photo). Came out great, had it tonight too, since it is our "get home late" night. Actually, I also made a pit stop at the taqueria/mexican grocery on the way home and picked up a coupla tacos. The place has a gyro-like setup for the meat so everything is slightly charred. Soft tacos, cilantro, onion and the best hot sauce I've had anywhere -- heaven for $1.50 a pop...and sadly I am pretty much the only non-latin person I've ever seen there. Best restaurant in town, hands down as far as I've concerned and nobody I've spoken to seems to have heard of it. Still working up the nerve to order a bowl of Menudo though...

A pictorial tribute:

[eunny jang]

Have gone on long runs the past couple days.

Quack Quack

A well-rendered and then seared off Muscovy duck breast; a pan sauce with green peppercorns, a wee dab of honey and a little cream; melting French lentils simmered in stock and dressed up with rosemary and carmelized cipollinis; bit of mesclun with just a tiny gloss of hazelnut vinaigrette.

And the tiniest scrape of Roaring 40's Blue for dessert

[Susan in FL]

Behemoth, thanks. I will take a look at that Pad Thai recipe. I haven't taken the opportunity to thoroughly read eG's Cooking Classes, and would like to do that.

Eunny, you are just too much! That food is gorgeous, and any time it looks like that, the taste has to be sublime. Your appreciation of the visual appeal, and all the aspects of dining, is awesome. Once again, I salute you.

[Daddy-A]

The difference between dinner, last night, with the kids:

Cider-brined Roast Chicken

Balsamic Roasted Winter Veggies (Squash, Parsnips, Carrots, etc)

Risotto with Chantrelles, Porcini & Pine Mushrooms (local) and Pancetta - made (with help) by my 13 year old son

Table set & cleared by my 10 year old son.

... and dinner, tonight, without the kids:

Leftover Rice - 2 varieties less than 1 week old.

6 Potstickers

12 Perogies

Salad made from the remnants of the veggie drawer.

Eaten at the coffee table while we watch the Sox claw their way back into the series.

Dishes still sitting on the coffee table.

A.

ps - Eunny, nice quack.

[little ms foodie]

Daddy-A that is funny!!!

Dinner last night:

Mache salad from our farmers market with slivered prosciutto, parsnip croutons and vinegrette:

French onion soup made with our first ever homemade beef/veal stock:

Bottle of Syrah and a little french music on the cd! Perfect for the cold stormy night we had.

Edited October 19, 2004 by little ms foodie (log)

[phaelon56]

I haven't weighed in on this thread lately but my cooking has been rather pedestrian and minimal - on many occasions I've been eating bagged salad greens and grocery store rotisserie chicken (even ramen noodles!). It's the 14 - 16 hour days that are interfering with my routine but that's only for the next year or so

I did take advantage of an unseasonably day last weekend and smoked some ribs on my trusty little electric cmoker. Purists will be aghast and insist that only lump charcoal or wood can really deliver but these ribs rock. They were truly spectacular. Kansas City style prepped spareribs dry, rubbed with Montreal Steak Seasoning (I've tried so many brand and even my own mixes but keep coming back to the Montreal product) and left in the fridge for 24 hours before smoking.

We had collard greens with smoked turkey as sides and I don't recall what else because the ribs were so good I was in a daze (not to mention that my GF is so charming I often lose track of what we cooked and ate when she's visiting)

[hathor]

God those ribs look good....drooool.

I've also been working ridiculous hours, but haven't had to resort to ramen....yet.

Sunday night we had braised chicken and garlic and merguez sausages, and tonight its going to be the left over chicken with some lentils. And last night was it was chicken with some old brussels sprouts I found lurking in the refrigerator. geez, I need to get my life back....soon....