Dinner! 2005

[Susan in FL]

Is your salad served in a bone dish?? (What a cool idea!)

[Daniel]

Is your salad served in a bone dish??  (What a cool idea!)

←

Haha.. I am thinking what the heck is a bone dish.. I looked at it at the store and assumed it was a salad dish..

[M. Lucia]

wondering if chocolate mousse cake counts as dinner

[Jensen]

wondering if chocolate mousse cake counts as dinner

←

It does if you eat enough of it!

[racheld]

Does anyone else read this thread at 1 a.m.? I'm trying to think what savory item I can go cook without waking the entire household.

Yummmmmeeeee.

[calimero]

Clams, mussels and gurnard tagliatelle

What is gurnard???

Fish:

[bilrus]

I think I mentioned up thread that on my recent trip to New York I went to the Italian market on Arthur Ave. in the Bronx. While I was there I bought some sausage and pancetta among other goodies. I decided to use up what I had left last night so I made a soup with the sausage and a salad with the pancetta.

The soup was chicken stock, onion, carrot, celery, garlic a small amount of rice-shaped pasta and the spicy sausage. The salad was an Italian take on Frisee au Lardons with the pancetta taking the place of the lardons.

I love pork products.

[Allura]

My first dinner post. This is really the first time I've had a steak come out just the way I like it. It's a london broil, marinated in teriyaki/ginger/garlic/red pepper flakes/rice vinegar/veg oil. I was going to eat it plain, but later decided to put some Ken's creamy Parmesan dressing on, just a trickle.

We actually eat our "dinner" at lunch time, since my husband works night shift. It makes me a bit time crunched - he actually took his salad with him to eat on his first break. It also means we don't get too elaborate.

Dessert will probably be leftovers from Easter - either mini cannoli or 7layer cake.

[Chufi]

This is really the first time I've had a steak come out just the way I like it.

Wow. My steak never looks like that! I wish it did..

We had another balcony dinner tonight. Zita pasta with a spicy beef - shii take - tomato sauce. The Zita pasta was a nightmare. Think penne as long as spaghetti.. impossible to handle and impossible to eat! There was tomato sauce everywhere.

Now, I just read on the Cecco website that I was supposed to break them into pieces before boiling them

[ellencho]

Allura your steak turned out perfect!

Last night was a 3 bone rib roast that I aged for 6 days in my fridge served with sauteed broccoli rabe and fingerling potatoes roasted in some of the fat rendered from the beef.

Here's a pic of the rib roast straight from the fridge:

Here it is all roasted and ready to eat - it was tender and flavorful, it took 2.5 hrs to cook:

Here's a slice of it with the rabe and the potatoes:

And if you haven't seen this pic from the chocolate cake thread, this was for dessert.

Edited April 1, 2005 by ellencho (log)

[handmc]

Wow, what wonderful photos.

I had an eggplant parm sub for dinner. Another lost opportunity.

[Susan in FL]

My first dinner post.  This is really the first time I've had a steak come out just the way I like it.  It's a london broil, marinated in teriyaki/ginger/garlic/red pepper flakes/rice vinegar/veg oil.  I was going to eat it plain, but later decided to put some Ken's creamy Parmesan dressing on, just a trickle. 

We actually eat our "dinner" at lunch time, since my husband works night shift. It makes me a bit time crunched - he actually took his salad with him to eat on his first break.  It also means we don't get too elaborate.

Dessert will probably be leftovers from Easter - either mini cannoli or 7layer cake. 

←

That's beautiful!

Tonight after happy hours we went to Publix with the plan that we would each buy what looked good for dinner, and take it home and that is what we would each have. (We're pretty weird sometimes.) Russ bought steak, corn on the cob, and a potato. I bought a half of a duck roasted, and nice skinny green beans and yellow ones. True to ourselves, he was more money-conscience than I and bought a cheap bottle of (Sutter Home) Zinfandel, and I bought a nice bottle of Steele Pinot Noir. We ate on the porch. Whew, it's hot here... I love it.

Our Publix carries a line of Maple Leaf Duck things, and for five or six dollars, I love to buy one of those already roasted duck halves. It's as cheap and easy as a take out and surely tastes as good or better!

[bilrus]

Tonight's dinner was a risotto with sweet onions, feta and parsley. Didn't turn out quite as saucy as I'd have liked but the flavor was pretty good and for a change I think I got the texture of the rice right.

Edited April 2, 2005 by bilrus (log)

[percyn]

Last night was a 3 bone rib roast that I aged for 6 days in my fridge served with sauteed broccoli rabe and fingerling potatoes roasted in some of the fat rendered from the beef.

←

Ellen, do you do anything special when you age the beef in your fridge (I have often wondered about aging beef myself instead of buying prime aged beef)?

Thanks

Percy

[Behemoth]

Cipolline onions glazed in spiced red wine:

Tagliata di Manzo (sliced grilled steak with sauteed garlic and rosemary):

Blood orange salad:

random italian table wine with, coffee ice cream after.

[mizducky]

I picked up some absolutely gorgeous dinosaur kale at the local food co-op the other day, so that was basically my dinner tonight, saute/braised with shallots in a bit of olive oil, with a glug of balsamic added at the end, and served over spaghetti with a generous sprinkling of Parmesan. No photos, 'cause I've already wolfed that sucka down.

[bilrus]

Behemoth - I'd be happy to be served that in any Italian restaurant.

[ellencho]

Last night was a 3 bone rib roast that I aged for 6 days in my fridge served with sauteed broccoli rabe and fingerling potatoes roasted in some of the fat rendered from the beef.

←

Ellen, do you do anything special when you age the beef in your fridge (I have often wondered about aging beef myself instead of buying prime aged beef)?

Thanks

Percy

←

Hi Percy, aging meat in the fridge is really quite effortless.. These are my recommendations:

#1, don't trim anything off beforehand because you'll be trimming it off later (duh) #2 place the meat atop a rack to catch any drippings, #3, keep the meat where ever your fridge is coolest with an open box of baking soda nearby because aging meat smells funky, and lastly make sure you age a bone-in roast, as opposed to a boneless one. I'm not 100% sure of why the bone-in ones taste better, but if that's how Peter Luger's ages their meat, that's how ellencho will age hers!

Good luck, and don't forget the pics!

[Behemoth]

Behemoth - I'd be happy to be served that in any Italian restaurant.

←

thanks Bill. You bring some of that risotto with you and you are welcome to dinner anytime

[M. Lucia]

We had another balcony dinner tonight. Zita pasta with a spicy beef - shii take - tomato sauce. The Zita pasta was a nightmare. Think penne as long as spaghetti.. impossible to handle and impossible to eat! There was tomato sauce everywhere.

Now, I just read on the Cecco website that I was supposed to break them into pieces before boiling them   

←

Wow, I've never heard of selling uncut ziti, and I can imagine that would be unwieldy.

Dinner was a snacking kind of affair- sauteed shaved carrots with raisins, puffy flatbread with herbs, a handful of jellybeans, and then chocolate mousse.

[SuzySushi]

I cooked several interesting dinners this week, but have few photographs.

Wednesday, still exploring the cuisine of Russia, I made Chakhokhbili, a Georgian dish of chicken cooked with tomatoes, lemon juice, and a mixture of fresh herbs (basil, parsley, cilantro, tarragon, mint). I served that with radishes in sour cream, and plain rice (my daughter vetoed the idea of a rice pilaf).

Thursday, we had a windfall of small artichokes, which are usually hard to come by in Hawaii. So I tried something I've been meaning to for a long time: Carciofi alla Giudea (Jewish-style artichokes, as cooked in the Trastevere area of Rome, which was its old ghetto). We ate that with another spur-of-the-moment inspiration based on its availability in the market: Dungeness crab.

For a grain dish, I served the kasha that had been left over from a few days earlier (cooked with bacon, and wild mushrooms and onion sauteed in bacon fat) which I sprinkled with Parmesan cheese to turn into a pilaf. It was even more delicious than the first time around, and my daughter admitted she had made a mistake by requesting plain rice again! Luckily, there was enough kasha to go around.

We followed that with a storebought Tiramisu. I guess since we're leaning in that direction, our next stop on our worldwide culinary tour will be Italy.

[Adam Balic]

Dinner for six. Mostly Italian.

The pasta is an unusual one I had in Lipari, one of the Aeolian islands of the coast of Sicily. The original was a swordfish recipe, but these are not common in Scotland, so this a mixture of cod and wolf-fish/seacat. The flgavours are:mint, capers, pinenuts, tomato, garlic and cooked green apple. Odd but always popular.

The main is fish baked in vine leaves, again with capers, tomato and mint and from the same island. Originally, the fish was a scorpianfish, this is a red snaper.

Dessert was Artusi's frittelle di riso I. These were really, really good. We ate many of them.

[Behemoth]

Moroccan night.

Cucumber and zaatar salad:

Chicken and chickpea stew with saffron etc:

pita bread to sop up sauce, viognier to drink.

[culinary bear]

Braised oxtail, using a two-pint bottle of rather hoppy belgian beer as the braising liquor. Bay, thyme, garlic, pancetta, carrots, shallots, swede. Six hours' cooking.

[Adam Balic]

There was an anti-fish vote in the household, so steak is on the menu.

These where T-bones from highland cattle. Shaggy, cute, photogenic and delicious. This steak is about 500gms in weight.

After grilling, they were served with buttered purple sprouting brocolli and roast potatoes.