Dinner! 2011

[OliverB]

oh, this looks wonderful! Did you cook the roe just in it's natural "container"? No seasoning? I haven't come across it so far, would love to know what to do. The dish looks really wonderful, I wish there was something like taste-a-vision so I could lick my screen

[nikkib]

Cochinita pibil with the typical purple onion and habanero quick pickle.

So happy the sun is out again.

Dios Mios!!! may i ask for the recipe..... that just looks amazing! Never tried cooking cochinita pibil before but i sure do enjoy eating it!!!!

[Dejah]

April 15 and yet MORE snow on the prairies. Not quite as much as Calgary, but really, we've had enough!

A good day for Steak and Kidney Pie!

The filling was browned then simmered for 2 hours on top of the stove: steak, beef kidneys, a few mushrooms, onion, thyme, bay leave, peppercorns, beef stock, worchestershire sauce.

So easy with store-bought puff pastry:

Tender chunks of beef and kidneys, oozy gravy, crispy puff pastry, baby carrots, peas and some healthy stuff that DH is not too keen on.

[Dakki]

Cochinita pibil with the typical purple onion and habanero quick pickle.

So happy the sun is out again.

Dios Mios!!! may i ask for the recipe..... that just looks amazing! Never tried cooking cochinita pibil before but i sure do enjoy eating it!!!!

Thanks, nikkib.

It was based on a recipe I found in my great-aunt's notebooks, substituting the ingredients I couldn't easily get and using a crock-pot instead of wrapping in banana leaves and baking. Give me a minute and I'll post it in the recipe forum.

This was my first time making pibil "from scratch" so to speak and it's ridiculously easy, despite my previous impression of being a complex and involved procedure. Came out pretty good for a first attempt, too.

[ChrisTaylor]

Last night's pork belly

[Kim Shook]

Corinna – thanks for the advice re: cheese to use with the lobster mac and cheese. I’ve printed out your notes and added them to the recipe in my ‘to try’ file.

Dakki – I had to Google Cochinita pibil and it sounds and looks delicious! What combination of citrus do you use? Make sure to let us know when you’ve posted the recipe – I’d really like to make it.

rarerollingobject – Your salad sounds delicious, but those lentil eyes do look a bit sinister .

Soba – I really love the idea of broccoli pesto!

Prawn – your Dover sole looks so amazingly good. I pray that I can find a restaurant that will do it justice when we come to England next month!

Dejah – the steak and kidney pie looks fantastic – great browning on the pastry, too! My stepdad used to make it when I was a kid and I wouldn’t even try it – because of the kidneys, of course. Sigh. I would try it in a second now and he never makes it anymore!

Dinner last night was shrimp tacos (I’ve been craving them for weeks):

Made with Salt & Pepper Fried Shrimp, homemade Pico de Gallo and the same wonderful sauce that robirdstx had on her catfish tacos recently - mayo, drained yogurt, lime juice and pickled jalapeno brine. Delicious! The shrimp were darker than they look in the picture and very crisp.

Served with black beans and corn:

With salsa, cumin and Ancho chile powder.

[Dejah]

All the seafood look delicious!

And Chris! That pork belly crust...Was the bite as crispy as it looked in the picture.

Kim: You must look for and try some steak 'n' kidney pie while you're in England. Wherever you're going to, make sure you have some recommends for both the sole and the pie.

Used to be able to buy steak 'n'kidney pie in a tin, about the size of a 6" pie. You'd open the top and bake it in the oven. The puff pastry cooked up beautifully. Then the prices went way up and eventually went off the market around here. So, I had to learn to make it myself, for my hubby and his Dad. They were the only ones in his family who ate it until I came along. Good thing Chinese eat everything.

Wish I were going with you! Wouldn't it be incredible to meet up with and taste some of Prawn's cooking!

[Dakki]

Dakki – I had to Google Cochinita pibil and it sounds and looks delicious! What combination of citrus do you use? Make sure to let us know when you’ve posted the recipe – I’d really like to make it.

Thank you, Kim. Recipe is here.

I think I'll be copying your shrimp tacos tonight.

[dcarch]

Ann_T, I have not seen rhubarb in our area yet. I will have to give Rhubarb Galette a try.

C. sapidus, the Jalapeno-baked haddock with simmered tomato-jalapeno sauce, lookes great.

Shelby, what are you doing!? So many great dishes, especially the Puff pastry stuffed with prosciutto, asparagus and baby Swiss.

Corinna, must be great to work for a winery.

robirdstx, Spaghetti and Meatballs may be simple, but the photo shows the Spaghetti is expertly done.

Kim, I don’t make Beef Stroganoff often, Please invite me the next time. You might as well invite me for the shrimp tacos too. :-).

Pam Brunning, wonderful plating.

Dakki, your Cochinita pibil is like the sun shining.

rarerollingobject, without a doubt, you are the salad diva.

SobaAddict70, Yumyum Tagliatelle with broccoli "pesto".

Prawncrackers, thank you for the picture tutorial of the making of the dover sole.

Dejah, that is a magnificent Steak and Kidney Pie.

ChrisTaylor, I have done a few pork belly with crackling skin. I can tell yours is scrumptious.

--------------------------

I made sous vide ginger scallion chicken breasts, sprinkled with coconut and pecan powder, on stir fried daikon.

dcarch

[toolprincess]

Prawn – your Dover sole looks so amazingly good. I pray that I can find a restaurant that will do it justice when we come to England next month!

If you are in the Kensington area of London - look up Chez Patrick. A tiny little French place run by Patrick himself. I had a delicious dover sole there.

[robirdstx]

Made with Salt & Pepper Fried Shrimp, homemade Pico de Gallo and the same wonderful sauce that robirdstx had on her catfish tacos recently - mayo, drained yogurt, lime juice and pickled jalapeno brine. Delicious!

Kim - I am so glad you liked it! Your tacos look yummy!

robirdstx, Spaghetti and Meatballs may be simple, but the photo shows the Spaghetti is expertly done.

dcarch Thank you. I was really pleased with how well the pasta looked in that photo. I used Barilla brand spaghetti and just followed the directions on the box.

Edited April 17, 2011 by robirdstx (log)

[rarerollingobject]

Great looking meals, everyone - not a single thing that doesn't look delicious. Especially Prawncrackers's dover sole..and that roe! Swoon. Also the respective tacos of Dakki and Kim Shook, and SobaAddict70's long-cooked broccoli, and dcarch - incredible as usual..I could go on.

Something much simpler for me last night..say hello to my little friends: pork and prawn siu mai. Not too neatly made, perhaps, but a tasty combination of chopped pork shoulder, pork fat, juicy prawns and shiitake mushrooms never fails to hit the spot.

[gfweb]

Chicken breast done SV with dijon/onion sauce, potatoes au gratin, sauteed romaine. Comfort food for a miserable rainy day. The romaine is sauteed in butter until browned just short of black. Its sweet and nutty and so different from raw.

Edited April 17, 2011 by gfweb (log)

[Kim Shook]

Dejah – I’m getting lots of good recommendations for England over on those boards. We’re going to Devon, too and I’m hoping to find a really good cream tea place. I remember those canned pies – I think that my grandmother used to bring them over from England for my dad.

Dakki – thanks for posting that recipe. It sounds wonderful and I love that I can do it in a slow cooker!

Dcarch – you are welcome anytime – only – would you do the plating? I’d swoon to have my food look as lovely as yours does! And that chicken dish sounds amazing.

toolprincess – thanks for the Dover sole recommendation – I’ve added it to my list!

RRO – luscious looking siu mai! Those are some of my favorite things. I’ve never made them, though. Could you provide general proportions? Pretty please?

Dinner tonight was more tacos:

Shrimp like last night and:

Chicken from a rotisserie chicken we got at Costco. The bones and scraps are in the slow cooker making stock (I remembered this time!).

Mr. Kim also had kale:

[Country]

Kim, Those tacos (and Mr. Kim's kale) look delicious. Do you make your tortillas?

[mgaretz]

Baby back ribs with coleslaw. (The ribs are not as dark as the picture would have you believe.)

[rarerollingobject]

RRO – luscious looking siu mai! Those are some of my favorite things. I’ve never made them, though. Could you provide general proportions? Pretty please?

Chopped about half a pound of pork shoulder, a quarter pound of raw prawns, and a couple handfuls of pork fat. Stirred into that: 1T each of cornflour, soy sauce, Chinese cooking wine, sugar, and oyster sauce. A dash each of white pepper and sesame oil, a couple of minced reconstitued shiitake, beaten well and left in the fridge for an hour to firm up. You could use ground pork, but I find it too crumbly.

Anyway, out of those proportions, you can get 60 siu mai with judicious filling. Suggest to your partner that helping you wrap them would be nice 'together' time, do 4 or 5 for appearances' sake, and then casually exit stage left to repair to the couch with a nice gin and tonic while he finishes the monotonous filling, remembering to loudly remind him every so often that you "chopped all that meat! By hand!" Steam for 12 mins or so and there you are.

Dinner here was crispy-skin blue eye cod, with roast tomato and harissa salsa. And another Rozanne Gold ide: salad of oranges, radishes, rocket and pistachios, with a cinnamon, pomegranate molasses and honey dressing.

[Paul Bacino]

So went to the woods to forage a bit of stinging nettles, darn near got stuck after 2" of rain. Using surgical gloves a picked a qt bag of nettles..

took home blanched and made ricotta nettles gnocchi with walnut pesto!!

I dint think it was to bad, I had only romano cheese, which I added a bit to the gnocchi and the pesto, which may over powered things abit.

Pesto:

Walnuts, grape oil, pine nuts ( a few ), lemon juice, romano, we bit of honey

Gnocchi:

Ricotta, nettles, romano, nutmeg, slight pinch of sugar, S and P

Ideas?

[eldereno]

rarerollingobject, You can see right through those radishes!!!!!! WOW!

[SobaAddict70]

Thanks folks. Lots of good-looking photos here.

Now that ramps season is finally upon us, I've been going into overdrive, lol.

"Clams, potatoes and ramps"

[Kim Shook]

Country – nope, not homemade – just store bought flour tortillas.

RRO – thank you for the directions and for the giggle! Gorgeous salad, by the way!

[kayb]

Wow, everyone -- what a week's worth of meals! Shelby, that cheese oozing out of the puff pastry almost did me in. Were you/are you here for the Derby? If you're still around, PM me and we'll meet and grab lunch or coffee or a beer! A few other standouts that caught my eye were Corinna's lobster mac and cheese and Prawncrackers' Dover sole.

Friends in town for Derby weekend, so Friday night I grilled shrimp, with arepas, black beans and corn, a pineapple-mango salsa, guacamole, and some stuffed dates wrapped in bacon:

Last night, got home from the races (I had the Derby winner, a 25-1 shot, so I came home in a good mood!), and grilled some ribeyes, served with some premade English pea salad and capreses with greenhouse-grown winter tomatos from the local farmers' market. Served it with a slab of freshly baked multigrain bread, proofed in the fridge while we were at the ponies.

Dessert was pound cake with strawberries macerated in sugar and balsamic vinegar, with sweetened creme fraiche.

Don't think I'm going to cook today!

[percyn]

Nice meals all.

Prawn, that Dover sole looks amazing.

Earlier this week, it was cold, so I made Cottage Pie

The week before, it was warm, so I made some burgers.

[ChrisTaylor]

That is one sexy burger. One of those, a few homemade potato wedges (ideally cooked in duck fat) and a quality ale and I'd be the happiest kid this side of the equator.

[Ann_T]

OOOOH Percyn I love the look of your cottage pie. I could lose myself in the mashed potatoes and cheddar.

One of our meals this week was Chicken Breast with garlic and parsley.