Dinner! 2010

[djyee100]

Ce'nedra, that bo la lot looks great. Now I'm tempted to make that myself.

Aloha Steve, what did you put in those delicious-looking lasagnas?

[robirdstx]

Today I made some Fresh Pasta and served it with Braised Pork and green beans.

[Aloha Steve]

Aloha Steve, what did you put in those delicious-looking lasagnas?

In between 4 layers of noodles: small meatballs and sweet Italian sausage, one of ricotta, parmesan, romano & spices, one layer of sauce after 15 minutes covered top with mozzarella, returned to cook 1/2 hour.

It tastes as good as it looks

[deensiebat]

Got a little garlic-scape happy with this pizza:

Scapes, bleu cheese, walnuts, potato.

[Blether]

Tarragon pot-roast topside of beef, turned into a well-flavoured risotto, the texture of the rice just perfect:

[Ce'nedra]

djyee100: Thanks I was surprised to find it was a lot easier than it looked!

[robirdstx]

Tonight we had Roast Chicken with Green Peas, Mashed Potatoes, and Gravy. Part of the skin over the breast got overdone, so was discarded, but the meat was moist and tender.

[Kim Shook]

percyn – all that lobster! Wow!

deensiebat – I really want a piece of that pizza. I haven’t gotten any scapes this year – those are gorgeous.

For some crazy reason, summer is fried chicken time. Hot or cold, we in the South seem to crave it when the temperature goes up. So you find some poor perishing cook sweating over a hot skillet, frying up chicken pieces. Makes no sense, but we do it. Jessica has been asking for fried chicken lately, so I thought that it would make a good Sunday dinner. I make a lot of different versions of fried chicken, but my go-to recipe is from “Endangered Recipes” by Lari Robling. It’s called Shelly’s Fried Chicken and calls for Sazon and lemonade Kool-Aid among other things. It’s a crazy sounding combination, but it’s the best fried chicken I’ve ever made. I usually brine it with either a salt and brown sugar or iced tea brine, but I had a lot of buttermilk, so I soaked it in the buttermilk overnight instead. I rubbed the spice mixture on the drained chicken, then dredged in flour and refrigerated it for one hour before frying. It turned out beautifully:

There was also gravy:

salad:

sliced tomatoes:

mashed potatoes:

biscuits:

(they were frozen )

Plated:

Dinner tonight was from maggiethecat’s blog “Cheap and Cheerful”:

Originally from epicurious.com, this is a wonderful blend that is much greater than the sum of it’s parts. It is simply shrimp, scallions and corn cut off the cob sautéed in butter and topped with fresh basil. That’s it – 5 ingredients. It couldn’t be more fresh tasting – summer on a plate. Served with garlic bread and tomatoes.

[Aloha Steve]

It's summer but I seem to be cooking heavy food.

Made Lamb Shanks Osso Buco style. It was a simple recipe, long cooking time, besides a little over a hour of prep and cooking with me at the stove. It tasted nice for my first ever effort at making any kind of Osso Buco shanks.

Edited July 1, 2010 by Aloha Steve (log)

[kayb]

Edited July 2, 2010 by kayb (log)

[SobaAddict70]

really nice roast chicken. I don't think there's ever a season where that goes out of style.

Spaghetti with fennel, anchovy and raisin, topped with fried breadcrumbs, parsley and mint

Recipe from here: http://siciliancookingplus.com/pasta/35_Pasta_with%20_anchovysauce_fennels.html

[djyee100]

I eat roast chicken all year. In summer the leftovers are great, cold out of the fridge.

Tonight, a go-to dinner for a busy weekday night, Thai Basil Chicken, a stirfry of chicken chunks, garlic, shallots, chile pepper, and (of course) fresh basil.

In the wok, ready to be served over steamed rice.

To make Thai Basil Chicken: Heat 3 TB peanut oil over high heat in a wok until it begins to smoke. Toss in 3-4 cloves of chopped garlic, let brown slightly, then add 3 shallots, thinly sliced. Toss and cook until the shallots soften and turn translucent. Add in 1 lb of boneless skinless chicken thighs, cut into bite-size pieces. Let the chicken brown and cook. When the chicken is no longer pink, toss in 1-2 serrano chiles, thinly slivered with seeds. Sprinkle on 2-3 tsp black (semi-sweet) soy sauce, 2 TB fish sauce, and 1/2 TB sugar. Combine and cook until the chicken is done. Add in 1 cup of fresh basil leaves (preferably Thai basil), and toss until the basil wilts. Taste and adjust for seasoning. Serve immediately over hot steamed rice.

I've substituted ground chicken thigh meat, as well as tender pork shoulder strips, for the chicken chunks. Both versions taste good. Once I ran out of black soy sauce, so I substituted kecap manis, omitting the sugar, and that was fine too. My Basil Chicken is a streamlined, milder version of Kasma Loha-unchit's recipe. Her recipe is available on her website, here:

http://www.thaifoodandtravel.com/recipes/baschi.html

[Rico]

For some crazy reason, summer is fried chicken time. Hot or cold, we in the South seem to crave it when the temperature goes up.

Kim, if God ate fried chicken, that looks like the type of fried chicken He'd like. And heat or no, fried chicken is the perfect summer meal, because it's so easy to eat outdoors. In fact, with my messy eating habits, I find I'd rather be eating it outdoors than indoors (when it comes to fried chicken, I tend to inhale rather than to chew).

[robirdstx]

really nice roast chicken. I don't think there's ever a season where that goes out of style.

Thank you. I need to make it more often. The carcass made some really nice stock.

Tonight we used some of the leftover chicken in quesadillas with jalapenos and asadero cheese; guacamole, pico de gallo and sour cream as accompaniments. Sorry, no photos - in too much of a hurry! Good stuff!

[Kim Shook]

Rico – thank you so much!

Tried a new method of poaching eggs tonight. Mr. Kim wanted another one of those salads w/ a poached egg on top and I’d heard about this method on another thread here. Basically you put the eggs in individual plastic wrap bags and drop them into boiling water. The directions say to boil them for 2 1/2 minutes. Yeah. I’m thinking that some other people eat eggs at a point that I would consider revolting. I took them a little too far, but I think that they would be perfect at somewhere around 5 minutes. I snipped the bags at 2 1/2 minutes and there was lots of raw white. At one more minute, there was still raw white. One more – still needed a little bit of time. But another minute was slightly too much. They were beautiful, though. And I like the fact that you can get them in their little bags ahead of time and set them in the fridge until ready to cook. I think that once I have the timing down, this will be my poached egg method.

Egg baggies:

Cooking:

Pretty eggs:

Salad:

[Blether]

I like that, Kim, Thanks for writing it up (and the oeufs mollets are pretty spectacular !).

[SobaAddict70]

Hum, never seen that trick before.

5 minutes sounds just about right, although the freshness of the egg can be a factor too. Looks good Kim.

[percyn]

Dinner last night consisted of:

Cream of crab w/Pretzel Roll

Crabcake Salad

Open-faced Crabcake on Croissant

Open-faced Shrimp Salad on Croissant

[Kim Shook]

percyn - that entire meal looks awesome! Did you make it or was it a restaurant meal? 'Cause if you made it, I want your crabcake recipe!!!

[Aloha Steve]

percyn - 'Cause if you made it, I want your crabcake recipe!!!

Yes, please..........

[robirdstx]

Meatball Sandwiches - Homemade buns brushed with ghee and toasted, meatballs in marinara, and topped with asadero cheese (didn't have any provolone). I popped them into a 350F oven for just a few minutes to melt the cheese. DH gave them a solid thumbs up!

[SobaAddict70]

Pan-roasted black sea bass, with buttermilk corn chowder

The next time I do this, there'll be a blender involved. Had a last minute panic attack when the chowder didn't thicken up as much as I'd have liked.

[robirdstx]

Pan-roasted black sea bass, with buttermilk corn chowder

SobaAddict70 - Just lovely.

Tonight we are having Pork Baby Back Ribs with Potato Salad and Drunken Beans.

Raw rack with rub.

Out of the oven and ready to be sliced and sauced.

After cutting, the ribs were slathered with bbq sauce and kept in a warm oven for a couple of hours.

Potato Salad with hard cooked eggs, onion and dill weed.

Drunken Beans

[dcarch]

Happy July 4th everyone!

Just a couple of friends for dinner before going to see fireworks.

Lobsters in ginger, scallion, wasabi, and pesto sauce.

Beef tenderloin with baby portabella mushrooms and snow peas

dcarch

Small salad of watermelon rind, honeydew melon rind and hosta blossoms.

[Blether]

... in ginger, scallion, wasabi, and pesto sauce.

Can you elaborate a little more on this, please ? Is that scallion as a garnish, and a basil/pine nut pesto with wasabi & ginger mixed in ? Or something else ? How many times have you tried the combo, and how did the flavour work out ?

I love the smiley mushrooms !