Dinner! 2008

[Daniel]

Really pretty, tupac. Where did you get those sardines. I have been getting mine at Citarella but, those look huge!

Edited October 2, 2008 by Daniel (log)

[Daniel]

So we went to this farm in the Berkshires.. They always have the coolest vegetables.. All heirloom, all organic, yatta yatta.. You can go one afternoon and they will have 10 different types of heirloom cucumbers..

When we arrived there wasnt much out.. But we asked for tomatoes and he walked us to one of the greenhouses.. There our guy picked us a bunch of tomatoes right off the vine..

We made blt's with this wonderful bacon, those awesome tomatoes, and instead of lettuce we used some sorrell he gave us..

They came out great..

Bacon was crispy and smokey, the tomatoes were fruity, the sorrell added a nice almost like a vinegary taste. Mayo was the icing.

So with the left over bones from the Ribeye, we made the deviled bones recipe.. We covered the ribeye bones in a mixture of worchesterchire sauce, butter, cayenne, and mustard powder.. We then tossed in bread crumbs and broiled..

Pretty crazy:

Bone:

Almost everyone thought this is a great idea!

We also made a cacio e pepe for that meal.. Funny story, we didnt think we were going to have enough food.. We sent someone out to get some things and the only store that was open was a gas station.. The spaghetti was purchased at an exxon or something..

Edited October 2, 2008 by Daniel (log)

[MiFi]

Grilled Veal Flat Iron Steak

[tupac17616]

Really pretty, tupac. Where did you get those sardines. I have been getting mine at Citarella but, those look huge!

←

Thanks Daniel. The sardines came from Berkeley Bowl. They were huge! And I got four of 'em for something like $0.80. They also had a few trays of santa barbara sea urchin that day, from which I made spaghetti ai ricci di mare (a simple Sicilian pasta dish from Palermo). All in all, another nice little trip to my favorite store.

ETA: Must. Have. BLT. Tonight.

Edited October 2, 2008 by tupac17616 (log)

[Pille]

A proper pumpkin dinner yesterday. First - a pumpkin soup with nutmeg, then a pumpkin and ginger loaf.

[prasantrin]

A big bowl of popcorn with butter and very soft and fluffy roll with butter. Butter makes everything better.

Now I'm going to bake some Korova cookies for dessert. Also made with butter, because it makes everything better.

I am clearly in the mood for healthful eating these days...

[petite tête de chou]

I usually make pizza on most Fridays. This is so that I won't have to cook over the weekend if I don't want to and also so that my husband will have his favorite food to munch on whenever he wants.

Pizza with grilled chicken, green onions, olives, mushrooms, green peppers, diced tomatoes and a roasted red pepper sauce.

[Prawncrackers]

Beautiful shot of a wonderful looking pizza petite tête de chou.

Tonight Butter Poached Lobster, Chorizo Rice, Saffron Scallop Sauce with Lobster Roe then a slice of Bramble Cheesecake, yum yum:

The flavours of the lobster dish were wonderfully intense. I made a lobster stock to cook the rice and had some scallop stock in the freezer to make the sauce. The combination of the two stocks was really knockout! The roe gave a nice visual and textural element to the sauce and was really indistinguishable from tobiko (flying fish roe).

[suzilightning]

lobster...bramble cheesecake...can i come visit?

leftovers for us tonight - lasagna for johnnybird and goat meatloaf with mixed root veg and green beans for me.

did get some chicken marinating in the wine and herb mix for coq au vin for dinner tomorrow... unless i am tied up until 1700. then it will marinate some more and i will scramble some eggs for dinner.

[C. sapidus]

Lots of beautiful meals, but a special shout-out for petite tete de chou’s pizza. Dang.

Parsi dinner from My Bombay Kitchen:

Green curry (lili kari): marinate stewing veal with ginger-garlic paste. Grind cashews, cilantro, chiles, cumin, turmeric, and ginger-garlic paste to a smooth masala. Sizzle cloves and curry leaves, fry thinly-sliced onions, and brown the veal. Fry the masala, add coconut milk and quartered potatoes, and simmer until the meat and potatoes are tender. Serve with a squeeze of lime. Our cilantro-averse boys loved this dish.

Sauteed okra (tarela bhida): with onion, chiles, and ginger-garlic paste. Mrs. C has gone from an okraphobe to an okraphile.

Onion kachumbar: diced sweet onion, cucumber, and tomato, minced chiles, and lime juice. The crunchy tang complemented the curry nicely.

Basmati rice with cumin and ghee

[MiFi]

Last Week

Chorizo Manchego

Pasta Genovese

Swiss Chard Comte Tart

Tomato Salad

Tart Slice

Corn Bread

Chili

[PopsicleToze]

MiFi, that cornbread looks good. Is that whole kernals of corn in there?

[Dr. Teeth]

Mifi, that tart looks incredible.

[Prawncrackers]

Chorizo Manchego

Gosh Mifi, it's just like i read your mind!!

Tonight we had Pata Negra Ham, Manchego, Fat Gordal Olives & Chorizo (from my garage):

and yesterday a lovely longhorn cote de boeuf, simply seared and dressed with copious amounts of Japanese-style sesame & shallot sauce:

[menuinprogress]

Pappa al Pomodoro from the Zuni Cafe Cookbook:

[David Ross]

So many delicious meals from everyone.

I suppose I could have cooked these dishes when it was over 100 in July, but somehow I think they tasted better the last week of September when the temperatures were in the upper 40's and it was wet and rainy outside.

Shrimp and White Grits, (with my version of Emeril's homemade barbecue sauce), with Chard and Bacon-

Pork Chop, Grits and Succotash-

Church Supper Chicken Pie (Based on a recipe that appeared in Saveur in a piece about Church Suppers)-

The chicken "pie" is actually more of a chicken and biscuits/dumpling type of dish rather than the standard chicken mixture encased in a savory pie crust.

The process starts the day before when you dunk a whole stewing chicken in a huge pot of water and cook the darn bird down for hours. You're left with a delicious chicken stock that serves as the base for the "pie"-along with incredibly moist and tender chicken meat.

The pie doesn't have a crust but rather, a topping made of biscuits that bake on top of the bubbling chicken stew. Delicious.

[Dr. J]

This definately has to be one of the best pages in the dinner thread. Great food and pics by everyone.

I wont be posting any food pics for another two weeks, still in NY.

[Tela T]

So, two comments ---- how I missssssss Berkeley Bowl - and wow I'm hungry!!!!!

Nice mid-morning break from doing work....

Thanks!

T

[Daniel]

So many wonderful dinners.. David I havent made BBQ Shrimp in a year or so.. I was house hunting the other day and the owner of the home we were touring was making NO BBQ Shrimp.. With the way that smelled and yours looks, I have to make this soon.

A few red snappers.

$5.99 a pound:

Made a tomato sauce with paprika, thyme,a ton of onions, san marzano, garlic, and chicken stock.. Friends don't drink

Baked with more onions and potatoes.

Simple salad with sherry vinegar and olive oil.. Added the leftover thyme..

Edited October 7, 2008 by Daniel (log)

[Kim Shook]

David - oh.my.goodness!!!! That salad with the big crouton and the melted cheese??? Wow - that looks amazing! I am very jealous of the whole huckleberry thing! And those meals that you posted yesterday seemed to reflect some yearning to be further south . Chicken pie is in my near future - that looked wonderful.

Daniel - that ribeye looked so good, but I missed an 'inside' view! My dad loves his egg! Also, it's 10:55am and I want one of those speck pizzas for lunch! And I loved the expression of perplexed disgruntlement on the one that missed her (his?) bones because the humans got them instead - "Meat iz urs, bonz iz MINE" .

Pille - that pumpkin loaf looks sooooo good!

petite tête de chou - that pizza made Mr. Kim gasp out loud! Gorgeous!

MiFi - I'll add a slice of tart with some of Daniel's pizza to my lunch order!

Not cooking much lately - we are still eating out of the freezer and what everyone has so generously sent to us. But last night I needed to COOK something. To chop and season and...just make something. I tried out a recipe I'd found for the pressure cooker. It was Pork Loin Chops w/ Red Cabbage & Apples from a book called The Best Pressure Cooker Recipes by Cinda Chavich. Someone on another site recommended Lorna Sass as someone who tests her recipes, so I got one of her books from the library and will start experimenting with those. Both of the Chavich recipes that I've tried have been less than successful - which, I admit, may be my fault, rather than the fault of the recipes! The BBQ chicken I tried scorched really badly and the advice I was given was that there was probably too much sugar and not enough liquid called for. This recipe was a little bland. The sauce that is made from reducing the cooking liquid was good, but the cabbage was a little blah. Next time, I'll add some of the ingredients that are in the braised red cabbage recipe that I use and that we love so much - thyme, red wine, brown sugar (just a touch).

[Tela T]

David - please what did you do to those pork chops, I'm drooling now....

[David Ross]

David - please what did you do to those pork chops, I'm drooling now....

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Thanks. I start with the thickest loin chops I can find, at least 3/4" thick or thicker.

I season them with Paul Prudhomme's "Blackened Steak Magic" and then sear them in a hot cast iron skillet with just a thin film of olive oil in the pan. I usually sear them about 4-5 minutes per side to get a nice brown crust on the chops-then they go into a 450 oven for about 4 more minutes per side. (Leave them in the cast iron pan when you put the chops in the oven).

The pan sauce was simply canned beef stock swirled in the hot skillet. Then a garnish of fresh thyme. Thanks again.

[Daniel]

Korean-ish the other night.. Simple and inexpensive

Really pretty mackeral:

Banchan we purchased at the supermarket down on 32nd?

Mackeral I dried out, salted, rubbed in garlic, used a little soy and a little butter at the end.. Cooked on the plancha, it was perfect..

Edited October 9, 2008 by Daniel (log)

[Shaya]

It's been awhile...

Loving all the fresh fish on this page, Daniel.

Prawncrackers you've been cooking some lovely food lately.

C Sapidus, great to see you are still cooking gorgeous stuff.

David Ross your food always looks so great.

Here are David Chang's Pork Buns that I made this weekend for a friend's birthday. They were every bit as good as expcted. The dough is amazing. Lovingly raised pork from the farmer's market.

[petite tête de chou]

Thank you for the compliments, Prawncrackers, Bruce and Kim. That particular pizza is one of husbands favorites. I prefer less "stuff" on my pizzas, though.

Tonight I made stew. It's been cold and stormy so I thought I'd steam the house up with wonderful aromas to greet the breadwinners return to the fold.

My favorite part- browning the cubed, seasoned beef. I could eat just this and be happy. Something about it seems so primal.

Onions, celery, garlic and a few mushrooms before adding the red wine to deglaze. Oh, and a couple bay leaves. I used an Oregon Cabernet Sauvignon.

These are the longest carrots I've *ever* seen. Crazy. I added these towards the end of cooking along with fresh rosemary, thyme, peas and parsley.

Finished dish. I plan on freezing some of the stew and since I'm not fond of the texture of frozen potatoes I served it over mashed potatoes. There was also some steamed broccoli (a bit overdone but what are you going to do? ), whole grain bread, a green salad with blue cheese dressing (not shown) and very cold red grapes (also not shown).

It's such a bonus with stew, chilis, soups and such to know that what is good today will be even better tomorrow.