Dinner! 2010

[Kim Shook]

Soba – that tomato and cantaloupe salad is just stunning and sounds perfect for summer.

dcarch – those tomatoes are killing me!!! Just gorgeous.

Ruhlman’s Ratio Zucchini Fritters:

With goat cheese. These were great – even I liked them (NOT a zucchini fan).

Tomatoes and marinated cucumbers:

We also had scrambled eggs for a little protein and croissants.

[djyee100]

It was that time again to empty out the fridge and freezer of odds & ends, not to mention wilting, soon-to-expire vegetables, and to make soup. Some well-aged scallions and leeks, celery, string beans, tomatoes, and zucchini out of the fridge; a single chorizo sausage from the freezer; and a half-bag of Rancho Gordo scarlet runner beans, some dusty dried shittakes, garlic, and red potatoes from the cupboards. The result was a soupe au pistou (sort of) that began in southern France (garlic, string beans, tomatoes, zucchini) and meandered across the border to Spain (red beans, chorizo). Don't ask me to explain about the shittakes. I'll only say they tasted good.

I garnished the soup with a basil-sage pesto (goodbye to the leftover basil in the fridge), and served it with plenty of crusty bread.

Presenting...Soupe au Pistou (Sort Of)

[SobaAddict70]

Ricotta gnocchi (from scratch) with Sungold cherry tomatoes and shiitake mushrooms.

I probably used enough butter to choke a horse.

Cantaloupe for dessert.

[keri]

Man, the stuff that people make for dinner everyday looks absolutely amazing. Having recently graduated from dorm rooms and cafeterias, I thought the boyfriend and I were eating well, but looks like we have a long way to go in our meals. Since it's just the two of us, we usually keep weekday dinners very simple, although we try longer recipes on weekends. And neither of us are very experienced cooks.

I wish I had photos, but I'll try to get some tonight.

Yesterday we had an absolutely horrible rice noodle dish..not sure what went wrong, but I think the recipe itself was just bland and boring, but boyfriend picked it out and we both get to try a couple of new recipes of our own choosing each week. It was basically rice noodles with soy sauce and chili sauce. Even doubling the garlic and sauces didn't add much flavor to the bland, overcooked noodles. Bleh, won't be trying that again.

To go with it, I tried copying a chinese-style cauliflower dish my mom makes and that I loved as a child. It's basically stir-fried/steamed cauliflower with a chinese black vinegar sauce, thickened with cornstarch. I thought that was quite tasty because I love cauliflower but I'm not sure of the reception on boyfriend's end, never having been a fan of the veggie, or vegetables in general. He's a bread, meat and cheese type of guy, but he's slowly coming around! (actually more quickly than I expected, he's very open to trying new foods)

We finished it off with a mint chocolate chip ice cream sandwich for me (very un-all-natural storebrand, I'm sure) and a huge soup bowl of chocolate, chocolate chip and chocolate drizzle ice cream for him.

A dinner in the life of two 20-somethings in their first apartment and 2nd month at homecooking. I hope it provides at least a bit of amusement and some good-natured pity!

[NCSU Foodie]

Well, this was last nights dinner but I finally got the picture off my girlfriend's camera to post up. Just a simple weeknight dish for my girlfriend and I.

Pork Milanese; Zucchini and Onion in a White Wine and Lemon butter sauce; Spaghetti Alfredo

It tasted great, there was supposed to be a basil pesto as well, but I didn't have any pine nuts or walnuts Oh well.

[djyee100]

Alums of the Cradle of Flavor thread might recognize this one, Stir-Fried Chinese Egg Noodles with Shrimp and Asian Greens (Mee Goreng Tauceo), a stirfry of shrimp, greens, bean sprouts, and noodles in a savory-sweet sauce of soybean paste and black soy sauce. One of my faves for a wknight meal. I always double the amt of shrimp in the recipe. The recipe is here:

http://www.cookstr.com/recipes/stir-fried-chinese-egg-noodles-with-shrimp-and-asian-greens

[dcarch]

It's really too hot to cook. So I made sashimi.

dcarch

[NCSU Foodie]

Once again, stunning presentation Dcarch. Your plating makes me jealous everytime you post, it just looks so delicious

[percyn]

dcarch, please allow me to add my admiration for that beautiful plate of Sashimi. What are the white petal like things on the rice - is it ginger?

Given the heat wave in the Northeast US, made a chilled fresh summer corn soup, garnished with shrimp.

Lettuce wrap w/Ground Chicken and Kimchi.

[Bella S.F.]

menuinprogress, et al

What is the "tesa"part of pancetta tesa? Thanks!

[kayb]

Steak, grilled squash, garlic mashed potatos, tomatos.

With fresh peach sauce (amaretto and brown sugar,simmered until the peaches were soft) over ice cream for dessert.

[jmolinari]

menuinprogress, et al

What is the "tesa"part of pancetta tesa? Thanks!

"tesa" means stretched, or taught, indicating it's flattened, nor rolled.

[mgaretz]

Tonight we had homemade crab cakes, homemade cole slaw and roasted beets. The beets were from the CSA box (which we just signed up for and are liking it a lot!). I roasted them for 1 hour then carmelized them in butter with cream sherry. Yum.

[deadstroke]

A duo of tempuras over the weekend.

Foie Gras and Daikon

I tried a very similar combination in Japan last winter using Anglerfish (Monkfish) liver and got hooked on it. Anko is rather had to get hold of here but using foie cuts it well.

Eggplant

I used beer in the tempura batter and that was a WOW moment. I actually had tempura peppers and onions but they were gobbled up before I could get a shot.

[menuinprogress]

menuinprogress, et al

What is the "tesa"part of pancetta tesa? Thanks!

"tesa" means stretched, or taught, indicating it's flattened, nor rolled.

Yep. We normally make the rolled version ("pancetta arrotolata"), but wanted to see how it would do flat. We also normally cure in our meat-curing fridge, but dried the tesa in our regular fridge to see how it would do. Pretty darn good, it turns out. It isn't as pretty as a nicely rolled batch, but it tasted great, was very simple to do and required no special equipment.

[robirdstx]

Grilled Chicken Thighs (scroll down to post #35) on the Grilled Chicken Cook-Off thread. Edited July 27, 2010 by robirdstx (log)

[menuinprogress]

Tonight's dinner was using things that needed to be used.

Leftover smoked chicken. A hash of sorts with corn, zucchini, pancetta, onion and Anaheim chile. And in the background some leftover Balthazar crushed potatoes.

[rooftop1000]

menuinprogress, et al

What is the "tesa"part of pancetta tesa? Thanks!

"tesa" means stretched, or taught, indicating it's flattened, nor rolled.

Yep. We normally make the rolled version ("pancetta arrotolata"), but wanted to see how it would do flat. We also normally cure in our meat-curing fridge, but dried the tesa in our regular fridge to see how it would do. Pretty darn good, it turns out. It isn't as pretty as a nicely rolled batch, but it tasted great, was very simple to do and required no special equipment.

I am so happy to have a name other than...Well it's just like Pancetta but I didn't do it exactly the right way.

I didn't have the nerve to roll mine and dried it flat in the fridge

tracey

[keri]

After our laziest weekend food-wise so far (frozen pizza, chinese takeout, sandwiches), boyfriend and I finally cooked for real yesterday; we decided to try making pad thai, which he loves now. Neither of us have ever made thai food before, but we think it turned out pretty well and I actually have a pic that I'm proud to post here!

We're completely at a loss about how to cook rice noodles, though. It either turns into a congealed, sticky, cut-with-a-knife blob or stays a bit too crunchy despite cooking for many times longer than the package indicates. Can anyone shed some light on this?

[djyee100]

We're completely at a loss about how to cook rice noodles, though. It either turns into a congealed, sticky, cut-with-a-knife blob or stays a bit too crunchy despite cooking for many times longer than the package indicates. Can anyone shed some light on this?

A discussion about cooking rice noodles for Pad Thai came up on the Thai Cooking thread. Starts with post # 833 dated 29 Nov 2009.

I cook Kasma Loha-unchit's recipe for Pad Thai, which says to soak the noodles for 40 mins to 1 hr in cool or room temp water. The recipe is on her website.

[Prawncrackers]

Some classic French food from my kitchen in the past week - duck confit, a tart aux pommes and a figgy frangipane tart too:

My confit duck has been a little disappointing lately, not melting and falling off the bone enough for my liking. This was no exception, a little tough even though I've been following all the correct processes; curing overnight, confiting for 3hrs at 100c and maturing in the fat for at least 2 weeks. I have a feeling it could be the sudden ready availability of ducks in the past couple of years leading to a poorer quality product. It's noticeable in the breast meat too - very bland.

[SobaAddict70]

Penne with uncooked tomato sauce (heirloom tomatoes, salt, black pepper, scallions, Italian parsley; extra-virgin olive oil; 1 *scant* teaspoon pecorino -- but only because I like a little contrast ... this dish really doesn't need cheese imho)

Apricots for dessert

Edited July 29, 2010 by SobaAddict70 (log)

[Kim Shook]

Soba – your gnocchi is lovely!

keri – that cauliflower sounds great! Welcome to the dinner thread. It’s an inspiring place! Your pad thai looks wonderful. I also have issues with cooking the rice noodles – let us know how you progress on them.

djyee – I am SO making those noodles!!! Wow.

Am I the only one who can’t see dcarch’s pictures? All I see is a little square from photobucket that says “Bandwidth exceeded”.

Dinner the last couple of nights:

Tuna macaroni salad (thanks for the inspiration, Suzi!), fresh butterbeans, fried green tomatoes, amazing corn on the cob and onion rolls – we picked up the corn, butterbeans and tomatoes at a farm stand on the way back from NC Sunday. The corn was truly wonderful. It reminded me of the corn we used to get at stands when I was a kid.

Tonight we started with the cucumbers and some ripe tomatoes from the same stand:

We also had grilled chicken, butterbeans, corn and fried green tomatoes. The chicken was marinated with Wildtree Asian ginger plum dressing. Wildtree is a direct sales company (like Avon) that sells food items – ingredients, spices, sauces, mixes, etc. Someone at work sells it and this stuff is NOT cheap! I think the 12 oz. bottle (which I used almost all of) was $10 !!! It tasted really good, but I think that I can find something similar for a LOT less:

[dcarch]

Pictures should be back in a few days.

They said I used up my band width this month and they want money.

Sorry. You can't critizing my cooking yet!

Looking at all the wonderful meals by everyone here the past few days, I can't understand all these TV personalities who are on the air. They are nowhere as good as you guys.

dcarch

[keri]

djyee100: Thanks for pointing me to that! Looks like there's a lot of different methods there, I'm sure I'll find one that works for us. It seems like the methods vary a lot though. Some say to use boiling water, yours says cool or room temp, it's all very confusing for beginner cooks.

Prawncrackers: Despite your troubles, I have to say that the photo of the duck looks absolutely mouthwatering anyway!

SobaAddict70: Beautiful photo as always, looks like a very fresh and summery meal and a good way to use up those cherry tomatoes.

Kim: Thanks for the welcome! The cauliflower was ok, but when I tried it a second time, it went from not enough vinegar to too much all at once. Still trying to find the balance, the way my mom makes it, haha. And yes, this place is very inspiring. With just the two of us, boyfriend and I get lazy with meals quite often, so it's nice to have a reason to make something special (to our standards, at least!) Your fried tomatoes look amazing, I've never had them before, will have to look them up!