Dinner! 2005

[Jake]

A busy weekend cooking and closing up the cottage:

Friday: BBQ'd beef ribs, parsnips & carotts, chive and garlic mashed potatos

Saturday: Pork coddled in olive oil (loosely based on a Paula Wolfert recipe, the woman is a genius) white beans with thyme and rosemary, arugula salad.

Sunday: Dinner for 30! (I'm exhausted, but my other half has a very large family) turkey, dressing, potatos, mint glazed carrots, french beans with compound butter, pan fried corn with red and jalapeno pepper, red onion, corriander, maple mashed turnips, purple cauliflower with thyme vinaigrette, gravy.

[Alinka]

Not very pretty or fancy, but it was fresh and quick:

Parsley pasta, parmesan, cream, tuna, lots of pepper.

[Daniel]

Razor Clams stir fried with oyster sauce, soy sauce, garlic, ginger, shitake mushroom, bok choy and sichuan pepper corn.. Came out really good...

Lamb burgers on home made brioche with bacon dijon and goat cheese.. Sweet potato fries

Paula Dean's Butterscotch Pie.. I have to admit I used store bought crust and also redi whip.. This was the first time I used Redi whip the way it was "intended" and most likely my last.. It was soupy and tasteless in no time.. Its mainly nitrous.Next time I will not cut corners to miss washing an extra bowl.. The pie itself was pretty tastey.. This recipe was like retro campy.

Edited October 10, 2005 by Daniel (log)

[M. Lucia]

Everyone's meals have been looking fabulous, makes me wish I had more time for cooking or more audience. Anyways,

Corncakes (like these)

I had made these before and they fell apart, this time sucess, satisfying, like pancakes.

Beet Puree with Orange Zest

Greenmarket Lettuce Salad

When it finally turns cold, I'm still clinging to summer.

Dessert will be a chocolate peanut butter milkshake!

[Shalmanese]

The cheesemonger had a wheel of delightful perinoco studded with truffles which I just had to have.

So I made some fresh pasta tossed in a bit of brown butter, salt and just a dab of pepper and then topped generously with truffled cheese. Mmm... the taste of it was fantastic and it's an incredibly economically affordable way to revel in the taste of truffles.

Not as good as the real thing obviously but for $2 a plate, I'm not complaining.

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I love that cheese, and I never thought of using it on pasta like that. Yum. ...Next time I buy some, will do!

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Mmm... any hints on how else I could use it? I'm definately getting more.

[purplewiz]

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I'm just going to go cry quietly now. That looks...somewhere beyond exquisite.

Marcia.

[purplewiz]

For dinner, one of the infinite variants on carnitas, served on a garlic herb tortilla, shredded colby jack cheese, perfectly ripe avocado, salsa, sour cream, and homegrown green onions:

Served with a tossed salad loaded with homegrown cherry tomatoes. There's something marvelously decadent about eating homegrown tomatoes when it's snowing outside. (It was 80 on Saturday.)

Marcia.

[percyn]

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I love that cheese, and I never thought of using it on pasta like that.  Yum.  ...Next time I buy some, will do!

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Mmm... any hints on how else I could use it? I'm definately getting more.

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I like topping a fried egg with it and letting it melt on there. More appropriate for breakfast, but good.

[percyn]

Great dinners all...truly in awe !!

Unfortunately, I have been too busy to cook lately, but may have stumbled upon new found inspiration here.

[Patrick S]

This was the first time I used Redi whip the way it was "intended" and most likely my last..

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I'm also of the opinion that the only thing in a can of RediWhip worth consuming is the NO2. . .

Your lamb burgers look killer.

[lesfen]

For dinner, one of the infinite variants on carnitas, served on a garlic herb tortilla, shredded colby jack cheese, perfectly ripe avocado, salsa, sour cream, and homegrown green onions:

Served with a tossed salad loaded with homegrown cherry tomatoes. There's something marvelously decadent about eating homegrown tomatoes when it's snowing outside. (It was 80 on Saturday.)

Marcia.

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Oh... baby. You got me. Look at those avocados. That's my last meal, right there.

[rooftop1000]

Today I took the turkey carcass carrots celary onion garlic etc...and made stock

then added chicken base and ...umm chicken. Celary, carrots, onion, asparagus, green beans, and decided after 50 yrs of existance Grandmas dumplings needed revamping. Well not really but I didnt want to go to the store for a jar of funky parm cheese, so I mixed leftover ricotta eggs salt white pepper and flour and tossed a dumpling into the pot. Tasted dumpling , drove to the store to get parm cheese, added biiig handfull and another egg and made dumplings. Tasty but lighter than grandmas...hers are just eggs cheap jarred parm cheese S&P and flour. Since I dont usually have ricotta around the house probabley a one time change....dont tell grandma

tracey

[little ms foodie]

tonight I made lentil soup with roasted garlic, arugula and green olive paste. This was from a 'healthy' recipe but I fixed that by adding a parm rind, some additional parm shavings, croutons and a nice drizzle of excellent EVOO

Dayne made an excellent capresse salad with green striped and black heirloom tomatoes and a 5 year old balsamic

We chose a bordeaux style WA red, TreFanciuilli from JM Cellars to go with it which was excellent.

[Megan Blocker]

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I love that cheese, and I never thought of using it on pasta like that.  Yum.  ...Next time I buy some, will do!

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Mmm... any hints on how else I could use it? I'm definately getting more.

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I like topping a fried egg with it and letting it melt on there. More appropriate for breakfast, but good.

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Eggs are appropriate ANYTIME!!!! They're like magic.

Edited October 11, 2005 by Megan Blocker (log)

[Megan Blocker]

This was the first time I used Redi whip the way it was "intended" and most likely my last..

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I'm also of the opinion that the only thing in a can of RediWhip worth consuming is the NO2. . .

Your lamb burgers look killer.

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Gorgeous dinner, Daniel.

My recommendation for the Redi Whip would be to just squirt it right onto a spoon...or just skip dirtying up the cutlery and squirt it right into your mouth. Can't beat it for empty calories, frankly. And it has no time to turn to mush! Yum.

[FoodMan]

Sunday's Eastern Mediterranean Dinner:

-Fried Kibbe, stuffed with ground lamb, pine nuts and tomatoes

-Hummus

-Carrot yogurt salad

-Fatoosh: Lebanese salad of cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce, bell peppers and fried crispy pita bread. All is dressed in olive oil, lemon juice and sumac.

Dessert was not so....Eastern Mediterranean...Jamie Oliver's Sticky Sponge Chocolate Pudding.

Elie

[MobyP]

sauteed mushrooms with a touch of roasted garlic in a puffed pastry shell (yes, Pepperidge Farm) & the pastry "top" drizzled with white truffle oil

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Susan, it looks like a great meal. Have you ever thought about making your own puff pastry? It's really not diffficult, and tastes so much better than store bought. Also, once you portion it out, it lasts for a good couple of months in the freezer.

Edited October 11, 2005 by MobyP (log)

[Chufi]

still in a sort of eastern mood after last nights bibimbap.. craving the flavors of ginger, soy, and chillies.. kind of weird because I'm usually not very into that kind of food..

Husband is very happy because he is always very much into this kind of food!

Broccoli/rettich/taugeh stirfry with soy and sesame

Soba noodles with pork and spring onions, flavored with lots of ginger, garlic, chillies and a little bit of hoisin sauce

[liamsaunt]

It was cold and rainy last night, so we had Marcella Hazan's chicken with two lemons, mashed potatoes, roasted beets, and broccoli. I made some gravy also, and we had a nice bottle of pinot noir.

[Susan in FL]

Still on a celery root kick, we had a lentil and celery root salad with it.

That sounds & looks like a wonderful combo! any speacial seasonings?

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It is a great combo -- in fact, we are having leftovers tonight and I get to eat what's left of that. This is the recipe that I used for the idea of ingredients, but didn't measure. Most of the time I like less vinaigrette or dressing than recipes call for. We decided that the next time we have lentils and celeriac, we will either skip the blue cheese or cut back on the proportion or use a milder blue cheese. It almost overwhelmed the rest of it.

[rooftop1000]

Ribs, glorious Ribs, best Ribs I have ever made Ribs, maybe the best Ribs I have ever had Ribs.

So like I said we had ribs...on the Weber 3 hours, 2 charcoal dumps, hickory chips, dry rubbed. 1 1/2 hours in I added a thick coating of brown sugar salt and onion powder, Then again about 15 min before dinner added thick coating of brown sugar and hot paprika...OH MY

Sticky, crispy, moist, pinks and browns Mmmm Ribs

oh yeah mashed potatoes corn and green beans too.....with the Ribs

tracey

[Susan in FL]

Susan I am not familar with either of your PN's and would love to hear about the differences. I was actually in north willamette tasting some new OR pinots.

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Good! Glad you're interested, and I would like to hear about some of the Oregon Pinots that you tasted. If you post/posted to another topic about them, please let me know where.

Wild Horse Pinot Noir has always been one of our favorite wines, but the Wild Horse Unbridled is a special bottling that I had never heard of. It was not part of the routine tastings. It was listed on the tasting list as one with a charge, but if you paid for a taste of it, you got the Riedel glass with the Wild Horse insignia. When I expressed my interest in tasting it, they just gave me a free taste, and I immediately decided to buy a bottle.

So that's the background for the California Pinot Noir. It was soft and round -- much softer and rounder than the Oregon. A wine like this could be my favorite wine of all time for sipping, just drinking. Overall, it was my favorite of the two. Having said that, it seems weird to then say that the Oregon Pinot Noir was better with the food, but it was! The Cricklewood from Willamette Valley, as I said, I had never heard of. It just met the criteria when I went shopping locally for another wine for this dinner. It was more earthy, which was great with the mushroom thingie. It was more focused and riper. We commented often during dinner about how much better the Oregon matched up with the food, but I kept going back and sipping on the delicious California, and liking it better. Oh what a wonderful dilemna to experience.

The fruit in the Wild Horse was more up front, too.

I don't want to sound as if I'm trying to be Miles in Sideways, but damn I do love good Pinot Noir, and it's worth it to drink ten or fifteen mediocre ones to get one or two sublime examples like this.

One more interesting thing... The Oregon Pinot was better than the California with everything except dessert. With that, for us, the Wild Horse just jumped right out and grabbed the chocolate raspberry brownie.

[Susan in FL]

.....Have you ever thought about making your own puff pastry?

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NO.

Just kidding... sort of. I am scared of anything that hints of making pastry or dough or baking. But your question is well taken, and I will read your thread on making pastry. We have made some dough things, but the emphasis there is on the "we." If Russ leads and I follow, I am willing.

Thanks! I really should try to overcome this aversion to making all things baked.

[Patrick S]

.....Have you ever thought about making your own puff pastry?

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NO.

Just kidding... sort of. I am scared of anything that hints of making pastry or dough or baking.

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Given what we've seen of your cooking skills, I don't think your fear is well-founded. You'd knock it out of the park. It does take some time, but you'll be amazed by how great puff pastry made with butter tastes. For a much quicker but still delicious, all-butter, puff pastry approximation, you could try 'rough puff.'

[Megan Blocker]

Dinner tonight was a clean-out-the-fridge exercise - I have a zillion yellow onions and almost as many heads of garlic sitting around, plus leftover peas from the risotto the other day, so...lamb chop with a balsamic syrup (with garlic and rosemary), peas tossed with onion (carmelized and cooked down a bit in chicken stock), and tossed salad. Yum!

Susan: I'm with you - I am a pretty prolific baker (bread, brownies, cookies, pies, tarts), but I have yet to tackle puff pastry. If you do decide to take it on, I'd love to hear all about it!