Dinner! 2005

[Octaveman]

Percyn...what per chance was your braising liquid?

I must make that same EXACT thing!!

Cheers

[Malawry]

Last night:

Salade nicoise

Creamy corn-crab soup

Tonight:

Flank steak, seared in butter, topped with Maldon sea salt and a few grinds of "Grains of Desire," a pepper-flower blend I picked up in France

A melange of red bell peppers, crimini mushrooms and haricots verts in butter and balsamic reduction

2002 Cousina-Macoul Antiguas Reserve cabernet sauvignon

[bakezoid]

My husband is away so I get to cook for my 17-yesr-old son who has a great palate for everything (except mushrooms). Tonight: Pan -seared sashimi-grade tuna (found a beautiful piece at Wegmans this morning) with wasabi/ black-and-white-sesame seed crust; roasted sesame cauliflower (from the roasted cauliflower thread); blue cheese coleslaw; Mediterranean Matzoh from Rose Levy Berenbaum's Bread Bible with Robiola Bosina; vanilla-cinnamon challah bread pudding for dessert.

Tomorrow will be no cooking but then more on Tuesday and Wednesday. I'll keep you posted. In the meantime, he'll try anything with an open mind. An appreciative audience is not necessary, but a lot of fun!

[percyn]

Percyn...what per chance was your braising liquid?

I must make that same EXACT thing!!

Cheers

←

Lets see if I remember...

Brown 4-5 short ribs, remove and add 1 lg onions, 2 shallots, 2 cloves chopped garlic. When onions are light brown, add 2 tbsp tomato paste and cook for 2 min. Return ribs to pot, add 1/2 cup demi glace, red wine and beef broth to cover about 3/4 of the height of the ribs. Bring to boil and simmer. Cook until fork tender, which usually takes 2-3 hrs. This particular time, I made these in a pressure cooker and I have to say, it was very tender whithin 1 hr.

Chufi, I usually make the polenta from an organic italian mix, but this time I had some pre-made polenta tube, I bought from a store (Trader Joe's I think). I cut a think slice from the cylinder of polenta, diced it up and mixed it with boiling cream. Thus, the term "reconstitution".

Cheers

Percy

Edited January 31, 2005 by percyn (log)

[Susan in FL]

Pad Thai

[M. Lucia]

Percy, can we say mouthwatering?

I knew that polenta looked indulgent, I just looked at it and thought: cream.

Yesterday was one of those no good very bad days. The kind of day where you want to take it out by beating up on some dough and than eating something indulgent and cheesy.

So, of course, I made pizza. Neopolitan dough, a bit of tomato sauce, basil, and lots of mozzarella. Normally I just do a sprinkling of cheese on my pizzas, but not yesterday.

Today was just some marinated and baked tofu (tamari/sesame oil/ginger) and some steamed broccoli and beets.

[bilrus]

Last year I made a lamb curry from Cooking Light that I remembered really liking. I decided to try it this week with a recommended substitution of shrimp instead of the lamb, hoping it would turn out like a Shrimp Masala dish that I really like at Indique, a local DC Indian restaurant. I made my adjustments for the shorter cooking time for the shrimp. I made raita to go with it and toasted up a piece of store-bought flatbread. And here is how it turned out:

Looks good, huh? But it ended up being one of the worst things I've ever cooked. Either I misread or mismeasured or the recipe just sucks, but it had too much of something, turmeric, coriander, cumin, something was horribly amiss. I promptly put it down the grabage disposal.

Fortunately, we had lunch yesterday at new restaurant called Blacksalt, which is a seafood place attached to a very nice, small fish market. I bought some scallops for tomorrow night and some crab cakes that we had planned on having for lunch but didn't get around to. I put those in a skillet, made a champagne and dijon mustard vinagrette, light on the oil and tossed it with some mache mix. OK, so I didn't make the crabcakes from scratch but they did come out of my skillet looking pretty good.

All's well that ends well.

Edited January 31, 2005 by bilrus (log)

[little ms foodie]

Nice recovery bilrus!!!

Tonight I made canneli beans with sage, bacon and sausages. Drizzled with truffle oil and served with a nice salad of red lettuce, cucumbers, scallions, grape tomatoes and parm with a whole mustard seed vinaigrette.

Drank a Renwood Barbera with this (was a WOW a month ago.

[Behemoth]

Lebanese crowd pleaser: shisk barak. Basically, meat & pine-nut filled wontons poached in yogurt/coriander/garlic sauce. A little labor intensive, but oh so worth it. I might actually get around to putting the recipe up in the middle east forum. Classic side dish: lentil rice pilaf with caramelized onions (aka mujaddara).

Dang, them's some nice lookin' sausages, ms. foodie.

[Hiroyuki]

Dessert I picked up at the Asian market while shopping, I like to grab something that looks cute. Here's what the box looked like:

(if anyone knows what it says please speak up!)

←

This is Every (sp?) Burger of Bourbon.

Website of Bourbon:

http://www.bourbon.co.jp/english/top_a_eng.html

Bourbon happens to be headquartered in the prefecture I live in, Niigata.

It is just one example of the chocolate and chocolate snack series of Bourbon. Other products of this series can be found here

http://www.bourbon.co.jp/sei/csnack.html

The package of Every Burger says

Burger of white chocolate sandwiched by cocoa bicuits

[Ling]

That's a beautiful plate of sausage and beans, msfoodie!

Tonight for dinner, I had:

-breaded and pan-fried porkchops

-some sort of Chinese melon (mo gua--fuzzy melon?) cooked with Chinese dried shrimp and lots of shittake mushrooms

-soup made from pork shanks, dried loogan, and snow fungus

(and a big bowl of Harvest Crunch granola right after!)

[pattimw]

And for dessert these little tarts, made of shortcrust pastry, filled with chocolate creme patissiere, topped with bananas that were brushed with a honey orange glaze. I don't usually make these fiddly desserts just for the two of us but I am trying out recipes for my husbands birthday party. The verdict: they were good, but not good enough!

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Chufi-

I am dying over those tarts! Beautiful. Honey and orange glaze, huh? Very nice!!

[Basilgirl]

Saturday night we made pizzas on store bought crusts with the new Sargento "Bistro Blends" mozzarella and asiago with roasted garlic. Good stuff. Yesterday I roasted a chicken on top of carrots and onions, stuffed with fresh sage and rosemary and a lemon. The cheap roasting pan quickly made a complete char of the onions and carrots; I threw them out. Oven roasted french fries and a salad of romaine, red onion, blue cheese and pears. Also made a pot roast from Marcella Says that we will have tonight. It has pancetta, red wine vinegar, garlic, anchovies, dijon and is incredibly delicious.

[Jinmyo]

Vegetarian menu:

Salad of blanched sugar snap peas with batonettes of red bell and cubanelle peppers with a lime and lemongrass vinaigrette.

Dai gai choy (mustard greens) soup with aged shoyu and tamarind.

Butter-fried pillow tofu with lime.

Lundberg short grain brown rice with garlic and butter with roasted whole baby cremini mushrooms with roasted chiles.

Deep-fried wonton skins and deep-fried yuba (soymilk skins) with fleur de sel and a white miso and sake dip.

[reesek]

wow. nice weekend everyone!

yesterday i made spaghetti and meatballs. (it was closer to angel hair - my crank has 2 settings for cut pasta - angel hair and fetuccine.)

my meatballs (first try - not bad!) were beef and spicy bulk pork sausage. a mashed milky bread piece per marcella that didn't really work for me...i'd mix in some bread crumbs next time) an egg, rosemary, sage, thyme and parsley from the garden and garlic and onion minced up. i browned and then simmered them in a quick sauce made with a rare unfinished bottle of wine, tomato puree and lots of chili flakes. it was pretty good with the flavorful meat balls. pasta was sticky though. not fun to separate a million pieces of angel hair pasta.

i also braised a picnic shoulder in chicken stock & orange with lots of jalepenos, onions, garlic, fennel & chipotle. tonight i'll fry some of the meat, simmer some with more chipotle/adobe and we'll have tacos.

[sadistick]

Yesterday I took a recipe from here, and made an Indonesian Beef Stew (I forget the posters name, I apologize!!)

It was great!! I did not have cardamom or star anice, so i substituted that for some 5 spice powder...the only thing is i think i put too much cinnamon...other than that, it was GREAT...very thick sauce on top of jsamine rice...everyone loved it.

[Jake]

Dinner tonight was Mayhaw Man's Chicken and Sausage Gumbo -- with okra! It was fantastic. First time I've ever made gumbo and was everything I and my SO hoped for - what a great recipe. Thanks, Brooks.

[redfox]

Martinis with cheese (Leerdammer) and crackers (Akmak), followed by:

Spicy pan-fried spinach and cauliflower croquettes

Egg rice

Shredded carrots with cumin and lime

Raita with homemade yogurt

Mint chutney (storebought)

--

I want to know more about butter-frying tofu. It sounds delectable.

[Behemoth]

After yesterday's labor intensive project, today I went the easy route:

buffalo mozzarella with roasted grape tomatoes (these were amazing), olive oil & balsamic, follwed by moules marinier & baguette:

We had a pinot grigio with, but I didn't like it at all. Espresso and Niederegger marzipan afterwards.

[bilrus]

Tonights dinner: A variation on yet another Cooking Light recipe - Broiled Sea Bass with Pineapple-Chili-Basil Glaze - that I adapted to Scallops because the U-10 day-boat scallops at the fish market this weekend were irresistable.

In looking back at my pictures of my dinners from this month, I noticed how many of my meals were served over a cup of rice - Asian, Latin, Middle Eastern, Indian. I would normally serve this over Jasmine rice, but thought I'd go for the green again. Plating wasn't very original - if it looks a lot like last night's crabcakes - it was. This time I made the dressing with sesame oil, rice wine vinegar, soy sauce and a little of the pineapple preserves and tossed in some peanuts.

Edited February 1, 2005 by bilrus (log)

[Daniel]

sorry tried to post something.. anyone know how to post pics these days

Edited February 1, 2005 by Daniel (log)

[bilrus]

sorry tried to post something.. anyone know how to post pics these days

←

Upload your picture the same way it has been done in the past. View the full size version of the picture and right click on properties (this is assuming Windows and IE). The actual URL of the picture will show up there, which you can then cut and paste.

[patti]

Tonights dinner: A variation on yet another Cooking Light recipe - Broiled Sea Bass with Pineapple-Chili-Basil Glaze - that I adapted to Scallops because the U-10 day-boat scallops at the fish market this weekend were irresistable. 

In looking back at my pictures of my dinners from this month, I noticed how many of my meals were served over a cup of rice - Asian, Latin, Middle Eastern, Indian.  I would normally serve this over Jasmine rice, but thought I'd go for the green again.  Plating wasn't very original - if it looks a lot like last night's crabcakes - it was.  This time I made the dressing with sesame oil, rice wine vinegar, soy sauce and a little of the pineapple preserves and tossed in some peanuts. 

←

Oh, my, that looks absolutely delicious!

[Mooshmouse]

Dear God Bill. Those scallops look nothing short of magnificent. I've already had dinner (nothing magnificent, believe me) and I'm hungry all over again just looking at that photo.

(Insert drool emoticon here)

[little ms foodie]

Beautiful scallops Bill, wow!!!!

Tonight the husband made wok seared albacore with coconut curry

the recipe is from Tom Douglas' Seattle Kitchen which I have to say has had nothing but winners in it!

Served with Chateau St. Michelle Dr Loosen Riesling- wow, this is a very good wine!