Dinner! 2005

[Daniel]

Made ducks soup with vanilla,marin and soy..From The Cook's Book.. It was a delicious dish, the mirin and vanilla really went well with each other, ..On top is mint, scallions and hot peppers.. I was the only one with the peppers..

I cooked the skin down for the fat and ended up with these little guys..

Edited October 18, 2005 by Daniel (log)

[Megan Blocker]

Daniel - That looks delicious. You've definitely helped me decide that I need that book as soon as humanly possible.

Dinner tonight was, like Chufi's, comfort food. I had a leftover lamb chop in the fridge, and have been craving risotto ever since I had it a week or so ago. So....I decided to cut up the lamb chop and add it to a risotto with peas, rosemary and garlic. It was very yummy, if a little odd. After the risotto, I finished up with a tomato and onion salad.

Risotto:

Salad:

[purplewiz]

More comfort food here: hot dogs, grilled; sautee of broccoli, edamame, and the last of the little pattypan squashes with soy sauce and sesame oil; and tossed salad with tomatoes, feta cheese, green onions, and bacon bits. (Pattypan squashes, tomatoes, and green onions courtesy of the recently departed garden.) I didn't feel like cooking so I didn't.

Marcia.

[Grub]

Grilled thyme and rosemary salmon, with peas:

Got some nice grillmarks on the fish, and tried (slightly desperately) to make it look good by plating it on top of the peas, and dressing it up with some chopped scallions and whatnot, and I reckon it looks okay... But the taste was a complete disaster.

The peas were from a frozen bag, that included an Alfredo-type sauce, which would have been just fine -- but the mixture also contained bacon, which I hadn't realized. Not just the itty-bitty, crispy stuff you might use in a salad. And not just a few either -- like a can of "Pork and Beans" that contains a single cube of bacon. No, sirree, these were slabs of smokey, pork oink-oink hog-fat bacon. I can't really think of anything that this stuff would be good, to be served with -- but grilled thyme-rosemary salmon certainly ain't it.

[Daniel]

Daniel - That looks delicious.  You've definitely helped me decide that I need that book as soon as humanly possible.

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I would tell you that I am enjoying the book a lot..Its layed out well and the recipes are really exciting. I have recently gone on a Book Binge and went from having two baking books to about 25 cook books in the last two weeks or so.. Its getting really dangerous with my impulse buys as I get adjusted to shopping on the internet.. But this is one of my favorites..

Edited October 19, 2005 by Daniel (log)

[percyn]

Over the weekend, I decided to make some chicory stout beer chili.

Chuck beef marinating in spices and beer

Add some ancho chilies, tomatoes, black beans, some more beer and simmer for a few hours.

Wife wanted some nachos, so I made:

Buffalo Nachos

Melted 4 different kinds of cheese

Enjoyed with some German beer

[percyn]

Tonight...

Decided to make some lamb broth with lots of garlic, mushrooms, vegetables and marrow bones.

Daniel's post from a few days ago made me crave Roasted Marrow Bones and reminisce my visit to St John Restaurant

Marrow with shallots and wild capers on a peppercorn parmesan toast

Also made some lemon crème fresh as a topping for homemade lemon sponge I purchased from an Amish farm.

Cheers

Percy

[Megan Blocker]

Marrow with shallots and wild capers on a peppercorn parmesan toast

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Oh. My. God. I want that.

[Daniel]

Percyn,

That looks awesome...

[percyn]

Thanks Daniel, but your dish was the inspiration for it

[Pan]

[...]I cooked the skin down for the fat and ended up with these little guys..

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Duck grivelach! I think my grandmothers would approve.

[Basilgirl]

Barilla tortelloni with jarred portabella and white wine alfredo sauce. I sauteed some onion and garlic and threw in some fresh sage, dumped in the sauce with a little white wine and pieces of pork loin that had been cooked in the Set It and Forget It with Tuscan herb salt. Topped with chopped scallions. Cheap chardonnay.

[Chufi]

Mefarka.

It's a recipe from Claudia Roden's Book of Middle Eastern Food: ground beef and fava beans, spiced with cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg and chili. A couple of eggs are scrambled into it so you get a creamy sauce. She says to serve it cold but today I served it warm.. but it's delicious either way. Very unusual with the spices.

With it, roasted jerusalem artichokes.

Unfortunately the chocolate stash is almost gone.. so only a tiny piece for dessert

[sadistick]

For dessert - Mini Twix bar sprinkled with fleur de sel. The salt really brings out the flavor and adds another layer of complexity.

Cheers

Percy

Only on eGullet! I love it!

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This is TOOOO funny....could be right out of that Seinfeld episode where George decides to eat his candy bar's with a knife and fork...I guess all he was missing was some Fleur de Sel...

[Susan in FL]

Sunday we made pasta again, and had it for dinner with clam sauce made from fresh chowder clams.

Monday night we started with "Tomato Tartlets" ...yeah, I used the Pepperidge Farm again, instead of making the pastry myself, but I still do intend to make homemade. Following that was another recipe from the October issue of Gourmet which appealed to me, Italian Sausage with Red Grapes. Of course, it was probably the only time ever that the supermarket didn't have seedless red grapes, so I bought them and halved and seeded them. It was delicious, and made me wonder if it gave some flavor that wouldn't have been there if whole grapes had been used. We had roasted garlic mashed potatoes and the recommended greens with garlic (collards and kale for us).

Please excuse those photos... I've been experimenting with lighting, and they didn't turn out well -- especially the sausage dish.

On the other hand, last night's experimentation with light turned out better for the meat. We had a "Cuban" dinner. Cuban-Style Marinated Steak was a recipe from an ad for McCormick Montreal Steak Seasoning. The other recipes were inspired by Alex Garcia, In a Cuban Kitchen: Cuban-Style Pasta Salad, Hearts of Palm Salad, and Roasted Sweet Plantains. The plantains were really good next to the the rest of the dinner, expecially the spicy beef.

And, my apology on the beef and plantain photo for a different reason... I usually avoid posting huge images and resize those which don't fit into the screen of some computers; however, I was so pleased with this completely unedited version, I didn't even want to reduce the size!!

[Ling]

^I'm glad you didn't reduce the size of the photo. That beef and plantain picture is too gorgeous for words.

[Daniel]

And, my apology on the beef and plantain photo for a different reason...  I usually avoid posting huge images and resize those which don't fit into the screen of some computers; however, I was so pleased with this completely unedited version, I didn't even want to reduce the size!!

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Beautiful dinners Susan. But now you made me feel bad for not editing my huge photos.. One of these days I will learn how to mess with the pictures.. Tonight I am home alone with the five year old.. We just had duck breasts with yucon potato pancakes fried in duck fat creme fraiche and green onion.. She ended up eating both pieces of cake I bought.. One oreo cake, and a caramel apple pie..

Edited October 19, 2005 by Daniel (log)

[Sid Post]

^I'm glad you didn't reduce the size of the photo. That beef and plantain picture is too gorgeous for words. 

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I agree - beautiful picture.

All these lovely pictures have me shopping for a good cookbook or two to use once I have some free time. Between class and work, my meals have been uninspired and super quick resulting in nothing noteworthy to post. I hope to change this when I get caught up at the end of this year.

In the meantime, I'll keep working with my new Induction Heating rice cooker. At least I'm avoiding fast food and eating healthy!

[Megan Blocker]

Amazing food and photos, Susan. I can almost taste the steak, and that pasta salad looks amazing (my devotion to pasta is, I suppose, well-doumented on this thread!).

As for the puff pastry - I'll try it if you will! I'm out of town this weekend, but I'll give it a go next weekend - how about you?

[Susan in FL]

Thanks, Megan and All, for your show of support on my interest and efforts in the hobby of food photography!

And Megan, I am game if you are! Shall we tentatively plan for the weekend of the 29th?

[Susan in FL]

Meanwhile, tonight's dinner...

This sounds weird, but it tasted so good! Boneless skinless chicken thighs, with prunes and green olives. Great flavor combination. The go-withs were unremarkable and unphotogenic, rice and left-over greens.

In the skillet...

[Verjuice]

Meanwhile, tonight's dinner...

This sounds weird, but it tasted so good!  Boneless skinless chicken thighs, with prunes and green olives.  Great flavor combination.  The go-withs were unremarkable and unphotogenic, rice and left-over greens.

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Whoa, that brings back old memories with remarkable force. I had completely forgotten about this dish, and it was my mother's obsession for years when she began eating meat again after an exhaustive affair with vegetarianism. We had it on the table four or five times a week for three or four years during my childhood. I would pile the prunes and olives onto rice and ignore the chicken.

[Daniel]

Dinner number two I guess.. I have all these ducks and all this free time.. I was reading The Whole Beast a couple of hours ago when I was inspired to make a salad.. I fried half and grilled half of a duck breast, made chips in the same pan using the duck fat.. Then making a salad of parsley,cilantro,mint, a little chopped butter lettuce, and shallots.. WIth a sherry vinegraette using the fat from the pan.. It was the best thing I ever made.. A salad with duck fried chips, what could be better.

Edited October 20, 2005 by Daniel (log)

[Susan in FL]

Omigod, Daniel. Right you are. It doesn't get much better than that!

[Pan]

Meanwhile, tonight's dinner...

This sounds weird, but it tasted so good!  Boneless skinless chicken thighs, with prunes and green olives.  Great flavor combination.[...]

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That doesn't sound strange to me; it reminds me of some types of tagines.