Dinner! 2008

[SobaAddict70]

Pan-fried new potatoes with gold cippolini onions -- potatoes, onion, butter, salt, chopped tarragon

Heirloom tomato salad -- tomatoes, shallots, EVOO, white wine vinegar, salt, pepper, garlic scapes pesto

Corn sauteed with sorrel -- fresh corn, sorrel leaves, unsalted butter

I love summer.

ETA a better-looking image.

Edited July 20, 2008 by SobaAddict70 (log)

[Lupinus]

Picture came out bad, really need a new camera.

But pan roasted chicken breast and then a pan sauce made from the drippings, onion, garlic, mushrooms, red wine, balsamic, and rosemary. Simple but tasty.

Sliced the chicken and fanned out over a bed of roasted garlic and rosemary mashed potatoes.

[nakji]

It's been heating up in Japan, and I've been trying to keep everything seasonal in my kitchen - I figure centuries of tradition must be right about something. So tonight, we had somen for dinner, with garnishes of green onion, sesame seeds, wasabi, and grated ginger. I also served it with ginger-stewed eggplant, on the advice of my Japanese cookbook. I got the eggplants for the ridiculously low sum of 100 yen for 5 at my local veg stand. It was just right for a hot summer's night.

[pickledgarlic]

I went on a roast chicken binge. Compared and contrasted a whack of recipes and pondered far far too long on stuffed vs unstuffed (as in, not even a lemon), trussed vs. untrussed, basted or barded, etc, etc. Went unstuffed, trussed, and basted twice with butter:

Yummers. Made a pan gravy out of a bit of roux, white wine, and the end of a bit of brandy I had laying around.

Downside: turning my tiny kitchen into a blazing inferno.

[Kim Shook]

David - it's summer and I'm in the mood for seafood and your crab croquettes are just exactly what I want. They look and sound wonderful!

Soba - lovely, fresh looking meal! I never thought of using the cippolini's with pan fried potatoes - good idea - I'm stealing that!

I finally did some cooking this weekend! I must have been on the same wavelength as pickledgarlic . Saturday I did the America's Test Kitchen roast chicken:

This little guy makes me want to put a top hat and a cane on him ! This was just delicious. You butterfly the chicken, do a compound butter and rub it under the skin. Then you roast it over sliced potatoes so that the potatoes get all the wonderful juices dripped on them.

I served the chicken and potatoes with brussel sprouts, Marlene's Yorkshire pudding and gravy:

Fantastic Yorkshire puds! Easy and the best I've ever made! The gravy was delicious - even though it was a really quick one - I used purchased broth and the backbone that I cut out to butterfly it, but it turned out really well.

Sunday's dinner was milk-braised pork tenderloin, noodles, squash, corn and Parmesan-ranch pan rolls:

Boring plate, huh? This was one meal that I should have served on my dark plates and maybe adding a green veg would have been a good idea ! I hadn't tried the milk-braised pork before and it was very good - sweet and gentle and tender. But even though you blend the sauce at the end and get it smooth, you still have some little curdled bits on the pork and it's not a very attractive dish. I don't think I'd serve it to guests who wouldn't "get" it.

[Ted Fairhead]

Kim we seem to be on similar wavelengths. I did this Pan roasted Game Hen, from "Cuisine At Home". The sauce has orange zest as did the chicken. Delicious!

[hungrykoala]

nakji: what an absolutely perfect summer meal! looks so refreshing.

[Susan in FL]

Great looking food, everyone... Too numerous to applaud each one individually.

My dinner photos turned out decent last night and tonight, so here goes.

Last night was a one dish meal with grouper that I made up as I went along. I marinated the fish for a little while in lime zest and juice, cilantro, jallies, garlic, ginger, etc.; pan-seared that; served it on top of a clam broth with tomato, spinach, corn, etc.; also with pasta; and garnished with the clams and some scallions:

Tonight I grilled pork and mango kebobs, sort of following the recipe from a Weber cookbook:

[SobaAddict70]

Omelette and potato salad

The purple stuff you see in the potato salad are chopped shallots. Thanks to the potato salad thread for inspiration.

Also made a batch of homemade mayonnaise (elbow grease method).

[snowangel]

I don't think I have a more favorite meal:

The burger is merely incidental, and that first of the summer's sweet corn is gold. Bless Paul. He whizzed by the corn stand, noted the sign, made a u-turn in very heavy traffic, yet another u-turn, and picked up 1/2 dozen ears. More precious than my diamond ring. We also had last night's leftover "in a pouch on the grill" green beans in a light mustardy dressing, but I primarily made a meal of 4 ears of corn (no kids tonight).

What will I be eating nightly for the next month and a half?

[Marlene]

Susan, we've been focused mostly on the fresh peas available. Fresh peas and fresh corn are my two favourite summer veggies. It's nice that when the peas end, the corn is beginning. We did have the first of the Ontario corn last week. It was a bit early for it, but within two weeks we should be in full corn season here as well. That is, if it all hasn't floated away in all the rain we've had.

[CaliPoutine]

Susan, we've been focused mostly on the fresh peas available.  Fresh peas and fresh corn are my two favourite summer veggies.  It's nice that when the peas end, the corn is beginning.  We did have the first of the Ontario corn last week.  It was a bit early for it, but within two weeks we should be in full corn season here as well.  That is, if it all hasn't floated away in all the rain we've had.

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I havent seen any local corn yet. All I've seen is horrible looking( and expensive) stuff shipped in from the States. Huron county( where I live) is a very large corn producer. Ihope a good portion is meant for human consumption and not just for cattle!!

[Marlene]

Susan, we've been focused mostly on the fresh peas available.   Fresh peas and fresh corn are my two favourite summer veggies.  It's nice that when the peas end, the corn is beginning.  We did have the first of the Ontario corn last week.  It was a bit early for it, but within two weeks we should be in full corn season here as well.  That is, if it all hasn't floated away in all the rain we've had.

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I havent seen any local corn yet. All I've seen is horrible looking( and expensive) stuff shipped in from the States. Huron county( where I live) is a very large corn producer. Ihope a good portion is meant for human consumption and not just for cattle!!

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The stuff we had last week was definitely Ontario corn, bought at the market, but we felt it was a bit young.

[SobaAddict70]

I'm afraid with all the high food prices lately, I'm turning into a vegetarian.

Chilled Swiss chard and sorrel soup, with lemon basil.

The white stuff is a dollop of creme fraiche.

Had this with a red lettuce and tatsoi salad, with a poached egg.

[LaCookrasha]

Chicken Spaghetti

[nakji]

That looks delicious, LaCookrasha. Are there olives in there? What else?

I had a craving this week for curry - not proper curry, mind you, or Japanese curry, but curry-shop curry like I used to eat in Vietnam, where the sauce is all blended up and a random protein is thrown in.

So I made some, with some Patak's curry paste, tomatoes from my local veg stand, and a bit of yogurt, all blended up and simmered briefly with some seared chicken. I made some pan-fried naan to go along with it, using a package mix from the Japanese chain store Muji. I'm consistently surprised at how good their food offerings are, as I always think of them as a clothing and home furnishing chain. I folded some crushed garlic into the mix as I went along, and the whole meal was exactly what I wanted. It's nice when that happens.

[Shelby]

We made our own cheese plate with some dried figs

And, prunes stuffed with foie gras

[menuinprogress]

We got a new toy yesterday - a Weber Smokey Mountain - and broke it in with some smoked flank steak, smoked portobellos and smoked tomatoes:

This is the first time we've had a smoker, and we're really digging it so far.

[SobaAddict70]

Fettucine di verdure -- fettucine in a butter-based vegetable sauce. this version has carrot, zucchini, baby fennel, green beans and tomato.

[suzilightning]

loverly food all... though keema, bruce.

not many pics here. last weekend we had a great visit with friends up in the hudson valley. they think i'm a bit weird anyway but taking pics of food?

got up there friday afternoon and contributed some butler's blue and a nice gouda with caraway to the noshes. dinner was mini digitali(sp?) with homemade gravy, sausages and meatballs as well as bread to soak up the gravy. can you tell my friend doesn't care for veg? unfortunately since her mom is getting on a bit(92) she can't manage to make the two trays of pizza she normally would for friday dinner - and her pizza was killer. i told them if i can get up earlier in the day i'd give a hand with the dough - or bring some of my own up. the wine was a cabernet sauvignon with jose reyes label on it - bought specifically for connie(my friend joyce's mom) who is a fanatical met's fan. i liked it because a portion of the money goes towards major league kids programs and connie always has one small glass of wine with dinner every night.

later they were going to have some dessert, treats i brought from Everything Homemade. connie was like"i'll just have some ice cream" but joyce convinced her to try a piece of the tuxedo cupcake. when i came out of the kitchen after cleaning up, connie stopped me and told me to tell maria, the shop owner and baker, how wonderful her cake was. connie was expecting some stodgy something that wasn't that good but that isn't maria's m.o. and i'm so happy my friend enjoyed some great homemade sweets.

saturday was kiskatom yard sale day followed by the catskill farmer's market. some nice things including some breakfast sausage, bacon and cheese from a local farm, wild elderberry jam, currants and gooseberries and some lovely lettuces. ate on main street in catskill but can't remember the name of the place. for dinner ed, joyce's husband, and i teamed up but it was almost spoiled by their kitten, greylock, who decided to bring home a baby snake to prove what a wonderful hunter he is. grilled kurobuta pork loins, fresh corn, Alexa sweet potato fries and then ed decided we needed an onion marmalade which was what i was detailed to do. the little bit of leftover marmalade we brought home became the base for a quiche for john's breakfast.

yesterday was pasta, gravy and meatballs. today was the last of the quiche and some risotto pudding for john and now up to make some sloppy joes and a salad(i swear i will make him eat at least two bites), some of kim shook's refridgerator pickles and since i was able to glean them a dessert with wineberries. this ended up being a clafouti made with the wineberries, blackberries, currants and the last of the frozen sweet cherries from last year.

Edited July 27, 2008 by suzilightning (log)

[Country]

We got a new toy yesterday - a Weber Smokey Mountain - and broke it in with some smoked flank steak, smoked portobellos and smoked tomatoes:

This is the first time we've had a smoker, and we're really digging it so far.

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That's some nice looking meat. Beautiful.

[Megan Blocker]

Pan-roasted a pork chop and then used a plum from the farmer's market and some of my pickled ramps to make the sauce - added some mustard and mustard seeds into the mix to make things a bit earthier.

[Ce'nedra]

Had a batch of mussels (which btw, are a pain to clean) bathed and stir-fried in chilli garlic sauce, oyster sauce, salted black beans (just a tad) and sesame oil (and a bit of sugar to mellow out the flavour a bit).

Great with beer (or West Coast in my case)

[Susan in FL]

What a roll everyone is on! I've been on a good streak myself... One of the best looking was cedar-planked shrimp on the Weber this weekend. Last night, equally good was pork and cabbage, and more corn, but except for the corn it wasn't pretty.

[Cleo]

Susan, your corn always looks great! Just wondering, how did you prepare the shrimp? It looks delicious.