Dinner! 2005

[reesek]

night before last -

a couple of wild prawns cooked in their shells and topped with an (m. lucia inspired) dice of nectarine, mint, thai basil, a minced thai chili and a tiny squeeze of honey.

tuna salad - seared albacore cooled and chunked with diced lemongrass, scallion and cabbage. dressed with a nam pla, chili sauce & rice wine vinaigrette.

served with: boston lettuce for rolling, thinly sliced english cucumbers & shallot soaked in mirin and white vinegar for tangy crunch, diced thai chilis in vinegar for addictive fruity heat and rice to cool.

last night - beer.

[little ms foodie]

Reese, where did you find the wild prawns? heads on??

[Grub]

Salmon "Wellington" with a simple white sauce & asparagus:

I love salmon, and this has recently become my favorite way of cooking it... Place the fillet on some puff pastry, season with salt and pepper (and in this case, some grated orange zest that I had in the freezer -- I was amazed by how potent that stuff remained even after months in the freezer...), drop some spinach on top, brush the pastry with egg was and fold it up. Brush the outside with more eggwash, and bake for 20 min on 475 or so -- until nice and golden brown. The moisture from the spinach makes it impossible for the fish to dry out.

The sauce was knocked together on the go with some blond roux I had in the freezer, some milk, cayenne pepper and a dash of Worshestershire sauce -- and a daub of butter.

I've done this as individual serving pieces, but it's just that much easier to do a single, large piece -- and it looks kinda cool to:

[monavano]

Made a caldo verde inspired soup. However my greens were spinach and mustard greens and my sausage was pepperwurst. Added some parm reg and elbow macaroni instead of potatoes to thicken. Bastardized as it sounds, it tastes amazing!! The sausage permeated the broth and I didn't add a spec of salt or pepper. I'll try to post a pic!!

[Alinka]

Tonight I had shrimp and avocado salad with grapefruit dressing, from Jack Bishop's Vegetables Every Day.

It. Was. So. Good! The dressing is just perfect: you saute garlic in olive oil; add grapefruit juice; reduce; add fresh mint, capers, salt and freshly ground pepper; eat, trying not to swallow your tounge .

[Ling]

scallops, gai lan, and mushrooms

mapo dofu

a few pieces of the coffee chiffon cake I made this afternoon

Yesterday:

-pan-fried chicken thighs and mushrooms

-si gua (cooked them, but did not eat them)

-chocolate truffles (not homemade)

[Grub]

Frikadeller -- Danish meatballs.

Not the most ingenious idea I've ever had -- several 100+ degree days, and I go make this labour-intensive, fried beef and pork meatballs, with boiled and fried potatoes, and brown gravy. Uhhhh... Makes for a great late-night snack tho.

I made some Norwegian meatcakes a couple of months ago, which were far too similar to this stuff, to warrant the extra work. It tasted slightly different, but not by much. The Danish ones are richer -- but still nowhere near as rich as they were supposed to be -- the book called for milk, and that's an old book, so that was ment to be the full-octane stuff, which I didn't follow.

I've got this great set of old cookbooks, that I'd normally never bother with, because they have these 1970s Weight-Watchers Food of Horror -type pictures, but it turns out they have a lot of very good information, and good recipes. So I decided to work my way through the entire alphabet. Gotten to "D" so far.

The potatoes looked great in the picture -- and I think they look pretty interesting here too. But they just tasted like ordinary, boiled taters... They were boiled, and THEN fried, and at the end of that process, a mixture of sugar and vinegar was poured over -- but the taste didn't affect it much. Perhaps using rice vine vinegar was too mild. I did the carrots in the frying pan along with the taters, and really liked how they came out -- browned on the outside, but still very crisp.

Don't think I'll make this again anytime soon -- or at least not until the weather cools down good and proper.

Man, there was a Danish thing in the book called "Burning Love" -- I thought it would be like a desert or something, flambeed stuff. It wasn't. It was a plate of mashed taters, surrounded by bacon, and topped by sauteed onions. Burning Love?! Maybe this is why Stallone's marriage didn't work out.

[nan]

Bourbon-glazed Salmon over Wild Mushroom Pilaf, served with a romaine salad with Sun-dried tomato vinaigrette. Recipes from Cooking Light, of course...

I'm still trying to work on my photography / Photoshop skills...

[markk]

I haven't posted (or cooked for that matter) in quite some time, having discovered a new restaurant in Hoboken that's so wonderful and reasonable, I may actually never cook again.

However, I discovered some new summer dishes that I'd bought last year and never used,

and since I do actually remember where the kitchen is, I made some Whole-Wheat Breadcrumb-Topped Baked Cod with Truffle-Scented Oven Roasted Tomatoes and Porcini Gnocchi

And having proved to my "family" that I can still cook, I'm looking forward to trying it again next summer!

[Basilgirl]

Our first BLT's with Early Girls from The Garden from Hell. Basilman had four (4!), I had one. Safeway English muffin toasting bread, broiled lightly on one side, then the toasted side spread with mayo (he used Marie's Blue Cheese dressing) and filled with lots of Hormel Black Label bacon, tomatoes, lettuce, S&P. Putting the toasted side in avoids the dreaded BLT toast scraping of the top of your mouth.

[Susan in FL]

There are some impressive dinners going on, and excellent photos! I'm in a slump with my pictures. I need to refocus, figuratively and literally speaking... start using the tripod again and spend more time on lighting, etc.

Apparently I also need to set the camera outside on the porch ahead of time. It's been so hot and humid, often when I go from the air-conditioned inside to the porch, the lense steams up. This first one, though, I thought I would keep for the effect. I'm doing some catch-up on posting.

This was a dinner in celebration of my purchase of a Dyson vacuum cleaner (and also a celebration of having our house to ourselves again), starter, new red potatoes with sour cream and the usual cheap caviar; deep-fried quail and my very favorite risotto-stuffed tomatoes; and mango mousse.

Another night we had another oldie-but-goodie, radiatore pasta with an uncooked sauce of avocado and tomato.

Last night with company for dinner, we had hummus and pita bread for a starter; crabcakes made with Jumbo Lump blue crabmeat; warm sweet corn and onion relish; asparagus; sliced tomatoes, and a noteworthy Cambria Katherine's Vineyard Chardonnay. It just didn't fit in to the evening to take the time for photos.

[Alinka]

Man, there was a Danish thing in the book called "Burning Love" -- I thought it would be like a desert or something, flambeed stuff. It wasn't. It was a plate of mashed taters, surrounded by bacon, and topped by sauteed onions. Burning Love?!

Everyone's dinner looks so delicious! It's dangerous to read this thread before lunchtime.

Susan in FL

Can you tell more about your

oldie-but-goodie, radiatore pasta with an uncooked sauce of avocado and tomato

?

Is that asparagus I see there? How do you make the sauce?

[Pan]

Ann_T, that filete looks incredible! I love your pictures, too, Alinka. dockhl, that looks like strawberries and mango slices in your wine. I guess one of the fruits is tropical. Or did I miss other fruits?

[Susan in FL]

Susan in FL

Can you tell more about your

oldie-but-goodie, radiatore pasta with an uncooked sauce of avocado and tomato

?

Is that asparagus I see there? How do you make the sauce?

←

I posted the oldie-but-goodie pasta recipe. Click here for RecipeGullet. It's one of those simple dishes, the goodness of which is determined by quality of ingredients. Home grown tomatoes and flavorful avocados make it divine!

Asparagus... with the quail? Those are nice young skinny green beans, or should I say Haricot Verts.

[Susan in FL]

Tonight: Dandelion greens salad, served on a garlic crouton; artichoke and homemade mayo; and smoked salmon, watercress, tomato, and onion sandwich on a buttered toasted bagel.

[dockhl]

Ann_T, that filete looks incredible! I love your pictures, too, Alinka. dockhl, that looks like strawberries and mango slices in your wine. I guess one of the fruits is tropical. Or did I miss other fruits?

←

strawberry, mango, pineapple and papaya......................

[Alinka]

Susan in FL

Can you tell more about your

oldie-but-goodie, radiatore pasta with an uncooked sauce of avocado and tomato

?

Is that asparagus I see there? How do you make the sauce?

←

I posted the oldie-but-goodie pasta recipe. Click here for RecipeGullet. It's one of those simple dishes, the goodness of which is determined by quality of ingredients. Home grown tomatoes and flavorful avocados make it divine!

Asparagus... with the quail? Those are nice young skinny green beans, or should I say Haricot Verts.

←

No, no, I meant in your "oldie-but-goodie pasta" - I thought I saw something green asparagus-looking in there . I guess it was just avocado.

Your salad and especially bagel sandwich look good!

Looove sandwiches for dinner. Well, salads too:

(My panini press is working hard this summer again.)

[SuzySushi]

My daughter's best friend is moving to the mainland, so tonight we had a do-it-yourself sushi party where I taught the girls how to make temaki (the cone-shaped sushi hand rolls). Each plate was set with a portion of seasoned sushi rice and sliced maguro (raw tuna). My husband and I also had shiso leaves and several types of Japanese pickles.

I showed the girls how to take a rectangular half-sheet of nori, hold it in their hand (glossy side down) spread some rice in a square on half the sheet, add a slice of tuna (and other ingredients if they so pleased), and roll it into a neat cone.

A neat, fun, "finger-food" dinner for all of us. Tasty, too!

[Shalmanese]

We're deep into the depths of winter here so I decided to make a minestrone inspired stew.

First, Pork ribs were browned in the oven along with some onion, celery, carrots, garlic and tomatos, all finely diced.

Then, 20 minutes in the pressure cooker with some red wine, water, beef stock, bay leaves, thyme, mustard, paprika, salt and pepper until the pork was falling off the bone tender.

Lid comes off and in goes large chunks of carrot, celery, onion, red kidney beans, potatos, pasta and green beans in that order, times so they would all be done at the same time. Simmered until the pasta was done. Stirred in some chopped up parsley and served.

Dessert was a Passionfruit-Chocolate Creme Brulee inspired by this thread

Last night was a pumpkin soup, a lettuce, sun dried tomato, goats cheese and roasted garlic salad and a aged standing rib roast cooked in a very low oven for 4 hours with a demi-glace sauce.

[Basilgirl]

Spaghettini with raw tomato/garlic/caper/hot pepper flakes/aged provolone sauce

[suzilightning]

chicken satay with two sauces: peanut and sweet and spicy

thai slaw with daikon

a bottle of Champagne Gosset

[nan]

Well, this is what happens when I don't feel like eating the leftovers we have and at the same time don't feel like cooking anything new. I get frozen pizza. I probably shouldn't admit that here, but the picture turned out reasonable (in focus is reasonable these days).

I'm experimenting with beer, so I picked this up spur of the moment, but didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would. But that's a different thread...

nan

[Priscilla]

Thursday, Bastille Day, a 100-degree Bastille Day, poulet frites. Chicken cooked on the old Weber rotisserie, having been sage-leafed under the skin and salted for a couple of days in advance. Proper frites. A big Caesar salad on which to land the chicken. Cold pink wine -- absolutely delicious Bergerac rose.

Last evening, in honor of the season 8 premiere of "Stargate SG-1," I was served an excellent delicious juicy cheeseburger by the man of the house.

[percyn]

Pizza - 1/2 Margherita and Bacon, 1/2 Meatball

Time to make the meatballs

The pizza before it went into the oven

And after...

Also made some "indian style meatballs" (with kebab mix and cilantro) which were great with some chappati.

[munchymom]

I had a serious craving for a BLT today. I thought about going to a restaurant for one, but I realized that the sandwich places would be using the same Styrofoam tomatoes they use all year round. I had to take matters into my own hands. I went to the farmstand for heirloom tomatoes, to the natural food store for Niman Ranch bacon, to the grocery store for some squishy white bread (the ONLY kind for a proper BLT in my opinion) and some Duke's Mayonnaise (don't normally keep the stuff in the house.) Put it all together and it looks like this:

Oh my, it was good. And the best part is, I have enough of everything left to have another one tomorrow.