Dinner! 2010

[meredithla]

Very nice, meredithla - is the recipe from a book? It looks great, I'm a huge sucker for anything with Gruyere in it.

Chris, I got the inspiration here Cauliflower Onion Tart. I used a creamy ricotta in place of the mascarpone. It really was delicious!

[Blether]

Yesterday, seafood lasagne for eG cook-off #52:

Today, ground lamb kebabs, muhammara, labneh - from Christine Osborne's Middle Eastern Cooking:

Edited March 6, 2010 by Blether (log)

[mgaretz]

A challenge last night - our wedding is Sunday and my fiancée's father and step mom are in town. We hosted dinner last night and I made Carbonade a la Flamande (Belgian Beef Stew). My fiancée's step mom is Belgian so I was actually more nervous about getting this dish right than the wedding.

I basically used the CI recipe with some touches of my own of course. I used Kriek for the beer and boneless short ribs for the meat. It was great and everybody loved it!

I served it with oven roasted Sierra Gold potatoes with fresh rosemary and a simple salad with my homemade raspberry vinaigrette.

[Darienne]

A challenge last night - our wedding is Sunday

All the best wishes in the world to you.

Our fiftieth wedding anniversary was yesterday. Should have noted that our anniversary luncheon was dessert: homemade scones, raspberries, freshly whipped cream and my special raspberry sauce. That's after 50 years of cooking and eating together.

Edited March 6, 2010 by Darienne (log)

[robirdstx]

Grilled Lamb Chops, Grilled Asparagus with Romano, and Arrugula, White Bean, and Red Onion Salad.

[Kim Shook]

meredithla – gorgeous brisket. Mr. Kim got a smoker for Christmas and is assembling it right now (more cussing than tax prep day!). I am urging a brisket as one of the first experiments, but until he does, I think I’ll give that Hazan recipe a try! And that onion, Gruyere and cauliflower tart is beautiful!

Blether – I’ve noticed the same thing about the pages on the dinner thread, but didn’t miss any of the posts I remembered. Since sometimes the pictures seem to change sizes, I thought that might be the reason. I would love a wedge of that seafood lasagna and it’s only 9AM.

Mark – I know you won’t be here at eG today, but congratulations on the marriage!

menuinprogress – lovely looking and SOUNDING clams and sea bass!

A recent dinner started with some wonderful minestrone soup that our daughter saved us from a client lunch at her company:

I don’t know where it came from, but it was so good!

I made a kinda good chicken and cornbread dressing casserole:

The recipe came from someone at another website on which I participate. I screwed it up a bit – I halved the chicken part of the recipe, but forgot to halve the topping ingredients. So it was ‘top heavy’ . It needed some work on the spices – maybe some sage and onions. It was also a little too sweet. Basically a good starting point. But the really odd thing was, according to the recipe, it should have taken 45 minutes to cook. At the end of 45 minutes, my chicken was completely raw. It took about twice that long. I can’t figure out how she got fully cooked chicken in 45 minutes .

I also served broccoli w/ hollandaise and some tarted up Sister Schubert frozen yeast rolls:

[kayb]

Sigh. A broken arm means I can only read and drool for a couple of weeks.....

[Prawncrackers]

Seriously though if anyone does know the real reason for the wiring in those claypots, I’d like to know.

A vendor once told me that the wiring was to help keep the claypot together. But Paula Wolfert has a better explanation in Mediterranean Clay Pot Cooking: it improves the heat distribution.

Thanks djyee that is what I suspected.

We had some friends around for tea yesterday, one of which was of the vegetarian persuasion. I have to admit that I've avoided cooking for her for as long as we've known her but yesterday i had to bite the bullet. So apart from the slow roasted shoulder of lamb for us meat-eaters I had to get creative with some veggie options. I decided that i would try to make for the first time a Spanish Tortilla:

I made a lovely feta, pomegranate and bitter leaf salad too and a creamy goats cheese, caramelised onion, fig, walnut & honey tart. This was wonderful and even had us meaties drooling:

For dessert my wife made vanilla and chocolate cupcakes. For second dessert I bought my first box of Indian mangoes this year, yay it's mango season again:

[Darienne]

Sigh. A broken arm means I can only read and drool for a couple of weeks.....

Very careless of you, m'dear. All best in quick recovery.

[percyn]

Nice means all - robirdstx, good to see some grilling.

Prawn, how did you get mangoes so soon, the Indian Mango season is not until May. How do you like the Alphonso? Until recently they were banned in the USA, but now we get them occasionally - for $30 - $50/dozen.

A few days ago, I decided to make Korean Bul Go Gi under the broiler.

w/Jasmine Rice

A few days before that - Indian style Turkey Kheema on Basmati Rice (w/Eggplant Chutney)

And before that -

Boneless Pork Chops w/Sweet Potatoes and Hericot Verts w/mushrooms

Pork loin stuffed w/Feta and Spinach

[Prawncrackers]

Prawn, how did you get mangoes so soon, the Indian Mango season is not until May. How do you like the Alphonso? Until recently they were banned in the USA, but now we get them occasionally - for $30 - $50/dozen.

From the shop Percy, I've been keeping my eyes peeled and yesterday was the first day they've come in. I love my Indian mangoes but trust me I don't have my own farm and import them! They are very early this year, I've been keeping a record in this thread here. Last year was mid-April but apparently it's been a good winter so the crops are early this year.

I like all the Indian mangoes i've ever tried, Alphonso, Kesar & Badami. They're all incredibly sweet, all pulp, no fibre but all have a subtly different perfume. For me there are no other mangoes and certainly no other fruit that can compare. Though a lot depends on the condition of the fruit when they get here.

btw, those dozen were £9, which is unbelievably cheap compared to price you've quoted. It makes a nice change from the usual rip-off prices we pay in the UK

Edited March 7, 2010 by Prawncrackers (log)

[emmalish]

Sigh. A broken arm means I can only read and drool for a couple of weeks.....

Oh man, I'm so sorry to hear that. I broke mine a couple years ago so I can empathize. I still remember struggling to even open a can one-handed. *sigh* Get better soon!

prawn, that all looks fantastic. I'll bet your vegetarian friends were very happy.

It's cold and rainy and blustery in Vancouver today (we may actually be getting some snow on the mountains – just in time for the paralympic games anyway!), so I decided to make a pot of chili. I'm vegetarian, so that means a whole lotta veggies...

and of course onion, garlic and jalapenos...

I never have issues with peppers bothering me when I cut them. Usually. I think I got a super potent pepper because my fingers were burning. Thank goodness for the internet – I've discovered that a baking soda & water paste will clear it right up. In addition to the jalapeno, there is also chili powder and chipotles in adobo sauce...

Add two kinds of beans...

and a bunch of other stuff, and finally we have this...

The white blob is feta cheese. Excuse my photo-happy post – I just got a new camera and lens and wanted to play.

[abooja]

Two nights ago, I made this Sicilian style pizza using Peter Reinhart's pain a l'ancienne dough, Pomi chopped tomotoes (should have used the usual Muir Glen fire roasted tomatoes for this), fresh mozzarella and fresh basil. The texture was perfect, but the tomatoes could have been sweeter.

[robirdstx]

Prawncrackers - your Spanish Tortilla looks delicious!

percyn - we love to grill and your Bul Go Gi looks like something we could do here. Can you share your recipe, please? Which cut of meat did you use?

Dinner last night was Dutch Oven Chicken. No photos, but it was falling off the bone good and I made a gravy with a roux of butter and flour and the defatted pan juices and some chicken stock. We had the chicken with steamed asparagus and home made dinner rolls.

Edited March 8, 2010 by robirdstx (log)

[menuinprogress]

Excuse my photo-happy post – I just got a new camera and lens and wanted to play.

No need to apologize - those pictures were great!

[C. sapidus]

You are all making particularly beautiful meals lately.

My brother ate with us last night, and he helped us make choo chee shrimp curry; corn and shiitake mushroom soup; and jasmine rice. We gave him all the leftovers, so unfortunately no pictures. Tonight we made:

Fried grated coconut with beef (serundeng daging), dry-fried with coconut milk, ground garlic and shallots, tamarind, palm sugar, coriander, and bay leaves.

Coconut rice (nasi lemak), served with fried egg, fried shallots, sliced cucumbers, and slivered Thai chiles.

Mrs. C made delicious corn fritters with the corn pulp left over from yesterday’s soup.

[nickrey]

Triple cooked chips, seared sous vide steak on grilled mushroom with red wine and mushroom jus and butter tossed green beans.

Really trying out new camera

[Blether]

Well, if I had to pick a winner, it'd be lamb chops, cornbread chicken, fig tart, stuffed pork loin, vegetarian chilli, pizza a l'ancienne, coconut beef, and steak & 3-cook chips.

Meanwhile this evening's snow looks to have ceded to rain, not so's you'd notice it's any warmer. Hot marmalade pudding reprise, this time with a spoonful of as-before home-made-from-milk labneh / Greek yoghurt:

Edited March 9, 2010 by Blether (log)

[Maple1]

First attempt at a homemade pizza in our new wood burning oven.

[nickrey]

First attempt at a homemade pizza in our new wood burning oven.

Nice. Congratulations not only on your first pizza, which makes me want one like it right now, but also on your first post.

Edited March 9, 2010 by nickrey (log)

[robirdstx]

Individual Chicken Pot Pies. This was what my husband calls an experiment. This was my first attempt at pie crust in forever. I need to work on the recipe to improve the flavor of the crust but the flaky layers were there.

[robirdstx]

Pork Tenderloin Medallions with Spicy Marmalade Sauce, Jasmine Rice, and Asparagus

[Kim Shook]

kayb – so sorry about the broken arm! What a thing for a cook to have! Hope you heal FAST!

Prawn – the fig tart is just breathtaking! And please tell your wife that I envy her beautiful cupcakes – the one with the petals is especially lovely.

emmalish – what absolutely gorgeous pictures!

Not much cooking this week – too busy planning my NOLA trip on the 19th!! Mr. Kim finally tried out the smoker he got for Christmas (see my blog for his full and utterly hilarious account of the day – you have to read all three parts to get the real story and all the pictures), so we have had some awesome butt meals!

Dinner tonight was leftovers from Mr. Kim’s pork:

BBQ and slaw on cornbread waffles – we’ve done the waffles before and they are wonderful with BBQ!

and frozen fries .

[emmalish]

Thanks everyone!

Kim, between this thread and your baking posts, I am consistently blown away. I don't know where you find the time!

Tonight was just a simple grilled cheese sandwich with whole grain mustard...

And yes, I ate it with ketchup. Don't judge me.

[Blether]

That pizza really does like nicely done, Maple1, particularly for first-in-the-new-oven. It's not your first ever pizza, is it ?

emmalish, the more pictures the better. How do you feel about the results from your new camera ?