Dinner! 2007

[Jensen]

Vanilla chicken? Is the vanilla in a sauce? How does it work?

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My "full" name for the recipe is "Chicken Scallopine with Vanilla and Garlic Veloute". (But we just call it vanilla chicken around the house)

The veloute is made with a vanilla bean; I haven't tried it with vanilla extract yet. I'm not sure how it would work out.

Recipe is here.

[Susan in FL]

It's so good to be seeing you all again, too. Thank you for the greetings.

We had a simple, yet very comforting dish of spinach and ricotta-stuffed shells for our dinner tonight.  I used some Asiago instead of Parmesan this time and added a couple pinches of crushed red pepper for heat.

That looks so good. It's going on my to-cook list.

I have been lurking years, looking at all of the wonderful dinners in awe.  Now that I have graduated from college and cooking on a regular basis, I have finally gotten the courage to start posting.  Since I cooked something from RecipeGullet (roasted cauliflower), I decided now was as good a time as any to make my first post.  My humble dinner:

Pan Roasted Chicken Breast with shallot and thyme pan sauce

Polenta

Roasted Cauliflower

Mixed Green Salad with gorgonzola piccante, EVOO, and balsamic

2006 Bolognani Trentino Nosiola

I still don't have the courage to post pics (my dinner was definitely not as pretty as the others on this thread), but I must say it was a delicious dinner.  And I think it looks good enough on paper to keep posting my dinners 

Edit: I should add that the roast cauliflower was excellent.  Thank you eGullet!

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A special welcome to you. I love it when long-time-lurkers post, especially when the food sounds so good. Don't go away!

Vanilla chicken with mashed potatoes:

That sounds delicious, and is timely for me. Just yesterday I was scraping some vanilla into my creme brulee making, and thought to myself that I would like to fix a savory dish with vanilla in it soon. I clicked your web site link and got the recipe. Thanks!

Last night I cooked Asian-style lamb chops and black beans and braised cippoline onions. I was disappointed in the lamb chops. They were marinated and I liked the marinade, but it would have been better for something other than lamb. You'd think after all these years I would have learned by now that the only way I'm fully satisfied with the taste of lamb chops is to just plain cook them. Unless it's just a little rosemary and garlic sometimes, for me too much preparation distracts from the good flavor.

The black beans were slow-cooked all day with some browned pancetta, minced shallot, garlic cloves, and homemade lamb & chicken stock. Worth mentioning is the 2004 Klinker Brick Old Vine Zinfandel from Lodi. I love Zinfandel with black beans.

It was not pretty enough to photograph, but here are a couple of my recent dishes that I did.

A pork and noodle soup created from stuff on hand -- it was sort of a cross between Japanese and Thai styles:

A panino of goat cheese, basil leaves, sun-dried tomatoes, and kalamata olives I made with my new panini press:

[Prawncrackers]

Panino looks A-MA-ZING!!! A Panini press wouldn't last very long in our house

Here are a couple of recent dinners, the first was a simple Pesto Linguine with Pancetta and a Poached Egg. Nothing beats fresh pesto though the addition of the egg i admit was a little superfluous!!

Then today was braised veal in red wine with Camargue red rice. Never had the Carmague rice before, both my wife and i loved the nutty taste and firm texture. It went perfectly with the stew:

[monavano]

Nakji, you could use marsala in the onion soup! I know this one has a lot of alcohol, so for anyone who wishes to give a bit of depth to the stock, just add a bit of balsamic vinegar.

The panini and oh my...the egg yolk up there looks fantastic! Great food and pics everyone.

[HappyLab]

Roasted a chicken tonight. Out of the oven after 30 minutes at 500 degress (sorry for the poor pic quality):

Stupid me trusted the expert whose recipe I followed and did not even bother to check the temperature of the chicken when I pulled it out. The breast was perfectly done, but when I cut into the thigh meat, it was very pink and the skin was not crispy at all. So I cut off some breast meat and I flipped the chicken and stuck it back into the oven at 450 degress for another 20 minutes. Meanwhile, I ate the breast meat (which was wonderfully moist) with:

Mashed sweet potatoes

Steamed broccoli

After the rest of the chicken finished cooking (I checked with a thermometer this time), I tried a drumstick, and it was super. And even better, the extra time in the oven created a nice, crispy skin.

No plate shots because I didn't cut the chicken nicely enough to make it pretty.

[GTO]

Prawncrackers - I actually shuddered with excitement a little bit, at the thought of pesto and a poached egg. Egg porn to the max!

[Prawncrackers]

Prawncrackers - I actually shuddered with excitement a little bit, at the thought of pesto and a poached egg. Egg porn to the max!

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LOL, the egg was only good for egg-porn i'm afraid - it did nothing for the dish except to titillate the eye. Do you think if we used the phrase 'egg-porn' enough we could submit it to the Oxford English Dictionary?

Egg-porn, [noun][colloq] - gratuitous visual images of running yolk in food context. First cited - eG Forums Breakfast! thread.

[nakji]

Nakji - love the use of garlic scapes in the 40 garlic cloves chicken recipe - very inventive!!!

Thank you! I love garlic scapes, and I'm always trying to find new ways to use them. I often put them in pan-fried meat parcels, to replace green beans in Thai green curry, they're also great with salmon. I sometimes toss them with penne in a 1:1 ratio and serve with bolognese sauce. It's a great way to cut down on pasta. All hail the garlic scape!

Nothing beats fresh pesto though the addition of the egg i admit was a little superfluous!!

A molten egg is never superfluous.

Oh, my.

[Dr. J]

Very nice stuff, that stew looks good prawn.

japanese pastries...droool..makes me wish i was back in japan.

Ok here are a couple of dinners i made from some steak I bought.

First is a steak made fried in butter and oil and finished in the oven, topped

with carmelized onions on top of gorgonzola cheeze.

The next day I ate some rice, empanadilla de pollo, and pepper steak. Kind of

weird combo of latin, chinese and middle eastern techniques but it was all

pretty good and most importantly a very fast and easy to make meal.

[MiFi]

Weekend meals:

Beet & Arugula Salad

Milk Braised Pork Roast w/Creamy Polenta

Leftover Pork Roast on Homemade Bread w/Arugula

Juniper & Ginger Marinated Chicken w/Red Cabbage

[AllanSantos]

My weekend project was pork belly confit. Such satisfying work and I keep thinking it's pretty much one of the tastiest dishes I've ever made. Here it is on the plate with some sauteed spinach that's been drizzled with a little balsamic, also on the side is some mustard and some baguette. If I have some time later today, I'll post pics of the process in the Ruhlman Charcuterie thread. (sorry for the poor picture quality of my phone....I really need to get a decent camera)

Allan

[LittleChef22]

Vanilla chicken? Is the vanilla in a sauce? How does it work?

I tried a version of the 40 cloves of garlic chicken recipe that was in this week's NYT Dining section - but I got bored peeling cloves, and decided to add some garlic scapes instead. Very "Iron Chef", I thought, featuring two aspects of the garlic plant. I also managed to find a bottle of Marsala, so I glugged that in instead of the white wine called for in the recipe. I'll be trying to use that bottle up before I have to move again in 6 weeks, so if anyone knows any (non-oven) recipes that call for marsala, please let me know.

We had it with a nice loaf of sourdough bread from a bakery in Ikebukuro and a bottle of chilean sauvignon blanc. Dessert was apricot pastries from the same bakery:

That onion soup looks amazing...do you think I could substitute marsala for the vermouth called for in the recipe?

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Your garlic chicken looks amazing... was it difficult to prepare?? My parents are in town this week and I am thinking about what to cook for dinner. That looks yummy!!

[Priscilla]

Last evening, free-range chicken under a brick, with beautiful broccoli from the lady I usually buy carrots from at the farmer's market sauteed in olive oil w/garlic and anchovies, ciabatta from the Japanese French baker, sparkling Shiraz. And ice cream, acc. to David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop, yet again.

[monavano]

Chili mac with Hard Times chili mix, Cinncinati style.

[Shelby]

Chili mac with Hard Times chili mix, Cinncinati style.

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We have this about once a week--I LOVE spaghetti red!

[Prawncrackers]

Lovely Spanish style saffron rice tonight with prawns, chorizo & peppers. I would call it a Paella but i so didn't use a Paella pan!!!

Couldn't resist a close-up...

[rooftop1000]

Last night was pork tenderloin that I pan seared and covered with hot pepper garlic jam (from a recent garlic festival) and finished in a hot oven to 140f Served with homemade butternut squash ravioli in a sage and brown butter sauce and asparagus

we then discussed weather anyone else in our family would eat pink pork...naaaah

tracey

[nakji]

Your garlic chicken looks amazing... was it difficult to prepare?? My parents are in town this week and I am thinking about what to cook for dinner. That looks yummy!!

No, it was very easy. The recipe is in the on-line dining section of the NYT this week, but I'm sure you could search for "40 Cloves of garlic" chicken. The only difficult part from my perspective was having to peel the garlic, which I understand you can buy pre-peeled in some places. I strongly recommend that option. I just subbed out some of the garlic cloves for garlic scapes.

Gorgeous!

Dinner tonight was kabocha squash pasta and garlic green beans.

[monavano]

Prawncrackers, that close up is a bonus! Really great pics everyone.

[-sheila mooney]

Marcella Hazan: cartwheels with sausage, cream, and tomato;

i used to make that recipe all the time -- it is delicious. thanks for reminding me!

[eskay]

Mmm, so many delicious looking photos

nakji, what are the red sprinkles on your pasta?

Dinner tonight was a rather rustic chicken and tomato stew, perfect for the horribly damp weather outside. I used this recipe with a couple of changes: I couldn't be bothered to roast the garlic seperately so I just chucked a couple cloves in the pot, and I added some olives because I thought they'd go well. I also omitted the wine because I didn't have any. Was delicious, and now I have several day's worth of leftovers--score!

Apologies for the slightly off-kilter photo, this was the only one that came out in focus

[HappyLab]

Lamb and Barley Stew:

Mixed greens, gorgonzola piccante, and EVOO Balsamic

Day-old Pugliese from Sullivan St. Bread

2006 Domaine de Fenouillet Vin de Pays de Vaucluse

The stew tasted much better than it looks. The lamb was from 3 Corner Field Farm in NY-- delicious!

[Bella S.F.]

Made Ce'nedra's Chicken Claypot Rice for dinner last night. It was easy to make, really delicious, and wonderfully comforting. The leftovers are going to make the best lunches to heat up at work. Thanks Ce'nedra for sharing your recipe.

I want to mention a great recipe that is in this month's Bon Appetite. Lemon Roasted String Beans with Marcona Almonds. They are amazing. I use extra lemon zest and extra lemon juice. (I really like lemon.) The dish is so good that I have been making it at least once a week. I have even made a meal of that alone.

Tonight it wil be a seared ahi salad. Really looking forward to it. May need to start sooner than I had planned. I cannot look at this thread without getting far too hungry.

[Domestic Goddess]

Yesterday was my youngest son's birthday. Here's what I fixed for his birthday dinner.

His favorite - Shrimp Sinigang soup

Filipino Pancit Canton (noodles for long life)

Chopseuy (this is for me)

We also ordered korean crispy fried chicken.

And because my son pleaded for me to get one - one of those korean bakery cakes.

And Billy turns 7 today!

[nakji]

nakji, what are the red sprinkles on your pasta?

Those red sprinkles are S&B red chili flakes. They are finely ground, aren't they?

Oh oh oh, KFC! - Korean fried chicken! Did it come with a little bag of pickled radish? I used to eat so much of the pickled radish I would get a stomachache! I miss it.

I want to mention a great recipe that is in this month's Bon Appetite. Lemon Roasted String Beans with Marcona Almonds. They are amazing. I use extra lemon zest and extra lemon juice. (I really like lemon.) The dish is so good that I have been making it at least once a week. I have even made a meal of that alone.

I love eating a dish of green beans for dinner! When I was really hot in Vietnam, I made a salad with cold green beans with a bacon and mustard vinaigrette. With some bread and cold beer, it made a wonderful light supper.