Dinner! 2011

[Dakki]

I guess it's pork on rice day!

Stir-fried pork, broccoli, watermelon rind and celery, with ginger, garlic and onion. Sauce is chicken stock, soy sauce, Worcester sauce with a bit of cider vinegar, brown sugar and a bit of habanero sauce because everything is improved with a bit of habanero.

With no proper wok and not nearly enough BTU's, I hesitate to call this a complete success but, hey.

Photo is uploaded directly from camera, no post at all. I think I'm getting better with this camera stuff.

[SobaAddict70]

David's stuff is amazing, especially the fish.

One great thing and one not-so-great thing tonight ...

Seared scallops, sucrine lettuce and poached farm egg

Sucrine is an heirloom lettuce that's a variety of romaine.

I bought a chicken mushroom from USGM this past weekend.

Here's a pic to give you an idea of just how HUGE this thing is.

Not the greatest specimen because it wasn't young.

I braised it with onions, carrots, celery, bay leaves, white wine and chicken stock. Probably didn't braise it long enough though ...

Braised chicken mushrooms with aromatic vegetables, over broiled black sea bass

Now I can say that I ate a chicken mushroom and I'll never have to do it again for the rest of my life.

Edited June 20, 2011 by SobaAddict70 (log)

[Borgstrom]

We had a Modernist Cuisine BBQ on Sunday. Menu included:

Cola-brined pork shoulder (3-172), cooked on BGE with lump+applewood about 14H until 190F internal

North Carolina (Eastern Style) BBQ sauce (5-70)

North Carolina (Lexington Style) BBQ sauce (5-71)

South Carolina BBQ Sauce (5-70)

Baked Beans (5-77)

White coleslaw (5-72)

Cornbread (5-76)

For appetizers (Not from MC & eaten before camera came out)

- babaganoush with applewood-smoked eggplant

- ABTs (look it up) with Jalapeno, cream cheese, Dizzy Pig rub, bacon -- smoked on BGE

- baby back ribs with Dizzy Pig rub

I can't move...

[Mr Holloway]

For appetizers (Not from MC & eaten before camera came out)

- babaganoush with applewood-smoked eggplant

- ABTs (look it up) with Jalapeno, cream cheese, Dizzy Pig rub, bacon -- smoked on BGE

- baby back ribs with Dizzy Pig rub

I can't move...

Great looking meal

Can't get enough of the ABT's, my new addiction

Shane

[Mr Holloway]

Great looking meals and pics guys

In keeping with the ABT theme

This is a pie I threw together last week from leftovers

ABT's and a stuffed portabella mushroom.

I tried it again yesterday to see if it was a fluke

A couple of pics

ABT's and shroom sliced

The pie

The crust is getting close to what I am looking for

Another reason to make more ABT's

Shane

[rotuts]

ABT's who knew?

now I do:

http://www.thesmokering.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6253

looking forward to making these! thanks for the heads up!

[robirdstx]

So many great looking meals everyone!

I've been on the road for the last week and have really missed cooking at home. A friend gifted me with several pounds of homegrown tomatoes today and I used some of them to make a fresh tomato sauce to go with our pasta tonight.

Linguine with Hot Italian Sausage, Roasted Red Peppers, Fresh Tomato Sauce, grated Pecorino Romano and fresh Boxwood Basil (from my garden)

[SobaAddict70]

Spaghetti with scallops, Jersey tomatoes and herbs

[Shelby]

Pork chili verde over fried flour tortilla

Venison Reuben...with an egg

Got some wonderful live crawfish from the Asian market....Newman (the cat) was extremely interested in them.

[Mr Holloway]

Venison Reuben...with an egg

Love Reubens and venison, will have to try it with the egg

Great pics

Shane

[Kim Shook]

Starting WAY back since I’ve been lazy lately!

Genkinaonna – those cola and jam ribs look spectacular! I’ve copied your notes and will give them a try!

Dakki – never, EVER apologize for such gorgeous fried chicken!

Prawn – that was some lovely BBQing! Love the lacquered look of the ribs!

Soba – your roasted poussin on the 12th is lovely. You can SEE how tender and juicy it was.

dcarch – thank you – I ‘cook ahead’ a LOT! I like to entertain on weeknights, because I’m selfish – I want weekends all to myself! Your xiao look so wonderful. If I ever want to taste those, I’m going to have to make my own – we don’t have anyplace here to get them.

Shelby – is there any sandwich NOT improved by an egg? And Newman is gorgeous !

The other night was night was the frugalist dinner EVER:

Noodles cooked in chicken stock (from the cabinet), leftover baked beans, rolls from our dinner the other night at a Greek restaurant and the ultimate save – wings. I bought the wings to make a sauce. They were browned then simmered in homemade chicken stock, lime juice, orange juice, the zest from both, onions, garlic and thyme. When I pulled them out before reducing the sauce, I just couldn’t bear to throw them away. They weren’t falling apart, but the skin was flabby. So I brushed them with honey and incinerated them under the broiler. They were delicious – crisp and tender and deeply flavored with the sauce.

We also had salad:

But, with us, that’s a given .

We had family in from Florida on Friday night – there were some food issues, so I made a turkey breast:

That seemed a little bland, so I made a really good citrus sauce from Food & Wine:

We also had salad:

Baby greens, spinach, red grapes, strawberries, candied cashews and my dad’s Sweet & Sour Paprika dressing. It was fantastic!

Broccoli salad:

Cheese noodles:

And cupcakes:

[Kim Shook]

Dinner tonight started with a spinach salad with my dad’s Paprika dressing:

along with some fruit salad.

I also tried a new recipe – Suzi’s salmon cakes. They were fantastic. I’d never made them from fresh salmon before – only canned. I’ll never go back – we both loved them. Thank you so much for sending me the recipe, Suzi!! We also finished up the weekend’s cheese noodles and had some marinated cucumbers:

[Twyst]

Sweet potato and andouille hash with a farm fresh egg. pales in comparison to most of the dishes here, but it was still pretty good!

[robirdstx]

Magret Duck Breast, Morel Mushroom and Water Chestnut Risotto, topped with Duck Cracklins

[Kim Shook]

We had our niece and her husband over tonight for dinner. We had the perfect summer meal (well, except for tomatoes) – BBQ Shrimp:

This recipe always comes through for me – easy, delicious, with lots of good sauce to sop up!

Quinoa salad:

This was the first time I’ve made this and it was wonderful. I love that you make it ahead of time (a really great side for a work night meal) and really liked the texture – I sometimes have a problem with couscous clumping, but the quinoa grains stayed separate and fluffy.

Salad and corn:

And strawberry shortcake:

The biscuit recipe for the shortcake was a new one for me, too. The flavor was fantastic – sweet, with just a hint of lemon. But, as usual, they suffered from heavy biscuit syndrome. I just don’t have a light hand with biscuit dough. Probably because I don’t make them often enough. The recipe is a keeper, though.

[Twyst]

Scallops and polenta with gremolata

[Genkinaonna]

As usual, everything looks amazing...

Kim-that spinach, red grape, strawberry and cashew salad looks sooo yummy! Just the thing for spring when we're swimming in good strawberries...and don't despair about your biscuits, I'm sure they were still delicious, and whipped cream covers a multitude of sins! And I must know more about those cheesy noodles, is that ricotta? Cottage cheese? Some heretofore undiscovered variety of cheesy goodness? Enquiring minds (namely mine) want to know!

Twyst-that hash looks pretty damn tasty. Love the goo-zy egg (aka the money shot) pulling it all together! And those scallops look about 20x better than mine ever do...

Robirdstx-I never would have thought to combine those flavors, but I bet it was delicious, how could it not be, covered in duck cracklings...

I would post a picture of dinner, but alas, I had leftovers. But the meal that they were left over from was delicious, although you'll have to use your imagination as my phone was dead and therefore I was camera-less.

I took about a pound of shelled and deveined shrimp, and a carton of those leetle grape tomatoes (my tomato plants don't even have FLOWERS yet, it's been a really cool and wet spring) and put them on a sheet pan, the tomatoes cut in half, sprinkled the whole thing with chopped fresh thyme and oregano from the garden, threw on some salt, about 10 cloves of garlic still in their skins and 5 or so smashed up, and covered the whole shebang with about 2/3 cup olive oil. I preheated my grill to about 350 and put the sheet pan on the grate and shut the lid. They stayed on the grill on heat for about 13 minutes, during which I rotated them twice and flipped the shrimp once. Then I turned off the grill, opened the lid to let the heat dissipate for a minute, and then shut it again to keep everything warm. I also moved the pan over to the cool side of the grill, where I hadn't had the burners lit.

While the shrimp and friends were grilling, I also cooked up a couple of lbs of fresh rigatoni pasta, then drained it and put it back in the pot to stay warm. Once everything was cooked, I mixed the shrimp, crushed garlic, and tomatoes in with the pasta. I squeezed the soft whole garlic cloves out into the olive oil on the sheet pan, and mashed them in to make kind of a sauce, then mixed that in with the noodles. At the very end, I folded in some crumbled french feta cheese and some baby spinach, which wilted from the heat of the pasta.

The whole thing, start to finish took about 25 minutes. Eat that, Rachel Ray! And it was amazingly good for the simplicity of the ingredients and prep. Definitely going into my regular rotation. Maybe next time I'll even take a picture!

[SobaAddict70]

Kim -- between you and Nathalie Dupree (who's a friend on FB btw), I'm going to have to get over my fear of baking and make some berry shortcakes. That looks great.

Tonight:

Broiled organic free-range chicken breasts with scallion-ginger sauce; steamed jasmine rice (rice was cooked in Chinese chicken stock); stir-fried baby bok choy.

Looks like a production, doesn't it? This was done in 15 minutes.

[rarerollingobject]

Looks great, Soba. Chicken looks nice and moist.

Kim Shook, incredible dishes! Love that strawberry shortcake.

Twyst, those scallops look so juicy. I have a huge weakness for polenta, I'd be in heaven.

robirdstx, your duck cracklins are beautiful. That looks SO good, especially for how cold and wintry it is in Sydney at the moment.

Dinner here would hardly be impressive to anyone here, but it was kinda a big deal to me..under Dakki's expert tutelage, I made my first quesadillas!! Mexican ingredients are NOT easy to source here (why, I don't know..every other cuisine is damn well represented) but I managed to find white corn tortillas, made a roasted tomato, red onion, garlic and chipotle en adobo salsa, filled with gouda and spinach and doused in habanero sauce.

They ain't going to win any competitions, but I was rather pleased with them. I might have eaten six!

[CFT]

Those quesadillas look mighty fine!

[Kim Shook]

Genkinaonna - thank you, ma'am! The biscuits were good - I just need to be more gentle with them! The noodles have sour cream, cottage cheese and Parmesan. Combined with the egg noodles they are a silky, cheesy, slippy good dish! The recipe is here. Your shrimp sounded fantastic. I am not a fan of tomato sauce on shrimp, but LOVE it with tomatoes (odd, I know).

Soba - I LOVE Nathalie Dupree! I remember watching her on TV pre-Food Network. She's wonderful. And with the quality of fruits that you are able to get you really should make some biscuits. Seeing your beautiful gnocchi, it's obvious that you don't have my heavy hands - I'm sure you'd make beautiful biscuits. And, again, I have to comment on your gorgeous chicken - beautiful texture and perfect doneness!

RRO - thank you! The crust on those quesadillas is just perfect - wish mine looked like that (and I make them fairly often - no excuses).

Edited June 23, 2011 by Kim Shook (log)

[robirdstx]

Robirdstx-I never would have thought to combine those flavors, but I bet it was delicious, how could it not be, covered in duck cracklings...

Genkinaonna - It was delicious! The first time I made this, I did it with porcinis and just happened to have leftover duck and water chestnuts (they add a nice crunch). I also used some chopped green onions in the garnish, but didn't have any on hand yesterday. This was my first time using morels and I am in love!

[robirdstx]

robirdstx, your duck cracklins are beautiful. That looks SO good, especially for how cold and wintry it is in Sydney at the moment.

RRO - Thank you. We finally got some much needed rain and cooler temps yesterday and the risotto was perfect.

[dcarch]

David Ross – Nice plate, and nice plating for your Steamed Copper River Salmon.

rarerollingobject – Disagree! The quesadillas will win first price. I will take a dozen please. The pork shoulder is gorgeous!

SobaAddict70 – Impressive free range chicken breast in 15 minutes. The scallops look perfectly done with the spaghetti, and again perfectly done with the lettuce.

Kim – What’s going on here! Wow! Very beautiful pictures for all those delicious dishes, especially the BBQ shrimps. Those sweet corns are bursting with freshness. The spinach salad can be on a magazine cover.

robirdstx - Duck Breast, Morel Mushroom and Water Chestnut Risotto, topped with Duck Cracklins, that is so satisfying and so luxurious. Linguine with Hot Italian Sausage looks marvelous.

Shelby – Love that picture of your cat so intensely studying the crawfish.

Mr Holloway - Perfect pizza!

Dakki – A very nice combination, your Stir-fried pork, broccoli, watermelon rind and celery.

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

For Father’s Day, I made BBQ spare ribs and Jell-O.

dcarch

[Dakki]

So much delicious food here!

RRO, I'd say you've mastered the gentle art of quesadillas, not to mention photography.

dcarch, thank you. This was my first time using watermelon rind for anything and it was inspired by one of your posts. I'll use it again when I can figure out what to do with all that nasty red stuff that comes with it.

(BTW, your pics aren't loading for me, which is sad because I always look forward to them).