Dinner! 2013 (Part 3)

[Ann_T]

I'm craving asparagus. I'd be happy with everyone of those meals.

Last night's dinner.

Roast chicken. Vegetables, potatoes, onions, peppers and garlic cooked in the same pan.

[basquecook]

Last night, grabbed a slice of pizza and then proceeded to make beer. Will have this for dinner in three weeks.

[rotuts]

looking forward to what that beer is like!

[Franci]

Today's dinner was tagliatelle al ragu'

And a salad of spinach, little gems, roasted beets, toasted slivered almonds, dodoni's feta, chive and a balsamic vinaigrette with a drop of blis oak barrel aged maple syrup.

[rotuts]

Bulgur Salad. its almost 90 here! no local energy was used ...

Bulgur was #2, cold soaked in water. I make quite a bit of this at one time and save the rest in the refirg. for later use. I guess on the water. After a soak if there is extra that I don't care for I let it drip out of a strainer I leave on the counter for a while.

Spinach/green onion/cilantro. Tomatoes are those on sale from a greenhouse. OK not like the ones I grow. if these tomatoes come from those greenhouses in Maine, there is nothing 'green' about them. Dressing: low salt soy/rice vinegar/granulated garlic/ a few drops of RedBoat #40. this is the secret ingredient. this makes the dish. not enough to really know its there, but it is.

TraderJoes california reserve olive oil.

carrots go in this tomorrow, shredded.

[mm84321]

Lobster, asparagus and caviar

[mm84321]

Bar de ligne with chorizo, calamari and periwinkles

[liuzhou]

Last night, a simple prawn curry. It was served with rice and stir-fried green beans.

[basquecook]

Had friends over for dinner last night.. They arrived at 8 pm, we got home from work at 7:10 pm. Not much time to prepare dinner. Despite picking up 15 dollars in lobster and 8 dollars in oysters, the rest of the meal was from things in the house.

Started with fried oyster sandwiches. On martin potato rolls, that my mother in law, threw in my bag as I was leaving over Memorial Day. Same goes for the purple cabbage. Kewpie mayo and sriracha. We make our own pepper vinegar which went into the slaw.

A buratta salad with grilled peaches and nectarines. Lots of micro herb from our garden. Thai Basil, Basil, I forget what else. Also on the plate is homemade pickled pineapple, pickled carrots, DiPalos Buratta. Lioni Latticinni is my favorite but, this was really delicious.

Also some olive oil and saba drizzled over top.

Main course lobster and pasta. No photos. Wine sometimes gets in the way.

Edited May 31, 2013 by basquecook (log)

[rotuts]

Oh my, soo delicious!

[dcarch]

Rotuts – Wonderful idea of a Bulgur Salad for a 90 weather.

Franci – The most delicious tagliatelle al ragu I have ever seen.

Ann_t – Who can resist that roast chicken?

Weinoo – I have never seen such fat white asparagus in NYC.

FrogPrincesse – That the way I like my eggs and asparagus done. Nice looking Asparagus Milanese .

TinaYuan – “Sweet and sour pork spareribs for dinner”, I can have that for breakfast, lunch and dinner!.

Sapidus – I do a lot of ribs. I think I will have to try your recipe. Sounds so good.

Keith – As usual, you make the most interesting dishes. Nice plating too.

Kim – It’s never boring eating in your household. Very lovely slow cooker BBQ brisket.

Mm84321 – As expected, more master creations from you.

Liuzhou – When I make shrimps for myself, I don’t devein either. Nice photo.

Basquecook – Always beautiful presentations.

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

A few unimaginative dishes for Memorial Day Holiday.

dcarch

BBQ ribs

Smoked chicken

Souis vided salmon

[liuzhou]

Liuzhou – When I make shrimps for myself, I don’t devein either. Nice photo.

Er? They were deveined.

[basquecook]

Unimaginative doesn't sound like a correct description of your food. Can you discuss the salmon and gnocchi. Is that an eggplant sauce over smoked eggplants. Gnocchi are from yukons ?

[dcarch]

Liuzhou – When I make shrimps for myself, I don’t devein either. Nice photo.

Er? They were deveined.

You did a good job. Not obvious from the photo.

[dcarch]

Unimaginative doesn't sound like a correct description of your food. Can you discuss the salmon and gnocchi. Is that an eggplant sauce over smoked eggplants. Gnocchi are from yukons ?

Thanks. Interesting gnocchi that you ask about. Store bought. I bought it because I was curious. The package said good for one year, yet it was not refrigerated! Then I got a chance to read the label when I got home. Long list of chemicals. Tasted good actually. No I will not buy it again.

Those were pan fried squash covered by scallion ginger sauce.

dcarch

[basquecook]

Unimaginative doesn't sound like a correct description of your food. Can you discuss the salmon and gnocchi. Is that an eggplant sauce over smoked eggplants. Gnocchi are from yukons ?

Thanks. Interesting gnocchi that you ask about. Store bought. I bought it because I was curious. The package said good for one year, yet it was not refrigerated! Then I got a chance to read the label when I got home. Long list of chemicals. Tasted good actually. No I will not buy it again.

Those were pan fried squash covered by scallion ginger sauce.

dcarch

I was wondering where they ridge in the back the gnocchi came from, almost like a seem. I only noticed after I posted the question. That and the green on the far right squash.

Really pretty meals.

Edited May 31, 2013 by basquecook (log)

[Franci]

Mm84321, that bar!

Basquecook, what a nice meal you were able to put together in so little time. Love the burrata dish. I'm a bit of a snob with that cheese because it's from where I'm from and even elsewhere in Italy doesn't taste as good as in Puglia to me. But now, of course, I'll rush and buy a burrata tomorrow...

Dcarch, you, unimaginative? No possible. Beautiful, as usual.

Your fault, we had white asparagus risotto. My husband complained I used too much butter and was too creamy. I wished I had a better rice...

Edited May 31, 2013 by Franci (log)

[mm84321]

Tarte aux golden oscietre

[judiu]

mm, that's breathtaking!

[huiray]

Mm84321, that bar!

Basquecook, what a nice meal you were able to put together in so little time. Love the burrata dish. I'm a bit of a snob with that cheese because it's from where I'm from and even elsewhere in Italy doesn't taste as good as in Puglia to me. But now, of course, I'll rush and buy a burrata tomorrow...

Dcarch, you, unimaginative? No possible. Beautiful, as usual.

Your fault, we had white asparagus risotto. My husband complained I used too much butter and was too creamy. I wished I had a better rice...

image.jpg

Franci, just curious - does your husband like rice congee? ("Chook"/"jook")

[Franci]

Lobster, asparagus and caviar

mm, sorry, meant to ask you yesterday night but not easy to write long messages on the Ipad. How do you take your claws out so neatly, any tips you want to share?

Tarte aux golden oscietre

What's at the base of the caviar?

Franci, just curious - does your husband like rice congee? ("Chook"/"jook")

Yes, he likes it but, unless he is on holiday, he skips his breakfast and here are difficult to get proper fixings for it so we rarely cook it.

[mm84321]

Franci, I first remove the small pincer by cracking it away from the claw and twisting it off, then I make two cuts at the base of either side of the claw with my knife, and twist my knife on the second cut to pop off the bottom part of shell. At that point, the claw should come out by simply pulling gently on the now exposed meat, or just by shaking it out. It is important to remove them while they are still warm, as opposed to the tail, which I always refresh in ice water after cooking. Hope that helps.

The tart itself is made from white bread, and the base of the caviar is whipped cream seasoned with dill, the green of a scallion (or cebette) and lime.

[liuzhou]

Tonight I was, not at all reluctantly, dragged out by a dear friend to sample a new restaurant in town. To state what will become immediately obvious it is a seafood restaurant specialising in grub from the nearby city of Beihai which lies on the southern coast of China near the border with Vietnam.

There was huge written menu, but we ignored that and headed for the tanks full of fish, crustaceans and other sea inhabitants.

Among the prizes we slowly worked out way through were:

Sea snails. These came in a spicy garlicky sauce and were really difficult to extract from the shells. I guess about 50% yielded next to no meat. Blowing, sucking, picking with toothpicks all failed. But, the rest were lovely. In fact, even the ones which weren't at home were lovely, as we just sucked out the juices.

Grilled scallops and mussels. Sadly the locals only know one way to prepare these. They smother them in minced garlic, rice vermicelli and chilli. That's OK. But they all end up tasting the same. The menu also featured oysters prepared the same way, but we gave them a miss. There has been a bit of "fake oyster" crisis here recently. The oysters weren't actually fake, but some places were using frozen oyster meat served in recycled shells.

Anyway, despite the unoriginality of the cooking method, these were lovely. Plump mussels. The local scallops are tiny, but sweet.

These prawns were the second largest of the ten or twelve on offer. The plate had about 10 of them. They were very simply grilled.

Here's me holding one.

We did order a grilled red snapper each, but the waitress forgot to write it down so that never materialised. We weren't upset as we were already quite full.

Other goodies on the tankside menu, but which we passed on this time included:

Crawfish in a Sichuan hot and spicy sauce.

The aforementioned oysters

Seafood dan jiao. These are basically potstickers, but the 'skin' is a very thin omelette. So much for those going on about one egg omelettes on another thread. These are quarter egg omelettes and the line chef turns thousands of them out every day. The filling was minced prawn and some unidentified vegetable.

We also ate some vegetation and a fried rice.

A very pleasant meal with an exquisitely lovely companion.

The total cost was 99元 ($16)

Edited June 1, 2013 by liuzhou (log)

[huiray]

There are also these, traditionally made/eaten by some at Chinese New Year if one felt like making the effort...

http://userealbutter.com/2012/01/22/chinese-egg-dumplings-dan-jiao-recipe/

http://gbtimes.com/food/recipes/chinese-new-year/egg-dumplings-wealth-and-health

[huiray]

A visit to the Traders Point Green Market yesterday evening...and the resulting dinner. (The Swiss chard will be for another meal) The morels came from the TP stall. The other veggies came from a husband-wife team new to me, operating out of central Indiana - he had some of the best-looking vegetables I've ever seen.

Chioggia beets and Rainbow Swiss chard.

Baby zucchini (I asked him not to remove the flowers for next time :-) ) and morels (from the TP stall, they were "from the Midwest", hmm...)

Chioggia beets, simply simmered in salted water, de-skinned, sliced; plus some of the lovely greens, sautéed in EVOO w/ some sea salt & dusted w/ ground pepper.

The baby zucchini, sliced in half, sautéed w/ the morels in butter + EVOO.

Nothing else was needed, I simply let the ingredients speak for themselves.

Edited June 1, 2013 by huiray (log)