Dinner! 2010

[Kim Shook]

Cheeseburgers, baked beans and leftover risotto. The risotto saved very well – not as creamy, of course, but the texture and flavor were great.

Hi Kim,

Nice looking dinner.

Have you ever made Arancini with your leftover risotto?

Thanks, Nick. Well, that's leftover ORZO risotto (my daughter and I can't eat rice - both have had gastric bypasses) - do you think it would work? I adore arancini!

For interest's sake Kim, have you ever tried farro as a substitute for rice in your risotto?

No, I haven't ever thought of it, Nick. I'll make a note to grab some next time I see it and try it. Thanks!

[C. sapidus]

...and enjoyed it with Mrs. C's modestly famous cabbage salad.

Any chance we (well, OK, *I*) could get details on Mrs. C's salad so it would be FABULOUSLY famous, instead of modestly.....

Mrs. C never makes anything the same way twice, but here is the gist of her cabbage salad. Separately, brown slivered almonds and broken-up dry Ramen noodles in salted butter. Chop up dried fruit (cranberries, raisins, etc.). Thinly slice cabbage (Napa, Savoy, or green cabbage). Mix up a dressing containing acid (rice vinegar, fruit vinegar, and/or lime juice), sugar (honey, palm sugar, simple syrup, etc.), soy sauce, and oil. The original recipe, long since forgotten, called for a fairly sweet dressing but Mrs. C prefers it tart.

Toss cabbage with a minimal amount of dressing and let sit until the cabbage wilts (about 10 minutes). Just before serving, mix in the dried fruit and butter-browned almonds and Ramen. Enjoy!

[mgaretz]

Tonight was a pretty straight-ahead beef stew with carrots, celery, onions, potatoes. The only stranger was pearl barley, added for texture and a thickener. Made it in the slow cooker.

[KCWilkinson]

Brined pork tenderloin, mashed potatoes that even Joel Robuchon would be jealous of, and roasted asparagus & morels.

[Pierogi]

...and enjoyed it with Mrs. C's modestly famous cabbage salad.

Any chance we (well, OK, *I*) could get details on Mrs. C's salad so it would be FABULOUSLY famous, instead of modestly.....

Mrs. C never makes anything the same way twice, but here is the gist of her cabbage salad. Separately, brown slivered almonds and broken-up dry Ramen noodles in salted butter. Chop up dried fruit (cranberries, raisins, etc.). Thinly slice cabbage (Napa, Savoy, or green cabbage). Mix up a dressing containing acid (rice vinegar, fruit vinegar, and/or lime juice), sugar (honey, palm sugar, simple syrup, etc.), soy sauce, and oil. The original recipe, long since forgotten, called for a fairly sweet dressing but Mrs. C prefers it tart.

Toss cabbage with a minimal amount of dressing and let sit until the cabbage wilts (about 10 minutes). Just before serving, mix in the dried fruit and butter-browned almonds and Ramen. Enjoy!

COOL BEANS ! Thank you (and Mrs. C, of course) so much !

[...tm...]

I'm excited it's grilling season again. Vietnamese lemongrass grilled chicken, grilled asparagus, garlic fried rice and a Momofuku-style slow poached egg.

[deensiebat]

I made a batch of potato knishes using Pam Reiss' excellent egullet tutorial. So good!

[Kim Shook]

Bruce – gorgeous burgers! I feel the frozen patty pain – Mr. Kim is always buying them and cooking a gross to feed us all week. Ick. Mrs. C’s cabbage salad looks and sounds wonderful! I make something similar and it is a favorite around here.

deensiebat – I love knishes, but I’ve never made them myself! I’m impressed.

Dinner last night was Buffalo wings and veggies:

[Kim Shook]

Lapping myself. Dinner tonight:

Leftover mini frittatas with cornmeal griddle bread and country gravy. Good combination.

[C. sapidus]

Kim, thank you, and props for the gorgeous wings!

When I can’t think of what to cook, thoughts incline towards favorite tastes and fragrances – spicy chiles, fragrant garlic, shallots, and Thai basil, salty-savory fish sauce and soy sauce, vinegary tang, and a touch of sweetness to round out the flavors.

Yup, chicken stir-fried with chiles and basil (chicken kaprao). No holy basil, so we used Thai basil mixed with a few mint leaves. Served with jasmine rice and peppery salad greens, the first allotment of our first year with a CSA.

[Blether]

That's up to your usual high standard, Bruce; but shouldn't you be calling it chicken hora-pa ? (Link - see under 'herbs & spices' - if you click through, they even have pronunciation audio).

Edited April 30, 2010 by Blether (log)

[C. sapidus]

That's up to your usual high standard, Bruce; but shouldn't you be calling it chicken hora-pa ? (Link - see under 'herbs & spices' - if you click through, they even have pronunciation audio).

Thank you, Blether, chicken hora-pa (Thai basil vs holy basil) would be more accurate. I do hope to grow some holy basil this summer and make the dish properly. On a slightly related note, it always amuses me when restaurant menus list the dish as "chicken kapow" -- conjures images of a cheesy fight scene from the old Batman show.

[Blether]

Indeed but don't get me started. Seriously. Anyone for a trip to a branch of famous beer hall, Kirin Shitty ? See ? You've done it now.

Edited April 30, 2010 by Blether (log)

[C. sapidus]

Indeed but don't get me started.

Oh, I wouldn’t mind a few more . . .

Stir-fried shrimp in aromatic tomato-cream sauce; turmeric rice; and greens from the CSA. The curry made a delightful salad dressing.

[Kim Shook]

Dinner two nights ago:

Spaghetti and meatballs. All but the pasta was frozen and just needed heating up. I’m not big on leftovers, but spaghetti sauce is different!

[kayb]

Been on the road, so little cooking this week. Did manage an old favorite, a BLT, or a BLAT, if you insist:

Just before I left town, a group of which I'm a member held a fundraiser -- we sold pre-orders for live Maine lobsters to be flown in, and gave buyers a choice of either cooking their own or us cooking them for them. We cooked about 100 of the 120 lobsters we sold (also sold 150 frozen lobster tails). It was a great fundraiser, and a lot of fun, as we cooked corn and potatos, went through about 10 pounds of butter, had a blues band and the whole works. We'll do it again next spring.

Lobsters came in big styrofoam coolers with dampened newspaper. The finished product, below:

They were great! The outdoor setting and the music, not to mention the keg of cold beer, were all big pluses. And I loved that some folks came out fully prepared to enjoy their lobster:

[twoshoes]

Dinner two nights ago:

Spaghetti and meatballs. All but the pasta was frozen and just needed heating up. I’m not big on leftovers, but spaghetti sauce is different!

YAY! we love love LOVE spaghetti and meatballs.

perhaps the definition of comfort food. ummm garlic bread. I know what I'm doing for lunch. or dinner.

[Kim Shook]

Dinner two nights ago:

Spaghetti and meatballs. All but the pasta was frozen and just needed heating up. I’m not big on leftovers, but spaghetti sauce is different!

YAY! we love love LOVE spaghetti and meatballs.

perhaps the definition of comfort food. ummm garlic bread. I know what I'm doing for lunch. or dinner.

Well, crap. I didn't realize until just now that I forgot to make the garlic bread. I had some really good long breadsticks in the freezer that I was going to use, too. Next time.

[Prawncrackers]

I've not been doing much cooking recently because I've been busy studying for some professional exams, but as long as Kim is then I know the Dinner thread is in safe hands

This first dish was from a few weeks ago, wonderful Rogan Josh from Camellia Panjabi's book made with beef short ribs. I was reminded of it because there was another portion of it in the freezer and I ate it again today, it was lush:

Whilst I was studying my wife made a spinach, goats cheese & potato quiche. It was her first attempt at pastry and we were both delighted with the result:

The past couple of days have seen me back in the kitchen with time to cook. The first dish I made was my wife's favourite of fresh crab with freshly made vermicelli. I saw a recipe for asparagus & parmesan wrapped in brick pastry in the Times the other day that made a nice crispy accompaniment to the soft pasta and crab:

The last of the game in the freezer was a wild duck. So it was simply roasted, served with potato dauphinoise, more asparagus and a marsala sauce:

[Darienne]

Spinach, goat's cheese and potato quiche. What's not to love. Looks great!!!!

[David Ross]

Dinner last night was the end of a week-long experiment that started bad a week ago--then ended up good last night.

The original idea last week was to do sardines in an escabeche "style," meaning I'd use the classic escabeche mixture of vegetables and a combination of olive oil and sherry vinegar. But rather than marinate the sardines overnight and then serve them the next day, I decided to serve the vegetables in the vinaigrette as an accompaniment to broiled sardines. Well, the broiled sardines just didn't taste all that good--far too oily for my liking. The vinaigrette "escabeche" though was good.

On night two I took some of the chilled, broiled sardines and broke the meat up, combined it with some potatoes I had boiled the night before and chilled, then combined the potatoes and sardine meat with the leftover vinaigrette--a sort of sardine potato salad "escabeche" style if you will. Another well-sounding attempt but the flavors just didn't work together.

So not giving up this week I think I hit on a good dish. I had some Pacific Sole filets in the freezer and I recently saw an episode of a Jacques Pepin cooking show where he did a classic poached sole dish. I had been looking for some ideas to use my sole and so there it was-I would poach the sole and serve it with a new take on the "escabeche" style vinaigrette.

I rolled-up the sole filets and poked them with a toothpick. The poaching liquid was chardonnay, bay leaf, peppercorns and some water. The fish was poached for about 10 minutes and then chilled overnight.

The vinaigrette started with a bounty of diced vegetables including-Roma tomato, red radish, avocado, carrot, red onion and zuchinni. I added marjoram and basil, lemon zest and juice, orange juice, salt and pepper. I used extra virgin olive oil and sherry vinegar and then also added a small amount of pear-balsamic vinegar. The pear balsamic vinegar adds a nice sweet and sour component to vinaigrette's.

I spooned some of the vegetables on the plate, then placed the cold sole filets on top. Yes, a lot of ingredients as you can see in the photo but it was delicious. And I think well-worth a week's efforts of trying to get this darn dish figured out. Sort of. I think it would also work well with thin filets of poached salmon.

[Kim Shook]

Prawn – thank you! I love the look of those short ribs – I need to do them soon, I keep seeing them everywhere and they are ‘speaking’ to me. And your potato dauphinoise is possibly the most beautiful variation I’ve ever seen!

David – your sole dish is lovely and the description sounds absolutely delicious! Thanks for the point by point, too! I love reading that kind of thing.

Tonight I finally used the Cusinart rotisserie that Mr. Kim gave me for Christmas:

Chicken all done:

Out of the rotisserie:

I was a little disappointed in the skin. I thought it would be crisper. The meat was completely done, but the skin was a little pallid in most places.

Carved:

Plated with broccoli and hollandaise, Marlene’s Crispy Smashed Potatoes and Marlene’s yorkies:

With gravy:

[Marlene]

Prawncrackers, that dauphonaise is beautiful! Care to share the recipe?

kim, your spaghetti is calling to me. Maybe for dinner tomorrow.

[C. sapidus]

Prawn, good to see you posting again (and I hope the exam went well).

Kim, nice looking meal as always. I remember my mother making Yorkies, so yours brought a smile.

Garlic-black bean pan-fried fish fillets, served over jasmine rice. This is a family favorite. The topping contained two heads of minced garlic, grated ginger, chopped cilantro stems, dried salted black beans, cayenne, dark soy, sugar, and rice wine. The fish is partly-fried and then removed to rest while the topping is cooked, and then the fish is finished in the pan with the topping. This two-stage cooking seems to yield a particularly delicate texture.

Mrs. C roasted French beans with garlic and ginger, and made cornbread with freshly-ground cornmeal from the CSA.

[emmalish]

Tonight was a very simple meal of beautiful new potatoes and blanched green beans with goat feta.