Dinner! 2014 (Part 1)

[Steve Irby]

Made a Thai meal at friends' house. Curry pastes pounded at home first!

Som tum two ways - one with salted crab (you can eat them like potato chips), one without, and jungle curry of chicken.

thai_prep.jpg

som_tum.jpg

sum_tum_crab.jpg

jungle_curry.jpg

Great prep photo. Mise en place in the plural or at my house Out of Chaos Comes Order.

[robirdstx]

Chicken Orzo Soup with Bok Choy Greens

Edited January 29, 2014 by robirdstx (log)

[basquecook]

Deep fried grouper.. rubbed with cumin, then covered in starch. Served with red onions soaked in lime juice and tossed with avocado.

I like the illusion of this.

Edited January 29, 2014 by basquecook (log)

[Dejah]

Dejah – Carrot fries? Do tell!

Bruce: We are avoiding potato, rice and bread at the moment, so as a substitute, we have lots of vegetables. Instead of boiled, steamed carrots, etc, I cut them into "fries", blanch them for about 5 minutes in the microwave. The fries are drained and dried off, sprinkled with vegetable oil, salt, then roasted in a single layer at 450F. I turn them once and they are really very good...good enough like fries that I dip them in spicy ketsup! We are on the 17-Day diet, and carrots is one of the cleansing vegetables that we can eat.

[Dejah]

basquecook: that amount of heat would blow the top of my head off! But I'll bet it was great. Liked the grouper. Would this work with any whole fish? We love cumin, so I might try this in the Big Easy if I can find "fish baskets" for the BBQ, AND if the weather smartens up!

[basquecook]

For me, grouper is a little too meaty to deep fry.. I mean, it tasted good but, I like baking/braising the fish with wine and and some potatoes or mussels and or clams.. It requires a sauce and a good 40 or 45 minutes. The onion and avocado salad with the lime was a good accompaniment. A snapper would be better. I am sure any fish would work. Some better than others but, most white fish would be good. Red mullet would be really nice. Maybe marinate the fish too..

I was in a hurry tonight to get dinner on the table as Miss K had homework and we had to prep lobster rolls for 50 for a catered lunch tomorrow.

Edited January 29, 2014 by basquecook (log)

[Steve Irby]

We're working through a box of Louisiana oysters. Starting out tonight with raw oysters southern style.

[FrogPrincesse]

Great looking food on the thread, as usual. Steve Irby's fried oyster salad and oyster platter are especially appealing; also the beautiful seafood on the previous page (Baselerd's oysters, robirdstx's crab cakes, mm84321's langoustines...). That would make a magnificent seafood feast.

Here are a few recent dinners.

Goat cheese ravioli with orange and fennel, based on recipe in Babbo. Still practicing on my ravioli technique. I think I am starting to get the hang of it now, but it takes me too long.

Charcuterie platter for an epic raclette party with good friends.

Happy freezer discoveries - Neapolitan meatballs (Molto Italiano) with spinach bucatini.

Grilled Muscovy duck breast; carrots with cumin, thyme, butter, and Noilly Prat. This was a very large duck breast, perfect for grilling. I cured the other one.

April Bloomfield's cabbage and bacon. I used home-cured fresh (unsmoked) bacon.

Edited January 30, 2014 by FrogPrincesse (log)

[huiray]

• Spaghetti [Garofalo] w/ Crème Fraîche, Parsley, Lemon & Parmesan Cheese. Loosely following the Bluebeard recipe (see here; I used normal spaghetti. I dislike whole wheat pasta.) Plated w/ parsley florets & more Parmesan cheese. YUM.

• Trimmed asparagus & large standard white mushrooms (quartered) sautéed in a screamingly hot pan w/ olive oil & Himalayan salt for a minute or two, covered.

Edited for spelling.

Edited January 30, 2014 by huiray (log)

[mm84321]

Monkfish paella

[basquecook]

Dinner with Missie K.

Green bean gratin.

Boiled lobster and potato.

Edited January 30, 2014 by basquecook (log)

[robirdstx]

So many great looking meals! Very inspirational!

Spicy Pork Tenderloin Stir Fry

Edited January 30, 2014 by robirdstx (log)

[Ann_T]

Baked a couple of loaves of bread and extra dough for pizza.

[Franci]

We had a little bit of pasta noisette butter and sage, some collards and I had offals of one duck to cook, very tasty. My girl approved

[Baselerd]

Ann_T that pizza crust looks amazing!

I recently put together this plate - a fancy take on the classic chicken and mushrooms. It included some sous vide chicken breast, chicken liver mousse, pickled Shimeji mushrooms, braised oyster mushrooms, and a sous vide egg yolk (145 F), topped with some sorrel from my garden. It was one of the better renditions of chicken breasts I've made. I brined the chicken breasts (skin on) in 4 cups water, .5 cups sugar, and .5 cups of salt for about 3 hours, then cooked sous vide with butter, thyme, garlic, bacon, and peppercorns for 1 hour at 145 F. Finished it off by crisping the skin in a saute pan with olive oil.

The liver mousse was great as well - I cooked it straight from the Eleven Madison Park cookbook. The great thing about that recipe is that it makes a ton, so I have many nights worth of pate frozen (ready for some wine and crackers).

[liuzhou]

Ann_T. You owe me a new keyboard. I've dribbled all over this one! That is one beautiful pizza.

Baselerd That is beautiful, too. In a different way.

[rotuts]

stunning meals, a usual

they seem even more stunning over the last few days ...

[scubadoo97]

Just Wow! Beautiful meals every one

Last night I made braised lamb shanks. Always satisfying and on a cold wet day it hit the spot. Really any day it would hit the spot for me

[patrickamory]

basquecook: mind sharing your source for the frozen chiles and your green pork chili recipe, if there is more to it than what you described?

[basquecook]

The recipe was pretty on point.. Turkey stock, chicken stock, pork stock, or water can all be used. The Hatch New Mexico Chiles are highlighted in this dish.. The peppers themselves bring such a wonderful flavor.. The only thing I didn't include was that I browned the pork cubes in Pork Fat. I have jars of rendered fat in my house.. I have beef, bacon and pork. I used rendered pork fat.

There are various websites on the internet that sell these peppers.. The place I get them from sell them in increments of 25 or 50 lb cases.

[Kim Shook]

Been absent a long time – I’ve been reading along, getting hungry and inspired – but, I’ve been absent too long to comment on everything I’ve loved! As many of you know, I was sick with a kidney stone (including a hospital stay) and a back injury (fractured vertebra) from August 14th. I was much improved by Christmas time, but really trashed my right hand with all the prep. The last cortisone shot did nothing, so I ended up having surgery on January 9th. Now I’m back to not really being able to cook, clean house, type, etc. until at least the middle of February. Very frustrating, but I’m trying not to whine too much!

We’ve had lots of take out and restaurant food, but I’ve done a little cooking. No point in posting all of the Christmas food – no different from last year and those meals are over a month old, anyway. I am SO looking forward to being able to cook. Some recent meals –

Chicken stir fry and fried rice:

Breakfast for dinner with salad:

Scrambled eggs with ham & cheese, hashbrowns and sweet potatoes:

Chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes, green beans and biscuits:

With gravy:

[rotuts]

Kim Shook

very pleased you are back !

look forward to your posts

and Good Health Your Way !

[mm84321]

Sole with truffles, sauce vin jaune

[Plantes Vertes]

Nice to see you still there and that you've still got it, mm84321

[mgaretz]

Kim, good to see you back. I've been absent and lurking too!

Last night was a real wackadoodle dinner. My DW wanted char siu in crescent rolls. Ok then....

Didn't have any char siu but I just bought some ham steaks from Costco. I cut about half a pound into little cubes and put them in a Baggie with about 1/3 package of char siu powder and shook them up. Baked them at 400f for 15 minutes then about 2 minutes under the broiler. Later I wrapped them in the crescent rolls and baked at 375 for 12 minutes. They were actually quite tasty.

With them I made roasted Brussels sprouts done in olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

For dessert I made a custom apple "pie" for the DW - basically an apple pie with no crust and no cinnamon or spices. Just Granny Smiths, sugar and flour.

I had lots of red wine with everything......

Edited January 31, 2014 by mgaretz (log)