Dinner! 2009

[C. sapidus]

Improvised sorta-Mexican dinner tonight: I coated flank steak with a paste of roasted ancho chiles, roasted garlic, Mexican oregano, cumin, and cider vinegar. We grilled the steak to medium-rare, sliced thinly, and served with steamed store-bought corn tortillas. Sides and fixings included fried plantains with tangy Mexican sour cream, fried onions, and guacamole with roasted garlic, jalapeno, and lime juice. Mrs. C loved the guacamole, so I will make it again with roasted garlic.

I was planning to make Jaymes’ salsa, but elder son picked out a two-pack of Chi-Chi’s salsa so that’s what we had. Quoth elder son: “I could drink that stuff.”

To introduce the culture clash element that has been sadly missing from our meals of late, I marinated a tuna steak with soy sauce, black soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil, chile oil, and a little sugar. I grilled the tuna steak very rare for Mrs. C, who was craving seafood. Younger son had some, too.

I spent the afternoon wrestling with recalcitrant gutters, so no energy left for pictures.

[Kim Shook]

Dinner tonight was another recipe from The American Diabetes Association’s Family Cookbook Volume II: Summer Night Salad with Parmesan mac and cheese and garlic bread made from some of the whole wheat baguette that I made on the weekend:

All three of us LOVED the  pasta.  It was sharp and creamy and really, really satisfying! 

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Kim,

Will you be posting the Parmesan mac and cheese recipe in your cookbook? It sounds like it would be perfect addition to a ham dinner for a group of Habitat for Humanity volunteers that is scheduled for July 4th weekend.

Thanks,

Kay

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Kay, I'm putting it in today! It will be called "Skip's Parmesan Mac & Cheese"! We really liked it and hope you do, too!

[Kim Shook]

David – that is a beautiful steak!

Dinner tonight was a real southern meal! We started with hot pepper jelly on cream cheese with Ritz:

We stopped by the farm stand yesterday and they had local green tomatoes! So I did BLTs with fried green tomatoes:

These were amazing!

I also served baked sweet potatoes and corn casserole:

Dessert was just strawberries and blueberries:

[David A. Goldfarb]

Had friends over tonight, including Romy Dorotan and Amy Besa, authors of an excellent book of Filipino cuisine and culture called Memories of Philippine Kitchens. They ran a restaurant called Cendrillon in SoHo for 13-1/2 years, closed it recently, and will soon be opening a new restaurant in Brooklyn called "Purple Yam."

Too much to think about in the kitchen to photograph, but the menu was--

Cheeses and charcuterie--Mountain gorgonzola, La Tur, homemade bresaola with arugula, olive oil, and shaved Piave cheese, and a homemade provencale-ish saucisson sec.

Appetizer--Grilled local black sea bass kebabs with black oil cured olives, fresh oregano, fennel seed, and small heirloom tomatoes

Prosecco Bioldo

Chilled avocado soup with avocado sorbet and a garnish of toasted cumin seeds

Main course--Pulled pork adobo--North Carolina-Filipino fusion style

Marqués de Murrieta Reserva, Rioja - 2004 (this was quite good, incidentally)

Achara (shredded pickled green papaya) from Romy and Amy's book

Chilled white bean salad with roasted peppers

Romy brought a rhubarb cake with meringue on top that Amy learned to make when she was a student in Germany in the 1970s.

Another guest brought a Muscat Leccia - 2007, which is good, since I didn't have a dessert wine on hand.

Amy approved of my interpretation of their achara recipe, and she and Romy both went back for seconds on the pulled pork, so I'd call it a success.

Edited June 15, 2009 by David A. Goldfarb (log)

[nickrey]

Tonight's dinner: Smoked Salmon with Celeriac Remoulade

[PopsicleToze]

Tonight's dinner: Smoked Salmon with Celeriac Remoulade

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Forgive the old eyes -- what's that garnish between the tomatoes. It looks like it's sitting on slivers of cheese, but for the life of me I can't make out what it is. At first I thought it was a mussel ??

Rhonda

[kayswv]

Kay, I'm putting it in today!  It will be called "Skip's Parmesan Mac & Cheese"!  We really liked it and hope you do, too!

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Thanks Kim, I am looking forward to it.

Kay

[nickrey]

Tonight's dinner: Smoked Salmon with Celeriac Remoulade

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Forgive the old eyes -- what's that garnish between the tomatoes. It looks like it's sitting on slivers of cheese, but for the life of me I can't make out what it is. At first I thought it was a mussel ??

Rhonda

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It's a rather tasty pesto-like creation made from continental parsley, pine nuts, salt, olive oil, tomato, and balsamic vinegar. When tasted on its own, believe it or not, it tastes like it contains avocado.

What appear to be slivers of cheese is how the extra virgin olive oil pooled around them.

Edited June 16, 2009 by nickrey (log)

[Restorer]

It's a rather tasty pesto-like creation made from continental parsley, pine nuts, salt, olive oil, tomato, and balsamic vinegar. When tasted on its own, believe it or not, it tastes like it contains avocado.

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I can believe that. Tonight I made this pork roast, and the parsley-shallot sauce tasted like avocado. I think it might be the combination of parsley and olive oil.

The pork loin was great. I used a 5 pound boneless loin roast. I've never had lean pork so juicy.

[menuinprogress]

We stopped by the farm stand yesterday and they had local green tomatoes!  So I did BLTs with fried green tomatoes:

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Those look great! I love the idea of a fried green tomato BLT.

[mgaretz]

Sorry no pictures, but we had london broil with a balsamic vinegar/cherry glaze, braised fennel and homemade chocolate ravioli filled with cherry preserves.

[djyee100]

Today I tried to clear out my fridge and freezer a bit, and I improvised a Thai-style steak and potatoes salad for dinner. Not authentically Thai, but it tasted good.

To make this salad: Cut 1 lb potatoes into chunks, rub with oil and S & P, then roast in a 425 degree oven until golden brown and tender. Let cool. Grill 1 lb steak (I used flank steak), let cool somewhat, and slice thinly. In a large bowl, combine the steak strips with this dressing: 2 TB fish sauce, 2 TB fresh squeezed lime juice, 1 tsp sugar, 1-2 thinly slivered red Fresno chiles. Taste and adjust for seasoning. The flavors should balance for hot, salty, sour, sweet. Toss in 1/4 cup thinly sliced red onion; 2 scallions, white parts thinly sliced, green parts 1" long; 1 small tomato, cut into chunks. Mound onto a serving platter lined with lettuce leaves, and surround with the roasted potatoes. Garnish with cilantro leaves, and serve immediately.

Edited June 17, 2009 by djyee100 (log)

[MiFi]

Some recent feeds:

Grilled Chicken Breast w/pea vine, beet & goat cheese salad (all local)

Chilled NJ Asparagus Soup

(more) NJ Asparagus, Comte, and potato fritata

Hedgeapple farms (MD) flatiron steak

(even more) Grilled NJ Aspargus

Toasted Cous Cous Salad

Hand-picked Strawberry (thanks Wegmeyer farms) shortcake

Beef (tenderloin from Hedgeapple farms) Stroganoff

[Kim Shook]

MiFi – As usual, everything looks gorgeous, but those strawberries and that stroganoff are calling to me!

Dinner on Monday was slow cooker ribs with Sweet Baby Ray’s sauce, corn casserole and fried green tomatoes:

I do these ribs fairly often on a worknight. I give them a rub the night before and let them sit in the fridge overnight, then dump them in the slow cooker on top of some slice onions and some kind of soda. They cook all day and we just crisp them up on the grill with some kind of sauce (homemade, if I have it, but there are some bottled ones that we like, too). It makes a nice change from the usual weeknight leftovers, quick chicken dishes or takeout !

[Kim Shook]

Back to back me, again !

Breakfast for dinner tonight – sausage gravy and biscuits, scrambled eggs and fruit salad:

The eggs were amazingly fluffy and tender. I really took my time with them tonight instead of hurrying them along like I sometimes (usually ) do. I cooked the so low that they probably took 15 minutes to get done. Perfect eggs!

[mgaretz]

Last night my SO's step daughter and new boyfriend came to dinner. By request I made my Pad Kee Mao (Drunken Noodles) with shrimp, salad with my homemade balsamic raspberry vinaigrette and my zero carb, low fat, dairy free chocolate mousse for dessert. Eclectic, I know, but it's what they wanted!

[santo_grace]

Still haven't been to the grocery store after a weekend of guests. Managed to create a tasty dinner of crabcake with bacon and fried egg sandwich. Salad on the side.

[Robert Jueneman]

Sous vide hamburgers with "grilled" corn on the cob with smoked sea salt.

I was having some blood pressure & pulse rate problems due to a recent change in medications, so I decided to keep it simple.

I dropped a package of 2 frozen hamburgers in a sous vide bag into the rice cooker, set at 55.2C/131.5F, and took a nap.

I got up a couple of hours later (thanks to my indulgent wife, who had peeled the corn on the cob), brought the water in an asparagus steamer to a boil, and set the timer for 4 minutes. When that was done, I pulled the corn out and set it aside, while I open the bag with the hamburger patties.

I put them in a gently warmed cast iron skillet, patted the surface dry, spritzed them with my olive oil sprayer to enhance the Maillard reaction, and torched them with an Iwatani butane torch until they were nicely seared.

Then, since I had the torch out, I seared the corn on the cob very quickly, rotating it a 1/4 turn each time. The glass corn plates got hot!

I also put a little blue cheese on my hamburger (my wife doesn't like it), and warmed that briefly as well, again using the torch.

At the table, we buttered the hot corn, and sprinkled some Japanese smoked sea salt (from Sur Le Table) on it, instead of the usual lemon pepper. It was delicious -- even my non-foodie wife liked it!

From a food safety perspective, the nearly three hours at 131F was way more than enough time to adequately pasteurize the hamburgers, even if all sorts of nasty pathogens had infested the interior of the meat.

Compared to previous tries, the resulting burgers were a perfect medium rare, but just a little dry, for reasons that aren't quite clear. I poured off some juice -- maybe I should have allowed the burger to rest for a few minutes, or else cooked it for a little less time.

Sorry, no pictures, but everyone knows what a hamburger and corn on the cob looks like, right?

Edited June 19, 2009 by Robert Jueneman (log)

[percyn]

Interesting....I have sous vide steaks but not burgers. If I am in the mood for a rare burger, I usually buy irradiated beef.

[Robert Jueneman]

Interesting....I have sous vide steaks but not burgers. If I am in the mood for a rare burger, I usually buy irradiated beef.

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Where do you buy irradiated beef? I've never seen it.

[percyn]

Interesting....I have sous vide steaks but not burgers. If I am in the mood for a rare burger, I usually buy irradiated beef.

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Where do you buy irradiated beef? I've never seen it.

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Its sold at Wegmans if there is one near you.

[Robert Jueneman]

I'm in San Jose, and the closest one seems to be in Fredericksburg, VA!

Anyone seen irradiated beef on the west coast?

[David Ross]

We stopped by the farm stand yesterday and they had local green tomatoes!  So I did BLTs with fried green tomatoes:

These were amazing!

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I'm just getting caught up on all the delicious dishes displayed here--and your Fried Green Tomato BLT really, really caught my eye. How delicious. I can see myself eating that for breakfast, lunch AND dinner!

Tell us about the coating for the tomatoes and how you go about frying them. I haven't ever worked with frying green tomatoes, but I think I'll start this summer.

[Jujubee]

Cough cough.  Ahem. Recipe perhaps?  

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That's me for ya...always keeping them wanting more.

Here it is....

Ingredients:

7-up

4-5 lbs korean style short ribs (aka Flanken I think)

3 cups lite soy sauce

1/3 cup of honey

10 cloves garlic crushed

2 Tbls grated ginger (pulp and juice)

6 green onions loosely chopped

1/4 cup sesame oil

1/4 cup sesame seeds

1 large brown Asian pear, smashed

2 Kiwi's, skinned and crushed

First, marinate the meat submerged in the 7-up over night. This is to tenderize the meat.

Second, combine rest of the ingredients and marinate the meat again over night. Squish fruit in your hands to get the pulp and juice into the concoction.

Third, cook quickly over VERY hot coals or gas grill. Eat with slivered green onions, soy bean paste, ball of rice inside a lettuce leaf like a lettuce wrap. I got tired of making the lettuce wraps and just started mackin down on the meat by itself.

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Thanks for the recipe, Octaveman! I had a question though:

Is the lite soy sauce called for in the recipe asian light soy souce (regular soy sauce, as opposed to dark soy sauce which is thicker and sweeter) or american lite soy sauce (as in less sodium soy sauce)?

[percyn]

Topped a Garlic Bread with Goat Cheese, Creme Fresh and Sauteed Dandelion Greens

Then, Sauteed some Shrimp

Coated with Tomato Chili Garlic Sauce

and served over Fried Rice