Dinner! 2005

[jm chen]

Hi Jim. What is "robusto" please?

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It's the first time I've had the cheese, picked it up on sale the other day. A hard cheese, yellow but dry. Not quite as much bite as a Parmesan or Asiago, maybe more like a Gruyere. Salty. Tasted more like butter than cream.

The recipe I had suggested mixing melty Swiss with tangy Asiago, and it sounded like a good idea, so I went with what I had on hand.

[Priscilla]

Last evening, salad of nice farmer's market frisee with bacon ... not slab bacon, so not true lardons, but thick-sliced and good nonetheless. Dressing made from the bacon fat + vinegar and seasoning, the whole shebang topped with the man of the house's perfect poached eggs. Excellent Il Fornaio ciabatta, saltylicious Tillamook butter. Cold pink wine. Just right.

[Susan in FL]

Not much of a summery dinner, but since we're still taking requests and Morten likes lasagne, I made this lasagne sort of pasta dish for dinner, and a salad to go with it.

[M. Lucia]

Sometimes I go back to old pages of this thread just to see how people's cooking and trends have changed. It is a great resource.

Anyway, dinner was crabcakes (I grew up in maryland, so I say they must be made with as little filler as possible- just a few crushed saltines, an egg and some seasonings), sides were sauteed snowpeas and a peaches with basil salad/salsa.

Dessert will be going out for ice cream (inspired by recent cook off, but also lazy).

[little ms foodie]

We started with some crostini spread with local goat cheese and others spread with olive jam and topped with pecorino. montemarte in the glass for me

Dinner was out of the Andrea Immer Everyday Cooking with Wine, mussels steamed with champagne, Schramsberg Mirabel in the glass

dessert was clafouti with WA cherries, I pitted them

Edited July 7, 2005 by little ms foodie (log)

[curlywurlyfi]

My best friend + husband are in town this week + I made supper for the three of us. Had to assemble it in the 30 minutes I had between getting home from work + them arriving.

- quick-fried pork with apple, mushrooms, white wine, thyme + cream

- Puy lentils with EVOO

- peperonata (chunks of green, red + yellow peppers, fried hard + quickly so the edges scorch a little, then a little chopped tomato + water added + simmered away till thick + sticky)

- grated courgette, cooked in olive oil, then mixed with yoghurt, garlic, basil + parsley (this was inspired by an eGullet post which I have just spent 30 minutes trying to find! Bittman's recipe originally, it said) - this was the hit of the evening

- cold green beans tossed in honey mustard lemon vinaigrette

- leftover croutons from last night's gazpacho

To finish, strawberries + apricots tossed in a little lime juice, with the sole remaining panna cotta from last night. Almond thin biscuits, but we were too full, so I made Lucy + Dom take them home!

[hathor]

Prisicilla, your lardon salad is one of my all time favorite meals. Sometimes, its breakfast, sometimes its lunch or dinner. I also think pink wines have gotten a bad rap, sometimes they are just about perfect with a summer meal!

Last night was a mad dash for me as well, we have a little film festival in the piazza and we had to eat before dark so we wouldn't miss the opening cartoons. So it was Kevin72's "sex on a plate' fried cacciocavallo to start, then a simple sole sauted in lemon, butter and capers, and yet another cucumber from the garden.

Dessert was a cognac in the piazza while we watched some very cool animated shorts.

Tonight we have some fresh black summer truffles that a friend hunted up for us...lucky us!

[mhadam]

Alrighty, I will over come my fear and post my first dinner pictures.

I apologize for the poor pictures, they were taken with my Samsung e315 phone.

Last night we had:

* sauteed zucchini and corn with butter and green goddess herbs (from Penzy's) and a few red pepper flakes

* brown rice with scallions

(please don't beat me, as husband likes them)

* boneless, skineless chicken breasts. It sat in a marinade of OJ, soy, grated ginger and garlic. After marinating I reduced the liquid to a sauce and added some brown sugar, mirin and finished with the juice of half a lime.

The chicken was quite moist as I quickly seared them on each side and then gently baked them to 155 degrees and then let them rest before slicing.

Maggie

[Priscilla]

Prisicilla, your lardon salad is one of my all time favorite meals. Sometimes, its breakfast, sometimes its lunch or dinner.  I also think pink wines have gotten a bad rap, sometimes they are just about perfect with a summer meal!

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Yes, I think frisee with lardons is welcome anytime. It's a great late-night meal, and, as you say of course lunch & dinner. Never had it for breakfast but would not rule it out.

Our current cold pink wine is an inexpensive Costieres de Nimes, packing quite a punch. There are few Southern California summer dinners it doesn't suit, at least in my house.

[Staximo]

Today I had enough time to cook something for dinner...

"Saltimbocca alla Romana": sliced chicken breast covered with flour, a slice of ham and a sage (salvia) leaf grouped by a tooth-pick, cooked in a pan with olive oil and also half glass of white wine.

"Melanzane Fritte" (fried aubergine)

[reesek]

dinner was crabcakes (I grew up in maryland, so I say they must be made with as little filler as possible- just a few crushed saltines, an egg and some seasonings), sides were sauteed snowpeas and a peaches with basil salad/salsa.

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m. lucia, your peach and basil salsa sounds lovely...what else do you put in it?

you guys have peaches already? we're only just starting to get tomatoes in seattle.

no crab can touch the sweet flavor of lump maryland blues.

[Susan in FL]

Tonight I cooked from this library book I am borrowing for going on the 7th week now, Nuevo Latino by Douglas Rodriguez. I followed the ingredients list of the recipes fairly closely, but adjusted amounts. There are some really inspirational recipes in this cookbook.

Tipi Tapa Snapper [Grouper for us] and Gallo Pinto

A trio of salsas: Dried Shrimp Salsa; Plantain, Pineapple, and Serrano Salsa; and Anchovy Salsa

We ate the salsas both as a relish to the side of the fish, and with some good yellow corn tortilla chips. The grouper was cooked in our cast iron skillet, and in the coating was cocoa powder, red chile powder, garlic powder, flour, cornstarch, and S&P. Interesting and very good!

We drank a white wine from Rioja for the first time -- also interesting, and pretty good.

[Grub]

Grilled, peppercorn encrusted fillet mignon with caramelized shallots, on a demiglace chipotle peppercorn-sauce, with steamed baby carrots with a touch of dill, and a baked potato (not shown).

Carrots were done in a tinfoil pouch on the grill, along with the steak, with some salt, a touch of dill, and butter. Turned out great.

But, my food porn isn't making too much progress -- I'm not even the Larry Flynn of food porn; I'm more on the level of drawing obscene pictures in the stalls of a public bathroom. And I'm feeling like an old fart too -- these newfangled digital cameras suck. I want the manual focus and control of my old Pentax MX, dagnabbit. Damn thing focused on the carrots instead of the steak. Shite & onions.

I figured plating the sauce first, and leaving the steak on it would look better, than spooning the sauce over the steak -- I wanted to show off the beautiful grillmarks and all. Then of course, I covered them up with the shallots anyhow... Doh.

And yeah, I've got no idea what I was doing with the carrots. Put the baked tater on a sideplate, to not crowd the plate -- but I just didn't know what to do with the little orange things. Man... This is hard. Tasted great tho.

[Ninjai Fanatic]

we had samosa, dahl, some pasta, coconut burfi, scones and a sweet potato-squash filling and a few other things.. *phew*.. that was pretty tiring to eat. :p

[mhadam]

We had a closed sandwich on ciabatta with the the leftover chicken from Wednesday's dinner. It was a lovely sweet, spicy, cool sandwich.

From the bottom up: goat cheese, shredded romaine, the sliced chicken breast, thin slices of tomato and the sauce (that the chicken was originally served with) that gelled nicely overnight.

On the side I served bowls of sweet bread/butter pickles, green-pimento stuffed jarred olives, and HOT giardinara.

For dessert, halfsies of a maple pecan bar and a dream bar from Corner Bakery.

The beverage of choice: Half a gallon of oberweiss whole milk.

[M. Lucia]

My peach basil salad was very simple: just peaches, basil, lime juice and a bit of ginger.

yesterday's dinner: martini, cosmo, pastis...

[Ann_T]

Susan, lovely looking salsas. So colourful.

Grub, your demiglace chipotle peppercorn-sauce for your tenderloin sounds interesting. I love peppercorn sauces.

I made a salad on the recommendation of a friend. It was quite good but next time I would use more tender, less bitter greens than the Frisee. I think I would try baby spinach next time. I also made one of Rob Feenies recipes - Mediterranean Chicken With Roasted Red Peppers, Capers And Black Olives. I made a few changes and next time I will also leave out the tarragon which we both thought over powered the sauce.

[dockhl]

Chardonnay and potato chips dipped in Gazpacho !

(It's been a long week............ )

[Basilgirl]

Chicken chunks sauteed in bacon fat & olive oil with a lemon-vodka-cherry tomato cream sauce, tossed with Barilla 4-cheese tortelloni, topped with scallions and bacon.

Edited July 8, 2005 by Basilgirl (log)

[Chufi]

"Melanzane Fritte" (fried aubergine)

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they look great. Is that just chuncks of eggplant fried in hot oil? Or did you add anything - flour, spices, etc.?

But, my food porn isn't making too much progress -- I'm not even the Larry Flynn of food porn; I'm more on the level of drawing obscene pictures in the stalls of a public bathroom.

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at least your comments on you public bathroom pics had me laughing out loud. And that Chipotle peppercorn sauce is inspirational!

Edited July 8, 2005 by Chufi (log)

[Chufi]

I suddenly had a craving for mole.. luckily I had some in the freezer, leftover from the Mole cook-off. Sauteed some pork fillet, stirred this into the mole. Served with jalapeno skillet cornbread (first time I made this, delicious!) , chipotle-spiced black beans with fresh oregano and sour cream, and cucumbersalad.

edited to add picture

Edited July 8, 2005 by Chufi (log)

[Staximo]

"Melanzane Fritte" (fried aubergine)

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they look great. Is that just chuncks of eggplant fried in hot oil? Or did you add anything - flour, spices, etc.?

I put the chuncks a in a colander with some salt to let them loose their water.

Just before cooking I roll them very quickly into flour: it isn't necessary to cover them completely with flour.

[*Deborah*]

My first entry in this thread...and I didn't know if I should put it in the PMS thread

Dinner tonight: a half-pound of strip streak (I think that's what they called it on the label ) on the George Foreman and some pickled beets (I've been craving beets!) and the greater part of a bag of salad with hothouse English cucumber and good quality Russian dressing (another craving...what can I say?).

Pretty good! and some Pralines and Cream ice cream later, more than likely.

Edited July 9, 2005 by *Deborah* (log)

[hathor]

Staximo, I'm glad somebody asked you the melanzie question, as I was curious about those too, they look delicious!

Tried out a different 'carbone' on the grill, with much better success. We had heat...1 1/2 hours later, but by the next try, I'm going to have this grill thing licked Quickie dinner again as we are still running out to the film festival: grilled salmon (woo-hoo! I said grilled!!) with a parsley, lemon butter sauced spiked with some leftover fume, parsley potatoes and the ever present insalata. Our orto has this magically reproducing salad heads, you chop them off at night and by morning they're back. Its a little scary. Served with a very light Cannanou. ...and then we bolted to the piazza.

[NulloModo]

Not sure why, but I had a serious protein and grease craving today, so I decided it was time for steak and eggs.

Well, wouldn't you know it, I was out of cooking oil, so I had to fry up some bacon first to get enough grease in the pan to cook the eggs and steak. Well, it seems a good side for steak and eggs anyway. The fried wedge of onion was so I at least had something sort of like a vegetable on my plate, but then again, vegetables fried in bacon grease might not count...

Of course, a meal like this, you just have to drench in hot sauce (and if you ever see it, Pepper's brand cayenne sauce is top notch, takes the place of my previous favorite louisiana style sauce - Texas Pete).

The steak was something Safeway calls 'Mock Tender Steak'. It was more gristly than tender, but had a really good flavor, and it is cheap, so I will definately buy it again. The steak was just cooked in the bacon fat too with a little worchestshire for flavor.

Of course everything also got a healthy dose of fresh ground black pepper...

Man, this was so good I was scopping the drippings off of my plate, really hit the spot.

Edited July 9, 2005 by NulloModo (log)